Chapter 22

ULTIMATE FREEDOM

“George has a flair for life that is infectious. I wish I got up every morning feeling the way George Bush does—you don’t waste ten minutes because it’s a wonderful life, and you’ve got to take advantage of every second of it.”

—Dean Burch

I had moved to Washington in 1990 to be closer to Mom and Dad, and I was naturally very sad when they left Washington. When Dad was president, people would often ask me if I ever saw my parents; and they were always surprised to learn that I saw them all the time. “But aren’t they busy running the country?” they would ask. That was true, but both of my parents have always made time for family.

They still do; but on January 20, 1993, the epicenter of my parents’ life together shifted to Texas and Maine. By moving back to Houston, in fact, they surprised their political opponents and more than a few media commentators. This, despite the fact that they had lived in Houston since 1959—and in Texas since 1948. They had voted in every election in Houston; raised their kids there; Dad launched an offshore drilling business venture in Texas; and both made many lifelong friends there.

Simply put, Texas is their home. During his presidency, Dad also brought the 1990 G–7 economic summit and the 1992 GOP convention to Houston.

“We knew all along we would be moving back to Houston,” Dad said. “For one thing, I darn sure didn’t want to hang around Washington writing op-ed pieces with other ex-presidents on how to save the world. There’s too much to do here at home.”

Still, some people weren’t convinced where “home” would be.

In 1980, Mom and Dad purchased a vacant lot in West Houston next to their longtime friends Bobbie and Jack Fitch, and had planned to build a new home there when fate interceded—Dad was elected vice president. Though the lot would remain their intended home for twelve years, they took up residence at the Houstonian hotel a few blocks away, where they stayed whenever they were in town.

Throughout his vice presidency and presidency, however, Dad’s political opponents would put up signs in front of the vacant lot ridiculing the thought that “this elitist could live in so modest a space” and that “Bush will never return here.” They thought Dad and Mom would go back to their childhood roots in the East, or eventually buy a much bigger lot and build a palatial home.

Whatever their motivation, such speculation proved wrong.

As soon as the 1992 election results were clear, Mom in particular pivoted immediately into preparing for private life, including the long-anticipated construction of their new house. While the new house was being built, they rented a house on the same street. (Today, my brother Neil lives on the same street, right across from Mom and Dad.) When they arrived at their temporary home on January 20, and their final motorcade pulled into the driveway, all of the neighbors lined up to greet the new arrivals.

There they exchanged greetings and took bags inside to unpack. After a while, though, Dad got fidgety and said to Jack Fitch, “Let’s go to the office and see how they are coming along with the renovation.” So Dad and Jack got back in the limousine with all the police escorts, and off they went to the new office—just over two miles away.

“We pulled up to the entrance where the reporters and TV people were,” Jack recalled. “After various interviews, we went up to the office for about an hour. When it was time to go, we went down in the elevator—and no one was in the lobby, no police escort in sight. We went to the parking garage, where only one car was left, an old Lincoln Town Car with two Secret Service men waiting. Then we joined the bumper-to-bumper business traffic going home for the evening.”

Dad and Jack slowly made their way home like all the other commuters stuck in traffic, nobody bothering to look at their car. In a few hours, the president of the United States became “the guy next door.”

On the way home that night, Dad told Jack, “Things are going to be different. I am going to set up the office on a 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. basis so the staff and volunteers won’t feel like they have to come in early and stay late.”

When Mom heard about that, she was skeptical. “Famous last words,” she said.

She was right. This decree lasted exactly one week. From then on, Dad has always left the house between 6:30 and 7:00 a.m. and comes home between 6:30 and 7:00 at night—and that’s when he’s not on the road.

“He has the energy of ten bulls,” Jack said.

On his second day as a private citizen, Dad wrote to Patty Presock, his longtime assistant, who remained back in Washington:

Dear Patty,

My office, where I am now sitting, looks out over a sea of green trees. Beyond, off to my left, is the skyline of Houston—then further right the skyline of the Galleria area.

Then, way beyond that, way beyond, off to the north and east is Washington, D.C.

I am separated out now. Away from the decisions, the attention, the majesty and wonder of the White House.

No one says, “Sign here” or “Check options 1, 2 or 3.” No one says, “The motorcade is ready,” or “We have 3 quick photo-ops then the Roosevelt Room signing!”

I have no doctors nearby—and woe, no nurses.

It’s strange, it’s very different. I feel tired like I did after Robin died—and, yet, I’ve done nothing.

Friends have rallied ’round—and I like that; but I don’t want to go off and do things with people. I hope I’m not instantly aging.

Barbara is bustling—rental house . . . cozy and done. New house—contracts signed, building starts tomorrow—Book contract, a major one, signed up and her computer is already digesting Chapter 1. Buying a car (Taurus, maybe Sable)—busy—and she’s leaning forward.

I’m different. I’ll get there, but right now I don’t seem to care. It’s not lack of limelight; it’s not even a sense of failure—it’s the people in my life—people that have given, given, given.

I miss you, Patty. I loved your letter (so did BPB). But I really miss you.

Love,

GB

In March 1993, Dad returned to Washington to receive an award at a downtown hotel. There he noted how his life was different: “The last time I was in this ballroom, I had speechwriters. I had a TelePrompTer. Now I have writing paper that says ‘Sam’—that’s my grandson, Sam, out here where we’re staying—with a picture of a basketball, a baseball, a bat, a soccer ball, and a football. Things have gone to hell, I tell you, since I left,” he said to laughter.

During this first trip back, Dad asked me to host a party at my house for some of his former staff members. Dad did all the inviting, and I asked some of the butlers at the White House who were off duty if they wanted to come and give us a hand. I knew Dad would love to see them.

The biggest hurdle Dad faced was the feeling that he had disappointed everyone around him. I can’t remember my father ever being so low. Still, he wanted to see everyone, see how they were doing, tell everyone he was there to help if needed. He wanted to make sure everyone got settled into their new lives after their devoted service to him.

He told Chase Untermeyer and a group of friends at the party, “I was with a carpenter who was working on the house. He was explaining to me how he could build out the closets. Not long ago, I was being briefed on the Soviets and the Chinese. But you know what? I found it pretty interesting.”

After President Truman left office, he wrote a book called Mr. Citizen in which he suggested that former presidents be given the right to participate in congressional debates—with the right to speak, but no right to vote. While Dad deeply respects President Truman, he has had zero interest in injecting himself into some sort of formalized role in the legislature. As he saw it, he had his chance and did his best during the quarter century between 1967 and 1993—and there were plenty of strong leaders who were perfectly capable of fighting for the principles that unite Republicans.

“I don’t think there should be any formalized role, because the four or five living former presidents are just as different as any four or five Americans you might encounter on the street,” former president Jimmy Carter told me. “All of us have different backgrounds and responsibilities and interests. So I don’t think it’s possible to have any uniformity about the way former presidents should act after they leave office.”

Still, if Dad wasn’t going to do as President John Quincy Adams did, and run for the House of Representatives after leaving the White House, my father had to decide how his post-presidency would start to take shape.

On March 1, 1993, Dad wrote three or four close friends, including his friend Lud Ashley, and included a copy of a book titled Farewell to the Chief: Former Presidents in American Public Life, by historian Richard Norton Smith and Timothy Walch. The note went as follows:

I am trying to decide what to do with my life after a good period of thinking, catching up with family, and going to Maine for four months.

Before fall, I’ll do some speaking. I’ll be talking [about doing my] Memoirs. I’ll be doing no interviews, no press, very few public appearances. I have been at the Head Table and now I want not to do that so much.

I want to do something useful . . . I’d welcome some suggestions about the future. I want to help others in some way. I need to make some money, not a ton.

I don’t want to be frantic about influencing history’s judgment of what I tried to do . . .

In mid-April, Mom and Dad accepted an invitation from the emir of Kuwait to return to that liberated country for a series of events commemorating the allied victory in the Persian Gulf War. Accompanying my parents on this trip was a group of family and friends. I would love to have been part of that group, but Bobby and I were expecting our first baby the next month.

Neil remembers the journey this way:

The Kuwaiti government sent a specially refurbished plane to Houston to bring the delegation to Kuwait. After the plane took off from Houston, everything in the ascent was normal, we reached cruising altitude, and everyone settled in for a long journey. Not too far out of Houston, perhaps over Mississippi, we noticed a flurry of activity, men moving hastily down the aisles towards the cockpit. It turns out that the metal stripping that covers the wings of the big plane was beginning to peel off—one strip at a time. At one point, we could actually see through the wing all the way to the ground. This would have been frightening, except that the pilot announced that even if the entire stripping came off both wings, the plane is aerodynamically designed in such a way that it would still fly. To be extra cautious, however, it was decided that the plane would turn around and return to Houston. The delegation, minus a few weaker souls, departed the next day on yet another airplane that was sent by the emir.

Once we arrived in Kuwait, there was quite a reception at the airport followed by a motorcade to the government guest palace. It was striking that the music in the limo was blaring loud Arabic music with a hypnotic cadence. What was memorable was that every once in a while the words “George Bush” would pop up. It was explained that after the liberation many people in Kuwait named their newborn babies George Bush. The songs were made to express their appreciation for Dad’s critical role in liberating Kuwait.

It was a festive trip, marked by a state dinner, a visit to the Kuwaiti parliament, a tour of the war-damaged city, and a visit to a military base. Everywhere the traveling party went, they saw enthusiastic crowds.

During the trip, Dad recalled, “The most moving thing happened to me. The Kuwaitis presented me with a beautiful old door to a house. Around the side of it, they had engraved the names of all the U.S. military who had lost their lives in the war. There was also a plaque that read, ‘An old Kuwaiti proverb says, “When a man gives you the key to his home it means that you are the best and most valuable friend to him; and when a man gives you the door it means that you are one of his family.”’”

After they returned home, however, the intelligence services learned that terrorists had attempted to assassinate Dad during this visit. In fact, Kuwaiti authorities had detained seventeen suspects, some of whom reportedly confessed that the Iraqi intelligence service was their sponsor. The authorites also found a belt loaded with explosives, the kind a suicide bomber would use, and recovered a Toyota Landcruiser containing between eighty and ninety kilograms of plastic explosives connected to a detonator. Lud Ashley, who was on the trip, put it this way: “People were caught with all kinds of explosives that were destined to blow the living bejesus out of our entire troop.”

This highly disturbing discovery set in motion a chain of events involving the CIA, the FBI, and the Department of Justice that pieced together the evidence and linked the assassination attempt to Saddam Hussein’s government. When conclusive proof was in hand, the Clinton administration launched a cruise missile attack against the Iraqi intelligence headquarters in Baghdad on June 26 to retaliate. The following day, Madeleine Albright, then the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, addressed an emergency session of the Security Council and provided evidence to the international community.

As time went on, Dad traveled and gave more speeches, and some of his 1993 commitments took him to such varied places as Taiwan, England, Puerto Rico, Morocco, Hong Kong, and Sweden. One speaking engagement shortly after leaving the White House took him to the Princess Hotel in Acapulco, Mexico. Our family friend the Reverend Billy Graham was speaking at the same event, and a prominent Mexican businessman invited Mom and Dad, along with Billy and Ruth Graham, to have lunch and spend part of the day on his boat.

Rev. Graham had to leave early for an appointment, and since the boat was only a few hundred yards from shore, he borrowed a blue swimsuit from Dad and swam to shore, planning to walk back to a friend’s apartment where the Grahams were staying.

“When I got to the beach, I found out I was on Mexican Navy property and was promptly arrested,” Rev. Graham recalled. “While I was waiting for the officer in charge to decide what he was going to do about me, I sat down on a bench that had apparently just been painted—and when I stood up, the suit was green!”

The Grahams sent Dad’s swimsuit to the cleaners, but they couldn’t get the green stripes out, so the Grahams gave it away. A few days later, they saw a man walking in town wearing the green-striped suit. That incident became a running joke between my parents and the Grahams, who have laughed about it for years.

Heartbreak hit Dad and our friend Don Rhodes when Dad’s dog Ranger died shortly after my parents returned to Houston. Ranger was originally Marvin’s dog, but Dad loved him so much that he came to live with Mom and Dad—and Don was just as fond of the dog. Ranger was one of Millie’s puppies, the only male, and that spring they discovered he was riddled with cancer. He had to be put to sleep on April 6. “Ranger had no enemies,” Dad lamented to Mom at lunch that day, as they discussed how much pain he was in and whether he should be put down. Ranger’s quality of life “just wasn’t worth a darn,” Dad said.

Anyone who had seen Dad with Ranger knew how much that loss hurt him, yet it fell to an old friend, Ambassador Fred Zeder, to put a smile on Dad’s face when he wrote expressing his condolences that Ranger had gone “paws up.”

Eventually, Ranger’s ashes were buried on Walker’s Point along with all our family dogs.

In May of that year, my third child, Robert Daniel Koch, was born, weighing in at over ten pounds. He was Bobby’s first child, and he is named after his father and Bobby’s brother Danny. Needless to say, his dad was overjoyed, as was I.

Almost since birth, Robert has always loved ice cream. Years later, his cousins and he were eating so many Klondike Bars in Kennebunkport that my mother decreed the ice cream off-limits. Shortly afterward, Mom caught Robert violating this rule, hiding on one side of the house with chocolate all over his mouth and fingers. That’s when Mom actually bought a lock for the freezer door.

During Dad’s presidency, he would often listen to music to help him relax during his neck therapy with the military nurses assigned to the White House. As time went by, the British singer Roger Whittaker became a favorite of Dad and the nurses—so much so, in fact, that they decided to start a Roger Whittaker fan club right there in the White House. Their motto was “More Roger in Our Lives.”

Everyone naturally assumed Dad would appoint himself the president of this new club, but he balked. “I’m tired of being president,” he joked. So instead he became the recording secretary of the club and an Air Force nurse, Kim Siniscalchi, became the club president. One had to be “accepted” into the club, and together, Kim and Dad reviewed applications for membership. The club included Dr. Burt Lee (aka the Burtser), and nurses Mary Jackson, Ellen Tolton, Paula Trivette, Debbie Beatty, and Art Wallace.

During his last days in the White House, Dad decided to invite the entire fan club to Maine that summer. What the nurses didn’t know was that Dad had made T-shirts and called Roger Whittaker and his wife, Natalie—whom Dad had never met before and cold-called—to invite them up for the visit as well.

“We kept it a total secret,” Dad said. “I called Roger up and said, ‘You’ll never believe this, but we’ve got a bunch of nurses here who are absolutely nuts about you and would you be able to come to Maine as a surprise?’ The Whittakers accepted the invitation and arrived early on the day of the nurses’ visit. When the nurses got to the gate at Walker’s Point, however, one of the agents, seeing the Roger Whittaker T-shirts, said, ‘Oh, Mr. Whittaker is already here.’ So the surprise was blown, but we really had fun.”

As you might suspect, Dad developed a very special bond with the nurses. Ellen Tolten told me, “Still to this day, I get tears in my eyes. He would think we were just as important as any dignitary, any leader in the free world. He would introduce us, ‘Do you know my nurse Ellen?’ He treated us like we were royalty. That was absolutely wonderful, and it was something he did after the fact.”

In addition to the Roger Whittaker visit, Dad was also looking forward to spending more time in Kennebunkport in general. Throughout his presidency, he always looked forward to the day when he would be able to more fully enjoy the ocean air surrounded by family and friends. A storm that ravaged Walker’s Point a year before he left the presidency almost ruined this simple dream.

In late October and early November of 1991, a devastating two-day nor’easter—known as the “perfect storm”—had battered the Maine coast and slammed Walker’s Point. The storm flooded the Big House and caused a lot of damage to the property. The house was left standing, but barely. Mom and Dad thought about tearing it down and rebuilding it farther back from the waterline but then decided against it. They liked being near the ocean.

“We just restructured it,” Dad said. “The house was strong and there was no damage to the foundation or the rest of the house. We did have to beef up the steel beams under the living room. It was devastating. I don’t think there was a stick of furniture left. The walls were knocked down. The worst part was losing the pictures and memorabilia. You can replace furniture.”

The destruction on Walker’s Point was heartbreaking for Dad, but he and Mom rebuilt it almost exactly as it had been, and these days you can’t even tell what happened.

And now, Dad was finally having time to pursue his passion for fishing. “Throughout the years he was president, he’d come to Kennebunkport,” said Dad’s local fishing buddy Bill Busch, “but when he went fishing, it was a race. He had too much going on, too many people around.”

The summer of 1993, everything changed. Life for Dad was still moving at a frantic pace, but it was more manageable. His schedule was much more flexible, which meant he was really able to fish.

Bill Busch had been introduced to Dad by a talented boat mechanic in Kennebunkport, Paul B. Lariviere (aka Wazoo), who years before had heard Dad was not having much luck out on the water. Bill, who loves fishing so much that he has a tattoo on his arm that reads “Eat-Sleep-Fish,” soon became a regular on Dad’s fishing trips.

In his second-floor office in Maine, Dad has situated his desk and computer so he can check e-mail and type letters with a clear view of the bay—that way, he can keep an eye on the seagulls, swirls, blitzes, and other dead giveaways that fish are present. Occasionally, the little bay astride Walker’s Point will fill with millions of tiny bait fish seeking refuge from the open sea, and, depending on what part of the season it is, sea bass and bluefish will come within feet of the shore thrashing about as they feed.

The combination of fishing and boating, however, is even more pleasing to Dad, because it marries two of his passions.

“I think that’s his ultimate freedom,” Bill said. “Being out there, driving the boat, just going wherever he wants to go—and going fast. If we catch a lot of fish, great. If we don’t, we still have a great time. And if one of his kids or grandkids is along for the trip, he gets a whole new vigor. You can see the father and grandfather in him come out.”

Of course, inherent in almost every undertaking with Dad is the ribbing, the joking. Out on the water, for example, Dad will frequently tell you, “I’m just the captain. I can only take you where the fish are. If you don’t catch any, don’t blame the captain.”

Beyond the cool waters of Maine and the tropical waters of the Texas Gulf Coast, Dad’s fishing exploits have taken him all the way to Tierra del Fuego in Argentina for sea-run brown trout, off the North Carolina Coast for false albacore, to Panama for the rooster fish and the large jax, the River Test in southern England for brown trout, and to Canada and Iceland for Atlantic salmon.

Dad has also fished from the Tree River in Canada’s Northwest Territories, known for its large Arctic char. In fact, his visits to that remote corner of the world prompted an enterprising reporter named Arthur Milnes, who was working at the Deh Cho Drum in Fort Simpson (population 1,273) at the time, to fax Dad in 1997 requesting a “guest column” from Dad on the subject of fishing. Forget the politics, said Art, and much to his surprise, Dad accepted the offer to have his own byline. Here’s an excerpt from the article my father penned:

This year the weather was perfect. We fished in T-shirts, needing a sweater or jacket only in the early morning or late afternoon. The weather up there is variable and it can get wet and very cold even in August; but not this year.

There were a lot of char in those fast-running waters, a lot of big, strong fish. My 13-year-old grandson, Jeb, from Miami, Fla., got a 25- to 30-pound fish on his Magog Smelt fly—a brown, wet fly that was very productive over the course of our whole trip.

He fought the fish for 45 minutes, following our guide Andy’s instruction to perfection. The big red, finally tiring, came into the shallow waters just above some rapids, and then with one ultimate surge of energy he flipped over the edge of the pool into the white-water rapids, broke the 20-pound test tippet, and swam to freedom.

My grandson, not an experienced fly fisherman, had fought the fish to perfection. He did nothing wrong. All the fishing experts who were watching told him so, but those big fish are strong and tough and they never give up.

I had 43 fish on my fly rod, only to bring two into the shore. Don’t laugh. I was proud to have kept the fly in the water, kept on casting, having the thrill of having that many fish, even for a moment, on my No. 9 rod . . .

I am a very happy and a very lucky man now. Because of time spent fishing and the chance that fishing gives me to relax and think freely, now more than ever I see clearly just how blessed I really am. I served my country. I have a close family and a wonderful wife to whom I have been married for 52 and a half years, and yes, I went to the Tree River and caught char.

Tight lines to all you fishermen!

(Submitted by this most enthusiastic amateur to whom Canada has given such joy.)

News of Dad’s brief foray into journalism was wired across Canada and the United States, and earned Art Milnes a modicum of celebrity that he, in turn, credits with changing his career.

One final fishing anecdote. On three occasions, I have been very fortunate to accompany Dad as a guest of Gustavo and Patty Cisneros on a fishing trip to two very special, and very different, parts of Venezuela. In fact, it was Gustavo who taught me to fly-fish.

The first is Manaka, located near the junction of the Ventuari and Orinoco rivers in the heart of the Amazon jungle. There we fished for the powerful peacock bass—or, as it’s known in Spanish, the pavón. During our first trip to Manaka in 2001, I remember casting a line that became caught in a branch over the water, the lure dangling a few feet above the surface, blowing in the breeze. In an instant, an alligator with its jaws wide open surged straight up out of the water and snapped up my lure!

During that same trip, Dad caught close to thirty-five peacock bass in two and a half days of fishing, but he also caught the desire to come back and catch a real trophy fish. And he did catch a trophy fish. Gustavo remembers the moment: “The president holding on to the rod as it was bending all the way, his face in disbelief. He walked all over the boat as the captain tried to keep it in a steady position, fighting against the current of the river and, on top of that, the pouring rain. President Bush fought the fish for at least ten minutes and finally landed it. It was a 16-pounder, the biggest peacock bass he had ever caught!”

By ten-thirty we had caught so many fish that Dad told the guides that it was time to “tell the divers to take a break and stop putting the fish on our hooks!” That’s when Dad got the idea to break the camp record. Gustavo continues:

At the time, the record of the camp for the most fish caught in a day was 80. When we took a break for lunch we had already caught 86 fish. Suddenly the president said, “Hey guys, do you think we can get up to 100 fish?”

By five-thirty in the afternoon we had caught 97 fish and the deadline was six o’clock. Finally we reached the 100 fish milestone. I thought our day of fishing was over, but as we were getting ready to head back home, the president threw out his line one more time and, of course, got another peacock bass. “Now this team is called ‘the 101 Team’” he declared.

From there, we flew ninety miles off the northern coast of Venezuela to an island chain known as Los Roques to chase “The Ghost of the Flats”—or bonefish. During this trip, the president proceeded to catch forty-four fish in two and a half days. It was the largest number of bonefish ever caught by the forty-first president of the United States of America.

Fishing and public speaking aside, the summer of 1993 was a busy one for Dad. He and Mom had several visitors, including former South African president F. W. de Klerk, whom Dad respected enormously for his handling of the complex and emotionally charged transition to Nelson Mandela’s leadership. That summer, Dad also started working on a book with General Scowcroft about the end of the Cold War and the other serious foreign policy challenges of his administration. Helping the twosome was a small team of trusted advisers known as the book group, including Arnie Kantor, Condi Rice (who was then provost at Stanford), Ginny Mulberger, and Florence Gantt.

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 Chiles 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?”