Bush's childhood home in Midland dedicated

[AGENDA21]

MIDLAND, Texas - First lady Laura Bush joined her in-laws Tuesday as the couple returned to the small Midland home where their eldest child, President Bush, spent part of his youth.

Time and about $1.5 million have restored the one-story, three-bedroom house to look as it did in the early 1950s, when George H.W. Bush and wife Barbara lived there. The house, replete with toys and furnishings from the era, was home to two future presidents, two future governors and a future first lady.

The Bushes started the ceremony to officially dedicate the George W. Bush Childhood Home by walking out the front door and addressing about 700 people in attendance, including childhood friends of the president, people who lived in the house after the Bushes and politicians.

Barbara Bush recalled thinking the house was enormous when they bought it.

"You all look at it as a little house," she said. "It was a terrific house to live in. We loved it here."

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/state/14318409.htm

http://www.bushchildhoodhome.org/

[Avalux]

1. Babs is such a humble woman -

probably had a tear in her eye as she recalled those days long ago when she was nothing more than a common ordinary housewife. :puke:

[BIgJohn83]

2. dedicated it???

Damn I was hoping they'd demolish the house, level the land, fence it off and poison the soil so nothing could ever...EVER come from that hellish place again...

[Octafish]

11. I thought it said ''Fumigated.''

Same thing. It still stinks of evil.

Most importantly: A hearty welcome to DU, BIgJohn83!

[BIgJohn83]

13. Thanx!!!

[Octafish]

3. Phony cowboy was born in Connecticut.

So they can't show that house to "the base," can they?

[BrklynLiberal]

7. Or this little family "cottage" on Kennebunkport

[Octafish]

10. That's the place where the only reading is ''The Fart Book.''

From an excellent article in Salon:

But, as one of W.'s Yalie frat brothers tells Kelley, it's not the substance abuse in Bush's past that's disturbing, it's the "lack of substance ... Georgie, as we called him, had absolutely no intellectual curiosity about anything. He wasn't interested in ideas or in books or causes. He didn't travel; he didn't read the newspapers; he didn't watch the news; he didn't even go to the movies. How anyone got out of Yale without developing some interest in the world besides booze and sports stuns me." New Yorker writer Brendan Gill recalls roaming the Kennebunkport compound one night while staying there looking for a book to read -- the only title he could find was "The Fart Book."

SOURCE:

http://dir.salon.com/story/books/int/2004/09/14/kelley/index.html

Drunken Gangster

[BrklynLiberal]

4. It should be one of those condemned chemical cleanup areas.

[sutz12]

5. Can we send him back there........ forever?

With no phone service and no internet. No contact with the outside world.

Please, please, please.

[TheCowsCameHome]

6. $1.5 million to restore a one-story home in TX - Halliburton restoration?

Somebody got a plum job.

[niyad]

8. does anybody know how long they actually lived there?

[Yupster]

12. Lucky me

I went by last fall and a worker was nice enough to let me walk through while they were still tearing stuff up and putting it in. It was pretty neat.

They lived in it from 1952-56. It is one of six homes the Bush family lived in while in Midland and Odessa from 1948-1959. That one was the longest. The others were each 1-2 years. He came back to town as an adult from 75-87 and had nice upper-middle class homes.

It was neat for me because I grew up in the 60's and the house was very sixties. Very small with a real 60's (50's?) look to it. Reminded me of being a kid or an I Love Lucy show. It was nice of the construction worker to let me walk through. He gave me a nice tour of what they were doing. I can't believe the 1.5 million figure. They did buy the house across the street too as a welcome center, but that couldn't have been more the $ 75 k or so.

One of my co-workers claims W was his T-Ball coach. I won't challenge him, but am skeptical since Bush only had girls and I don't know how many girls played ball in the seventies.

Anyway, that's my on-the-scenes report from last fall.

On edit - I remember talk of an endowment to pay for the upkeep of the property. I wonder if that is included in the 1.5 million figure. That would make sense at least.

[Horse with no Name]

9. I have this vision

of Poltergeist--you know--when the dead bodies started shooting up through the floors etc?
:shudder: