Part II of a continuing series chronicling the life and times of President George Walker Bush.
Click here for Part I
Part II: School DazeAndover, Massachusetts in 1961 was a tough town, filled with dirty-mouthed liberals and louche bongo-playing beatniks whose coffeehouses stank of burning oregano and neglected armpits. Masturbation, flag-burning and leftist agitprop were said to be the town's most widespread activities. It was even rumored that some people engaged in these unsavory practices simultaneously. The Phillips Andover Academy was a lonely outpost of civilization amid the moral squalor.
Into this precarious enclave strode a teenaged George W. Bush, carrying little more than an autographed photo of his benefactor Ronald Reagan, a tattered Bible with all the passages about war, famine, pestilence and death heavily underlined, and an unblinking dedication to taking America-hating Fifth Columnists down a peg while still achieving academic excellence.
Phillips Andover was a demanding school, and George briefly floundered. "He fell in with the wrong crowd at first," remembers his former fencing master Dwight Stickins. "They were mostly children of known Democrats, and they used to hang around behind the gym smoking clove cigarettes and daydreaming about being Catholic, like President Kennedy."
It was Stickins himself whom George would later credit for turning him around. "He took me aside and explained that Kennedy was a Fenian, a Commie and a libertine. I didn't know what 'Fenian' or 'libertine' meant, and I still don't, but they sounded bad. He told me to pray that Kennedy would get what he deserved, and said that Dallas would be a great place for that to happen. I phoned my dad that night and told him what the master said. Dad told me not to worry about it. He'd make some calls."
Safely back on the straight and narrow, George devoted himself to his studies. He finished another couple of Shakespeares, as well as a Joyce, which resulted in a brief outbreak of hives.
He would often walk in The Sanctuary, a wooded 125-acre parcel on the northeastern edge of the campus, nibbling on the fallen rhododendron blossoms, and occasionally joining fellow conservative students at the pond, or in the tract's picturesque log cabin. "Never quite understood those log cabin fellows," he would later comment. "But they liked Bernie Goldwater, and that was good enough for me."
Once again shrugging off his lack of opposable thumbs, he played baseball for Phillips Andover, enthusiastically if not well. With the help of a specially designed glove, his fielding was respectable, but holding a bat was a challenge he never quite came to terms with. By his senior year, his lack of run production forced him to seek athletic alternatives. Coincidentally, the school was desperately seeking a new head cheerleader. George agreed to try out, and got the position.
Cheerleading was hard work. He had to master the megaphone, memorize difficult cheers like "Go, team!" and pay scrupulous attention to putting on his uniform so that the big "A" faced front. There were days when the sheer physical and mental strain would send him back to the dorm in tears. But he persevered, knowing the squad depended on him for direction. "It was my first leadshipper role. I couldn't let the team down."
Back in Texas, his father was finally making real money. Bored with his CIA work, he had taken a job with Dallas-based Dresser Industries, now a subsidiary of Halliburton. His ambitious scheme to meet America's energy needs with Brylcreem failed when he realized that the product was actually British. Nevertheless, Dresser management was impressed, and promoted him through a series of higher-paying and progressively more meaningless jobs. He parlayed his savings into part ownership of Zapata Petroleum, and the family fortunes swelled.
Young George returned to Texas to discover that his father was now a millionaire. "I got down on my knees and embraced Jesus at that moment, because I knew only a loving Savior could have made my dad rich."
Tensions grew, though, as George began forging checks in his father's name. It was a rare youthful indiscretion, and harmless enough, but the elder Bush put his foot down one day when he discovered that his son had bought Paraguay. "He took me aside and told me to stop spending his money. I didn't, so he decided to buy me a spot at Yale."
Returning to New Haven was a strange experience. He had only ever known the bad side of town, and was shocked to discover that the Yale campus was full of rich kids. Harder still to comprehend, his dorm resounded with the primitive sounds of scratchy 45s by beat groups like the Animals, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. The culture shock was so great that he began drinking heavily.
His father, meanwhile, had entered politics. In 1966, he won the Congressional seat for the 7th District of Texas on a platform of increased government secrecy and pesticide deregulation. His finest moment in Congress was authoring the Save the Rich bill, carefully structured to protect the net worth of the affluent by levying a breathing tax on Americans making under $1,000 a year. The legislation failed to pass in a House still dominated by Communist-sympathizing Democrats, but its goals would be a touchstone for young George in the decades to come.
Delta Kappa Epsilon, a Greek society devoted to religious contemplation, charitable acts and the torture of young men, found George uniquely qualified to join their ranks, and rushed him enthusiastically. He joined after assurances that membership would not require him to curtail his drinking. He was also named to the prestigious Skull and Bones Society in recognition of his high academic achievements and all round swellness.
George graduated in 1968, an event he doesn't remember. "I was still drinking a bunch," he notes with his trademark smile. "I think there was a day or two that last year at Yale when I was sober, but when the Yippies and Hippies and Poopies levitated the Pentagon, I just couldn't handle it. Jim Beam got me through somehow."
At last, it was time for him to pursue his dreams of flight. Back home in Texas, he started work on a bold new invention, a flying machine, spending long nights in the garage tinkering with prototypes. Friends and family were kept in the dark as he toiled throughout the summer. Finally, one August morning, he wheeled the craft out of the garage, strapped himself in, and began flapping the machine's ingenious cardboard wings. The entire neighborhood gathered to watch as the contraption slowly lifted a few inches and crashed heavily back to the asphalt. George crawled out of the wreckage, his face scraped and his pride wounded. His brother Jeb helped him to his feet and in a quiet whisper told him about airplanes. "I was stunned," President Bush recalls. "I'd never heard of such a thing. At first, I thought he was making it up and I was going to bust him in the chops. But he pointed to the sky and said one was going by. I squinted at it for a long time and realized he was right. I'd always thought those things were some kind of Texas bug. Heh."
The stage was set for the young graduate to join the Texas Air National Guard. He knew he could win the Vietnam War, if only his country would give him a chance. He had planes in his heart, and air in his head.
Next Thursday, Part III: TANG Dang Doodle.
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