Mom, meanwhile, had already started to write her memoirs. It is a matter of public record that Mom and Dad started their books at roughly the same time, but out of respect for the office of the president I am not sure it is appropriate to note who finished their book a full four years before the other!
During this first summer back in Maine following the 1992 election, my brothers George W. and Jeb separately spoke with my parents about their impending decisions to run for governor in their respective states, Texas and Florida. “I was excited and proud that both wanted to get into the arena, but I was disinclined to try to plan what they should do,” Dad said. “Both had grand visions of why they wanted to run and on how to get elected.”
Mom had her opinion, too: “I confess to thinking there was no way either one could win. Like their father, they didn’t ask. They thought it out and ran.”
In September, a breakthrough in the Mideast peace process brought Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat to the White House to sign a peace accord. President Clinton invited Mom and Dad to come for the ceremony and stay the night. Mom wasn’t ready to go back to the White House just yet, but Dad went and witnessed the historic Rabin-Arafat handshake on the South Lawn.
Another eventful occasion from the fall took place in another seat of power, when Mom and Dad went to Buckingham Palace. There Dad was named a “Knight Grand Cross of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath” by Queen Elizabeth on November 30 in recognition of his leadership during Desert Storm. The only other U.S. president to receive this distinguished honor was President Reagan.
The Order of Bath actually dates back to medieval times. According to the Royal Web site, the name of the honor arose from the ritual bathing, fasting, and prayers that the candidates went through before being knighted.
Fortunately, Dad did not take to wearing suits of armor. After he was knighted, though, he did ask Mom, “Tell me, darling, what does it feel like to be married to a real, live knight?” She rolled her eyes and responded, “Make the coffee, Sir George.”
Of course, Mom and Dad have had a long-standing joke between them about my mother’s cooking. Even their oldest son, the president of the United States, has publicly referred to Mom as “one of the great short-order cooks of all time.” Mom tells a story about herself that helps to explain why: One day, she put a dozen eggs in a big pan, turned on the stove, then went upstairs to make the bed.
“I got involved in my desk work,” she told me, “and two hours later the Secret Service called and asked me if I was cooking something. I raced downstairs to find the twelve eggs had exploded. The pot was ruined and the kitchen—including the ceiling—was covered with thousands of eggshells and eggs. Your dad walked in to find me cleaning up. He got on the island and vacuumed the ceiling while I swept and washed. The amazing part was that it was dry and did come up easily. This time, we went to Eatzi’s and brought home a delicious lunch.”
There’s a method to Mom’s madness: “If you built it up as a truism that you’re not a good cook, then you don’t have to cook.” Soon thereafter, Ariel de Guzman, who had been a steward at the vice president’s residence and a personal attendant at the White House, came into my parents’ lives. He cooked for a month for them during the summer of 1993, then returned full-time in the fall. He’s been with them ever since, and recently published a cookbook based on my parents’ favorite recipes.
Dad loves to play golf—or “commit” golf, as he says these days—but playing in front of large crowds is “tension city” for him.
“As president, I spoke before a million people in Wenceslas Square in Prague with no problems whatsoever,” he said. “But put a golf club in my hand and line a few hundred people up, and I can feel every muscle in my body tighten.”
Dad was especially nervous the first time he played at the “birthplace of golf,” the St. Andrews links in Scotland, in September 1994. Ken Raynor, Dad’s longtime friend and the head pro at the local Cape Arundel course in Kennebunkport, joined my father for what turned out to be a ceremonial round of golf—at which the new captain of the club of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club “drives” himself into office.
Ken explained that the outgoing captain hits his tee shot right before the ten o’clock bell sounds at the local church, and then right after the bell, the incoming captain plays away. There are caddies waiting and watching out on the fairways, and the first one to pick up the new captain’s ball gets a gold coin.
About four thousand people were waiting for a ceremony to take place on the Old Course. Dad, a brand new member of the Royal and Ancient, was a little nervous, so he took a few practice swings before teeing off. An official came right over and said, “Excuse me, sir, here in Scotland, we don’t take practice swings on the teeing ground.”
That didn’t help Dad’s nerves.
Nevertheless, Ken told me, “the president got up there and literally hit the best tee shot I’ve ever seen him hit. The crowd was hushed it was so good. He probably hit it 250 yards right down the middle, and he proceeded to shoot a 39 on the first nine holes.”
In 1995, Dad also played in the Bob Hope Tournament with President Clinton, President Ford, Bob Hope, and pro golfer Scott Hoch. When Dad plays golf, he likes to play fast—he doesn’t throw too many grass clippings into the wind, test the direction, or “plumb bob” any putts. That round at the 1995 Hope Tournament, however, lasted six hours, which had to be excruciating for all concerned.
Incidentally, Dad’s lack of patience also extends to the practice tee. Pro golfer Fred Couples once offered to cure Dad’s slice if he gave Fred ten minutes for a quick lesson.
“Ten minutes?” Dad asked. “Who’s got ten minutes?”
Golf is the only sport that challenges fishing for affection in Dad’s heart, and it might have something to do with the fact that Dad comes from good “golf genes.”
For one thing, Dad’s maternal grandfather, George Herbert Walker, was president of the U.S. Golf Association (USGA) and also donated the Walker Cup—a prestigious prize awarded to the winner of a biannual competition pitting the best amateur golfers in the United States against the best of the British Isles (Great Britain and Ireland).
Dad’s father, my grandfather Prescott, was a tremendous golfer in his own right: he often “played off of scratch”; he served as president of the USGA during the 1930s; he played frequently with President Eisenhower during the 1950s; and he “shot his age” at 69, a tremendous feat.
Pro golfer and golf historian Ben Crenshaw told me, “I’ve read so much about President Bush 41’s father and grandfather. They were so well liked, and they helped lead the game. The inception of the Walker Cup matches, gosh, that was 1923. Later on, Senator Prescott Bush was president of the United States Golf Association when Bobby Jones had his grand slam year in 1930, and your grandfather was referee in his match.”
In addition to Dad’s own exploits on the golf course, during his post-presidency Mom and Dad have also been fervent supporters of the major international competitions, including the Walker Cup, the Ryder Cup, and the President’s Cup (of which he has been an honorary cochairman).
“He has traveled to South Africa and Australia, and he’s attended these major competitions on U.S. soil,” said CBS sportscaster Jim Nantz. “He’s spoken to the U.S. team on the eve of the final day of matches. For a solid ten years, he’s been right in the middle of the competition at the highest levels of the sport, and the sport’s never been graced with a presidential presence to the degree that George Herbert Walker Bush brought to the game.”
In 1994, my brothers George W. and Jeb officially announced they would run for governor in Texas and Florida, respectively. It was very exciting, but also nerve-racking. At the outset, it seemed that both faced uphill challenges. First, both would have to run hard to win their party’s nomination. Then, if they could hurdle that obstacle, each would go on to face tough, popular incumbents—Governor Ann Richards for George, and Governor Lawton Chile
s for Jeb. They also had history working against them: only one other pair of brothers had been simultaneously elected as state governors. (It was in 1967, when Winthrop Rockefeller became governor of Arkansas and his brother Nelson, who later became Ford’s vice president, was elected governor of New York.)
Given what our family endured in 1992, it might surprise some that anyone with the last name Bush might want to subject themselves to the rigors of political campaigning so soon—but not Dad.
“I knew they were interested, and they all pitched in and helped me through the years,” he said, “so it wasn’t as if they didn’t know the process. I was very proud, of course, that they decided to get into the political arena. Perhaps the only good thing to come of the ’92 election is George and Jeb probably couldn’t have done it if I’d won the second term—so it was great to see them both trying.”
After Jeb won a bruising primary battle to face Governor Chiles and George captured the GOP nomination in Texas, the conventional wisdom among the political commentators was that George would lose to the widely popular Ann Richards while Jeb had a chance of beating Lawton Chiles. Clearly, it was not as clean-cut as some people said.
George ran a very disciplined and tightly focused campaign centering on four key issues—civil justice reform, juvenile justice, education, and welfare reform—and ignored the sharp, and often personal, jabs coming from the witty Governor Richards.
Jeb also ran a positive campaign on the issues—namely, law enforcement, education, and welfare reform—and was locked in a tight race coming down the stretch. Then an automated phone call claiming to be from the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP)—but really originating from the Chiles campaign—went out to 750,000 senior citizens in Florida claiming, falsely, that if elected, Jeb would cut their Social Security payments.
On election day, George won by a comfortable margin with 53.5 percent, but Jeb lost by 64,000 votes—the closest gubernatorial election in Florida history.
“I felt very badly when Jeb lost and very happy when George won—so it was a night of mixed emotions to say the least,” Dad recalled. “You don’t like to see one of your kids hurt.”
“I remember talking to Dad that night,” Marvin said, “and the first thing out of his mouth was, ‘I feel terrible for Jeb.’ And the beautiful part about our family is that I know that George appreciates that about his father.”
My brother George also remembers talking to Dad: “He said to me, ‘Great victory,’ but he took Jeb’s loss very hard. The victory was great—he loved it. But typical of Dad, he was more worried about the agony of the defeat in this case. During that race, I didn’t feel any competitiveness with Jeb at all. Nor after I won did I feel any need to second-guess how he ran his race. He had a great race and competitive race and just had different circumstances.”
Through the years, Dad has developed a reputation as the idea man—coming up with new ways of doing things, or a neat idea for getting people together.
Jean Becker, Dad’s post-White House chief of staff, told me, “Your dad thinks that all things are possible. Sometimes that drives me crazy—because unfortunately, not all things are possible. But it’s a wonderful quality to have. He’ll have an idea and say, ‘Let’s invite a hundred people over tonight,’ and because we’re devoted to him, we’ll spend hours trying to make the most ridiculous things work.”
When you come up with so many ideas, however, not all of them ring true. For example, Dad has tried to convince the grandchildren that he invented “the wave” that is frequently seen at sporting events. One time, he went to a football game, his story goes, and he got ants in his pants and suddenly stood up with his hands in the air. Several other people did the same, and the rest is history—unproven history, but history nonetheless.
“He has little-boy characteristics,” said Jim Nantz. “He gets very enthused about things you’d get enthused about when you were twelve years old. He loves to pull surprises, he loves to tease people. He gets excited about things that are just such simple little joys of life that, unfortunately, most people outgrow.”
But Dad saves his most creative ideas for the unending string of family competitions, whether it involves all of us and naming something, or which grandchild will be the first asleep. He is competitive by nature and loves games, tournaments, and contests, no matter what the age of the participants.
For example, the “First Asleep” contests. When the grandkids were younger, Dad would pull one or two aside after dinner and say, “Do you want to enter the first-to-sleep contest? It works like this. You go to your bed, and I’ll go to mine. If you fall asleep first, you call me, and if I fall asleep first, I’ll call you.” And off the grandchild would go. It didn’t take long for them to figure that one out.
Dad’s ideas and competitive streak extend to the tennis court. Four or five years ago, during a stay at the Gasparilla Inn in Boca Grande, Florida, with all of the family gathered around, Dad issued a challenge that whichever grandchild could beat him first in tennis would win one hundred dollars, or what Dad calls “folding green.”
“So George P. challenged him first and Gampy miraculously beat him,” my niece Lauren, Neil’s daughter, recalled. “Nobody could beat him, and eventually, I got brave enough to try. We were in Maine by then, and knowing Gampy likes playing in front of a crowd, I challenged him when there weren’t a lot of people around—I thought I was being sly. The first few games were pretty close, and then he put a hat on with the fish sticking through it to throw me off. At that point, it’s not like you really want to beat him even—you just have fun playing with him. So, yeah, he beat me, which was depressing.”
We cannot verify this last anecdote for historical accuracy, but Scott Pierce, Mom’s younger brother, said one of the most important things Dad taught him was always choose the best partner. “In tennis and in golf, President Bush would always arrange the teams, and his guy was always better than mine,” Uncle Scott said. “I complained about this one time, and he said, ‘Okay, you can have Marvin tomorrow.’”
This pleased Uncle Scott, as Marvin was playing very well at the time and had carried Dad to victory that very day. The next day, my uncle showed up anticipating victory when Dad appeared with a guy who was carrying several rackets.
Dad said, “Scott, have you ever met Ivan Lendl?”
Chapter 23
THE SPRING COLT
“This is history—the likes of which I have never seen, and nobody else has. As you know, George Bush landed safely. Then, in a few hours, he was off for Spain with his grandson, and then to Rome to see the Pope, and then he was coming back and going to Latin America, and he was going to play golf at Augusta after the tournament was over. The life goes on. An amazing little vignette in this quite remarkable man, whatever your politics are.”
—Hugh Sidey after Dad’s first parachute jump in 1997
On January 6, 1995, Mom and Dad reached a proud family milestone when they privately celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary in Sea Island, Georgia—returning for only the second time to the spot where they honeymooned half a century prior. There they played golf and dined with friends Louise and Bill Jones.
When my parents returned from that weekend getaway, they attended a grander anniversary celebration at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville that included our family—with all thirteen grandchildren (the fourteenth, my daughter Georgia Grace or “Gigi,” named for her grandfather, would arrive a year later)—and extended political family, as well as my parents’ friends from the entertainment industry. The program that night featured a heavy emphasis on country music stars like Vince Gill, the Oak Ridge Boys, Lee Greenwood, and Loretta Lynn. Roger and Natalie Whittaker also flew in from England, and some of Dad’s political colleagues such as Lamar Alexander, Sonny Montgomery, and Marilyn Quayle offered very kind remarks about the strength of my parents’ marriage.
“One might say that the catalyst in their marriage is humor,” said my Uncle Johnny Bush. “They can
tease and scold and banter and laugh. Even when crushed by the loss of a child, they could still find ways to laugh. Through life of constant change and uncertainty, of raising five children, frequently moving from one location to the next, of supporting her husband through over thirty years of the vicissitudes of political life, Barbara has ever and always been able to make a home for him, and in that home there is always laughter.”
Adding to the laughter in their home early in 1995 was the fact that Outlaw Biker magazine named Mom their “Biker Babe of the Century” and described her as a “classy broad.” That gave Mom, and Dad, plenty to talk about as they continued to crisscross the country giving speeches, helping a number of charitable causes, and pursuing other interests. In 1994 alone, in fact, Dad gave 111 speeches, campaigned for forty-eight candidates, traveled to twenty-two foreign countries, and visited more than half of the U.S. states.
“It’s amazing,” my brother Neil observed. “I love the fact that they’ve always been so active. They’re both so youthful in their minds—proof that age is just a number. Dad worries about losing his memory, but he’s got a better memory than I have now—and I think it’s because they just keep moving forward, always looking ahead.”
Meanwhile, the festivities from Mom and Dad’s fiftieth anniversary were just settling down when it was time for the family to reconvene again—this time in Austin to see my brother George sworn in as the governor of Texas. I remember we all gathered in George’s very ornate, new office in the State Capitol in Austin.
Mom remembers, “It was one of life’s happiest moments. I was truly touched to see George’s friends from Midland, Houston, Yale, and some from Andover. And there were Laura’s friends from Austin, SMU, Houston, and Midland. That day, I took the two of them off my worry list. Faith, family, and friends are the things that allow one to accept challenges. George and Laura have all three.”
My Father, My President Page 48