Decision Points

campaigning for the U.S. Senate in Connecticut.
    When I was ten years old, I went to visit Gampy in Washington. He and my grandmother took me to a gathering at a Georgetown home. As I wandered among the adults, Gampy grabbed my arm. “Georgie,” he said, “I want you to meet someone.” He led me toward a giant man, the only person in the room as tall as he was.
    “I’ve got one of your constituents here,” Gampy said to the man. A huge hand swallowed mine. “Pleased to meet you,” said Gampy’s colleague, Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson .
    My grandfather could be a very stern man. He was from the “children should be seen but not heard” school, which was foreign to a chatty little wiseacre like me. He doled out discipline quickly and forcefully, as I found out when he chased me around the room after I had pulled the tail of his favorite dog. At the time, I thought he was scary. Years later, I learned that this imposing man had a tender heart: Mother told me how he had comforted her by choosing a beautiful grave site for Robin in a Greenwich cemetery. When my grandfather died in 1972, he was buried at her side.
    Dad loved and respected his father; he adored his mom. Dorothy Walker Bush was like an angel. We called her Ganny, and she was possibly the sweetest person I have ever met. I remember her tucking me into bed when I was little, tickling my back as we said nightly prayers. She was humble, and taught us never to brag. She lived to see Dad become president and died at age ninety-one, a few weeks after his defeat in 1992. Dad was with her in the final moments. She asked him to read to her from the Bible next to her bed. As he opened it, a bundle of old papers slipped out. They were letters Dad had written her years ago. She had cherished them all her life, and wanted them near her at the end.
    Mother’s parents lived in Rye, New York. Her mother, Pauline Robinson Pierce , died when I was three. She was killed in a car accident when my grandfather Marvin, who was driving, reached down to stop a cup of hot coffee from spilling. The car swerved off the road and hit a stone wall. My little sister was named in my grandmother’s memory.
    I was very fond of Mother’s father, Marvin Pierce , known as Monk. He had lettered in four sports at Miami University of Ohio, which gave him a mythic aura in my young eyes. He was president of McCall’s and a distant relative of President Franklin Pierce . I remember him as a gentle, patient, and humble man.
    My trips back east taught me two important lessons: First, I could make myself comfortable in just about any environment. Second, I really liked living in Texas. Of course, there was one big advantage to being on the East Coast: I could watch major league baseball. When I was about ten years old, my kind uncle Bucky, Dad’s youngest brother, took me to a New York Giants game in the Polo Grounds. I still remember the day I watched my hero, Willie Mays , play the outfield.
    Five decades later I saw Willie again, when he served as honorary commissioner for a youth T-ball game on the South Lawn of the White House. He was seventy-five years old, but he still seemed like the Say Hey Kid to me. I told the young ballplayers that day, “I wanted to be the Willie Mays of my generation, but I couldn’t hit a curveball. So, instead, I ended up being president.”

    In 1959 my family left Midland and moved 550 miles across the state to Houston. Dad was the CEO of a company in the growing field of offshore drilling, and it made sense for him to be close to his rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. Our new house was in a lush, wooded area that was often pelted by rainstorms. This was the exact opposite of Midland, where the only kind of storm you got was a dust storm. I was nervous about the move, but Houston was an exciting city. I learned to play golf, made new friends, and started at a private school called Kinkaid. At the time, the differences between Midland and Houston seemed big. But they were nothing compared to what was coming next.
    One day after school, Mother was waiting at the end of our driveway. I was in the ninth grade, and mothers never came out to meet the bus—at least mine didn’t. She was clearly excited about something. As I got off the bus, she let it out: “Congratulations, George, you’ve been accepted to Andover!” This was good news to her. I wasn’t so sure.
    Dad had taken me to see his alma mater, Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts,