Laura Bush

Last night we attended our second lecture in the St. Louis Speaker Series. The presenter was Laura Bush. Some highlights from the speech:

• She started off the speech with several jokes. She said that her father-in-law (George H.) celebrated his 85th birthday with his customary jump out of a plane. Apparently the only place large enough to land was a church yard. Barbara quipped, "Well, that'll make it easy. If something happens, we can wheel him right into the church to give him his last rights...."
• Laura came out on the stage in a stunning red outfit, which seemed somewhat flashy for this reserved woman (whom I often rememer as wearing navy blue.) Then she pulled out a bobble head doll of herself, dressed exactly that way. She said a friend of hers at picked it up on a clearance raack shortly after the inaugeration. That made us all laugh.
• She said she was in the middle of writing her memoir, so her talk was basically going over the 8 years of George W.'s presidency from an "inside" perspective. She talked about what it was like in the White House over 9/11 and the following days.
• She highlighted one particular moment she remembered, which sort of represented a pivotal moment for her. She said George was about to throw out the first pitch for game 3 of the World Series, just 2 months after 9/11. There he was in a packed stadium, all alone on the field, in a time when every crowd of people represented a terrorist target. She feared for his life. When she talked about this incident, she talked about how him doing that represented being bold in the face of fear and not letting things hold us back, no matter the obstacle, and she challenged all of us to do the same. It was a stirring story.
• Apparently after returning to Dallas after the presidency was over, George took his bike and rode around the neighborhood, introducing himself to each neighbor! (Can you imagine?! I would think he'd need no introduction!)
• Several things stood out to me from her speech: 1.) The constant ribbing about George throughout 8 years really did get to her, but she emphasized that it didn't get to her. I never really thought about how all those late night comedy show sketches must have really grated, especially after such a long time. 2.) Although she's not such a loudly opinionated and outspoken person as, say, Hillary Clinton, she still has strong opinions on matters, and has travelled the world quite a bit, spreading the word about women's health issues. I guess that was a surprise.
• She and George are currently working on plans for the Presidencial Library at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

In general, she was a very good presenter, and while the events that she mentioned were not new in the way that I learned new things from Pervez Musharraf's speech, it was definitely insightful to hear how things were from the perspective of Laura Bush and not what we heard from the press. I think the most motivational thing I walked away with was hearing how she wasn't bothered too much by the nay-sayers because she knew who she was. As she said, "You can't let other people tell you who you are, if you know who you are." She didn't let the negative voices get her down, and neither should we.