We were our own entertainment directors. One rainy summer, we watched the movie Grease seventeen times, memorizing all of the lyrics and performing them in a cousins-only chorus. We wrote and performed skits for an audience of our aunts and uncles, and in bad weather we camped out in the dark wooden closets in the attic, whispering as we hid from adults and breathed in the slightly musty cedar scent. We learned the legend of Bloody Mary—how reciting her name three times while gazing in a mirror was supposed to reveal her standing behind you. Before bed, we’d dare each other to call forth her spirit. Chills running down my spine—“Go look, Barbara; go look”—I would summon the courage to gaze into the ancient, tiny attic mirror and dutifully repeat her name. For hours after, I’d lie awake, too scared to doze off. To this day I still get chills climbing up to the attic, in case Mary is waiting.
Ganny made the rules, which hung on the back of each bedroom door: children outside in the fresh air in the daytime and summer reading before bed at night. We slept in what we called the “Girls’ Dormitory” (with George P. the token guy)—the attic outfitted with a line of twin beds and, in a throwback to another era, bright teal carpeting and matching walls. Being allowed to sleep in the dormitory was a rite of passage—when Jenna and I were young, a night there was a special treat. We would head up with our pillows and nightgowns, too young to wear cool pajamas, and stay up for hours. Once we were old enough to have a permanent bed, we would snuggle under our tightly tucked sheets and read Little Women or The Borrowers until someone turned off the lights and one by one we dropped off to sleep listening to the sound of the ocean.
In the mornings, we would bound from our beds and race to our grandparents’ room. There, in a mass of oversized T-shirts and summer pajamas, all jumbled limbs and sleep-matted hair, we would climb into their bed and snuggle up next to Gampy as he read the paper. Our parents and aunts and uncles would make their own way in, coffee in hand, three generations in one space under one roof.
Almost always, though, the highlight of the summer was when Gampy would take us out with him on the water. His boat was named Fidelity, and it was built for speed. He enjoyed nothing so much as slicing the sleek bow through the ocean swells, pushing the throttle forward when we hit big waves to make us bounce and laugh and yelp with pleasure. But he did not race past beauty, like the tiny uninhabited islands where seals gathered to sun their gleaming wet bellies and backs and porpoises swam in tight schools. Sometimes he would stop to fish, but even more fun than casting the baited hooks and pulling in the blues was having the companionable silence and full attention of our sweet grandfather.
Once when I was in my early twenties and Gampy in his early eighties, we got stuck out on the boat in a beautiful heavy rainstorm. There was no fear with Gamps as the driver: He was a superb skipper. He sped at sixty miles per hour through the huge, wind-whipped swells, with lightning bursting around us, and fish arcing up in the waves alongside—a parade guiding us home. And as I looked at him, rain pelting his face, he threw his head back and howled with joy at the magnificent ocean and his wild crew of family members urging him on. In the distance, a rainbow appeared.
On October 12, 2003, Gampy sent this e-mail to his grandkids:
Subject: Leaving and crying.
In exactly 69 minutes we drive out the gate of the Point we love so much.
The trek back to Houston begins. We speak at West Virginia Monday, then fly back to Houston Monday evening.
Yesterday Bill Busch and I took a final run in Fidelity. It was heaven. Swells but no real chop on the sea. There were tons of mackerel breaking the water but no blues, no stripers chasing them. We did see some tuna, obviously in quest of a mackerel lunch. I left Bill off on his boat here at the point then roared back to the river going full blast. I am sure it was over 60. I felt about 19 years old.
The only thing wrong with the last five months is that none of you were here enough. Oh I know some got to stay as long as usual, but there never can be enough of having all of you here. Next year, promise this old gampster that you will spend more time with us here by the sea.
I am a very happy Gampy. My legs don’t bend too well. As you know I have had to give up fly fishing off the rocks, but there is plenty left to do—plenty of wonderful things. I think of all of you an awful lot. I just wonder how each of you is doing—in life, in college, in school.
If you need me, I am here for you, because I love you very much. This comes from your devoted,
Gampy.
PS—I never went in the ocean this year. The first time in my 78 years here (I missed 1944) that I haven’t gone in. Sad am I, but I got huge kicks of seeing you dive off the pier. I got a clear shot at that from Jean’s office window. Sadie just came in. She is very nervous. She sees the bags. She knows Ariel, Paula and Alicia left a week ago. Now she prances around viewing the horrid suitcases wondering what’s next for her. She’ll be OK in Houston but she’ll miss Kport—of that I am sure.
Photo Courtesy of the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum
Operation Spikey
BARBARA
I don’t remember my grandfather running for president. What I do remember is the one time when we were in kindergarten and he took Jenna and me and our cousins to the circus. During the performance, he stood on the dirt floor in the center of the tent and threw a tall top hat into the ring, literally acting out the phrase “throwing your hat in the ring.” (For trivia fans, that’s how Woodrow Wilson announced his run for the presidency at the Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus. For years, other candidates continued the tradition.) I didn’t realize the magnitude of the moment—he was just Gampy, onstage with the all-powerful ringmaster. I was mesmerized by the lights, the acrobats, the clowns, and, most important to me at the time, the big cats: the lions and tigers performing for the crowd. Slow, deliberate, and fierce. As a souvenir, we each got a stuffed animal. I chose a white tiger I named “Spikey” that became my constant companion. I slept with Spikey, played with Spikey; I brought him everywhere, including to my grandparents’ house in DC when they would babysit and Jenna and I would spend the night.
We loved spending the night with Gampy and Ganny. They lived in an old white house with slick wood floors and a great, wide staircase, perched on the top of a hill. Below, on all sides, was an enormous, grassy yard with a slope that was perfect for rolling down. It was the vice president’s house, but to us, it was just a huge home, perfect for fun. Jenna and I would spend the day playing make-believe in the house and running through the grounds. And it was somewhere out there one night, catching fireflies that fluttered their wings and blinked out their flashes of code, tramping through the magnificent dusk, that I was sure I had lost Spikey. Ganny and Gampy were about to tuck us in when I realized I didn’t have my stuffed friend. I was devastated, my legs dangled off the side of the bed as I sobbed. I couldn’t possibly lie down without him. Gampy, who is quite a good crier himself, couldn’t bear it. He grabbed a flashlight and went in search of Spikey. Of course, when the vice president goes searching in the dark for a stuffed tiger, he doesn’t go alone. A small phalanx of Secret Service agents followed him, flashlights in hand, on the Spikey search-and-rescue mission.
But when you are six years old and exhausted, you can cry for only so long before you collapse on your covers and fall asleep. That’s exactly where Gampy found me when he came back hours later, empty-handed. “Operation Spikey” would have won Gampy some amazing grandfather points on any ordinary night, but this one was far from ordinary; it was the night before a presidential debate. Most candidates would be cloistered away, briefing books in hand, rehearsing possible answers as some well-spoken senator played the opponent and aides played the moderators. But for George H. W. Bush, it wasn’t even a decision. Spikey had to be found.
And we did find him, the next morning, when we pulled back the curtains to let in the sunshine. He was camped out under the window. Jenna and I had been playing house behind the curtains, and Spikey had spen
t the night tucked beneath them. Gampy won that race; and sixteen years later, I would carry a tattered and largely de-stuffed Spikey in my suitcase for my dad’s last campaign, a good-luck talisman.
I didn’t understand the gravity of my grandfather being president, probably because he didn’t speak about it. While he never hid the fact that he was president, Gampy didn’t want us to think of him that way. He didn’t want us to be impressed by titles. Rather, he wanted to teach us that it was the family moments, the light moments, and the joyous moments, on which we should make our lasting memories. When it came time to record his own memories of us at our father’s inauguration, he didn’t make sweeping pronouncements about the gravity of the moment. What he noticed—and even fretted over—were the small personal details—the thought of us watching the protesters and especially what he termed our “craziest” high heels:
Jenna and Barbara looking lovely in their new dresses were to be announced just before us. The twins had on the craziest high heels I have ever seen. In the holding room both had kicked off their shoes to alleviate the pain caused by walking on the stilt like heels—thin, tall, pointed heels, like spikes. Anyway off we all went the girls wobbling on their stilt-heels, Bar and I grinning like Cheshire Cats and waving to a lot of Capitol Staff and Capitol Police who lined the wall waiting for Presidents #42 and #43 to appear.
The twins preceded us, each on the arm of a 3 stripe military officer. Gone was their cocky banter from the holding room, their feigned nonchalance and indifference left behind.
One sad thing though, Jenna and Barbara, riding with us, seemed very concerned about the demonstrators. I tried to assure them not to worry because this simply went with the territory, all Presidents suffer through this kind of ugliness; but they were not convinced. They hated the signs and the shouting and the vulgarity of it all. I worry about the effect of this kind of thing on these two vulnerable 19 year olds.
Losing Pa
JENNA
There are buildings, libraries, schools, highways, even an airport, the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, named after one of my grandfathers. He has been the subject of books, articles, and documentaries. But Barbara and I had another grandfather, our precious Pa.
Pa had so many hopes for us, but I can’t imagine that chief among them was that we would become the keepers of his memories so soon. After we turned twelve, he stopped knowing who we were, and we were left with only a shell of him. I can look through old photos and see how in the span of a couple of years, his twinkling eyes suddenly became flat and vacant. More than twenty years after his death, I still wish that our last memories of him were as gentle as our first ones. If I could rewrite his story, I would give Harold Welch, our Pa, an easier ending.
Pa was born in Lubbock, Texas, the younger of two sons. He met Jenna Hawkins, the Jenna for whom I am named, when they were both living and working in El Paso. It was a quick, wartime romance; Harold Welch had enlisted in the Army at age thirty. They were married in January 1944, just as he was about to be shipped off to Europe with his unit, the 104th Infantry, known as the Timberwolves. After he returned in 1946, they moved to Midland, Texas, and for the rest of Pa’s life, Midland was home.
Laura Welch, our mom, was Harold and Jenna’s only surviving child. Barbara and I were their only grandchildren, and Pa and Grammee were a presence in our lives from the moment we were born. There was something about him that seemed big, and not simply because we were small. His not-quite-six-foot height was made larger by the fedora that he always wore to cover his bald head, and he had a bigger-than-life presence about him.
By the time we knew him, Pa wore big black orthopedic shoes that clunked and squeaked whenever he took a step. He was also a perpetual whistler, not just a few bars, but verses of entire songs. The mockingbird that nested in his backyard emulated his version of Elvis’s “Please Release Me.” Long before we laid eyes on him, we would hear him coming, walking and whistling.
When we were babies, every afternoon he would walk up to the door of our house and call out in his booming voice, “Laura, are the girls up?” knowing full well that even if we weren’t, we would be now. From deep inside our cribs, he lifted us to hug him and we nestled ourselves against his chest, breathing in the scents of the coffee and cigarette tobacco, which clung to his shirts even after they were washed and dried in the blazing West Texas sun. He drank coffee all day, a cup with Grammee in the morning, then another with his buddies, and still more at his various stops across Midland.
The only day he didn’t come by our house at naptime was on Saturdays during football season. On those Saturdays, he would drive from the ranch-style brick house that he had built on Humble Avenue (after Humble Oil; many of Midland’s streets were named for oil companies) over to Johnny’s Barbecue, a West Texas institution owned by his best friend, Johnny Hackney. Both Johnny and Pa had piercing blue eyes and shiny bald heads; they could have been brothers. Johnny’s Barbecue was impossible to miss; even as small children we could spot the redbrick building adorned with a giant pig sign in the heart of downtown Midland. Inside was a smoke pit. Johnny didn’t believe in fancy seating; diners chose from a line of worn wooden picnic tables. We ate there many times, our faces sticky with smoke rub and barbecue sauce. As often as we visited Johnny’s, we never ventured into his mysterious back-room office. But that was where Pa went every Saturday.
Inside, about half a dozen men, dressed in creased pants and crisp white shirts that their wives had ironed on washday, would sit around a folding card table, their eyes glued to the small TV in the corner of the room. Hour after hour, they lit unfiltered Marlboro Reds, drank Johnnie Walker out of Styrofoam cups, and bet their hard-earned dollars on college football—or so our mother said.
Our grandfather, like many men in West Texas, was a gambler. The boom-bust economy of oil and cattle, gushers and droughts, made cards, dice, horses, and football betting seem like ordinary risks. At various times, Pa bet on everything, especially horses and dice—my mother remembers coming home with a college boyfriend to the sight of her father and his friends shooting craps on Grammee’s freshly scrubbed kitchen floor, the dice skidding across the tile and bouncing off the yellow cabinets—but probably his biggest bet was on life itself. Having lived through the deprivation of the Depression, he had enough faith and gumption to leave the security of his traveling sales job and strike out on his own, building homes for the newcomers who were flooding into West Texas during the postwar oil boom. Yet, while he loved some risk, there was nothing restless or calculating or mean about Pa. Neither Barbara nor I can ever remember seeing him truly mad.
When we were small and I was clumsy, dropping food from my fork or spilling my glass of milk all over the kitchen floor, he would say “Happy Days,” even before my grandmother could reach for her rag to start wiping or Mom’s face would tense in frustration. His response to everything was “Happy Days” and a smile. He never yelled. I know now that Pa and Grammee always wanted a houseful of their own kids. Pa and Grammee adored children. They adored us, and we were the answer to their prayers.
As a child, I was a boundary pusher, the one who would touch the hot stove, just to see. Sometimes I tried to get my sweet Pa to lose his temper. The focus of my efforts on one particular afternoon was an innocuous Kleenex box that he kept in the front console of his old Buick. Car seats and booster seats were unknown in a place where money changed hands over Texas Tech and Arkansas Razorback games; when Pa and I drove around Midland’s dusty streets, I rode shotgun. During the drive, I manually rolled down the old-style passenger window, grabbed the tissue box, and hurled it out of the car. Without a word, Pa put on his blinker and applied the brake. He pulled over to the shoulder and slowly got out of the car. There was a stiffness to him as he bent to retrieve the Kleenex from amid the trash and tumbleweeds. After he had walked back, seated himself, and repositioned the box, he calmly asked me—without a trace of anger—not to do it again. His old voice was full of patience and lov
e. He pulled back onto the road, and a few minutes later, I grabbed the box and tossed it out again. I did it several more times, and each time, his reaction was the same.
I’m not sure why he never put the tissue box out of my reach or told me not to roll down my window or simply put me in the backseat; perhaps he was trying to teach me the difference between quick impulse and quiet strength. Again and again, I tested this man, whose patience never broke.
Our Midland lives were rich in simple moments. When Pa took walks around the block, we would scamper along with him. When Pa sat on the porch to watch the world go by, along with the occasional car, we watched with him. By the time we were six, Midland had ceased to be our day-to-day home; our parents moved us to Washington, DC, so that my dad could work on Gampy’s presidential campaign. Away from Midland, Pa and Grammee were no longer part of our daily lives. They were now special visitors, our memories crammed into a yearly Thanksgiving meal or a rare family trip to Disney World, where after each ride we scanned the crowd for the comforting sight of the top of Pa’s fedora. Or each summer, when, for a week or so, we went “home” to Midland.
Our first-ever solo commercial flight was from Dallas to Midland when we were seven. Barbara and I were eager to board the plane, just the two of us, and arrive to see Pa and Grammee as close to the plane door as they could get, faces beaming. From the beginning of the trip, clutching our small suitcases, we felt emboldened and older than we were. (Why do kids always want to grow up so fast?) We also couldn’t wait because in Midland, Pa and Grammee spent their entire day with us, except when they took their naps in the afternoons. When the heat was so fierce in the summer that even the asphalt seemed to liquefy, the only reasonable thing to do was sleep. Unless you were a kid determined to prove that you were long past napping.
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