My Personal Barbara Bush Story

It’s not exactly pretty…

It was the 1980s. Some parts of that decade are a bit fuzzy to me. Other parts are crystal clear in my memory. Overall, for me it was one hell of a decade.

Ronald Reagan was president and I was just way too busy living life to even care about that much. George Herbert Walker Bush, Sr. was vice-president and his wife Barbara never, ever appeared in public without wearing a pearl necklace. I saw the whole national political scene as utter buffoonery and I was far too pre-occupied with sex, drugs and rock and roll to care.

I had recently moved from Southern California to West Texas. Who, in their right mind, does such a thing? Apparently, me. I was young and stupid.

I found myself living in Midland, Fucking, Texas. The son of the vice president and his pearl necklace wearing wife used to live there. He once ran for Congress from there… and lost. For a Republican to lose an election in that neck of the woods is utterly inconceivable but that is exactly what George Dubya did. It was his first foray into politics.

Anyway, there I was living in Midland, Fucking, Texas. I was the manager of a bookstore that was part of a large corporate chain of thousands of bookstores. The bookstore was in a shopping mall. Back in the Eighties, shopping malls were the hottest thing going. This was before the internet. Instead of people having smart phones permanently attached to their hands they spent every minute they could in a shopping mall. Back then, people still saw each other in real life (IRL).

One day I got an urgent message from the corporate head office saying that they had arranged a book signing with Barbara Bush, the wife of the vice president! (The Second Lady?) Anyway, she did not claim authorship of the book. Apparently, the book was written by her dog!

Seriously?

Of course it was not the dog who was going to show up for the book signing. (That may have been way cooler.) No, it was Barbara Bush herself who was going to come to MY bookstore to autograph copies of the book supposedly written by her dog. Okay, that was cool, too. I had dealt with a few minor celebrities before but not with someone of the stature of America’s vice president’s pearl necklace wearing wife. I got just a little excited about the opportunity to meet someone so high up on the social ladder.

Usually, when we had a book signing we would get a case or two or three of the author’s books. Usually, there would be around 24 books in a case. But with Barbara Bush’s canine book we received a pallet of her books. We usually received cases of books delivered by UPS. But with Barbara Bush’s book we received an entire pallet of books and instead of receiving them from a UPS driver they were delivered by a fucking forklift!

I had never seen an entire pallet of one particular book before. It kind of got me salivating. I envisioned my own future books being delivered that way.

So I started getting excited about the upcoming book signing. The corporate headquarters sent me copies of all the advertisements they were placing in local newspapers and magazines and transcripts of local radio ads they were placing. They sent me posters to hang up in my store and pamphlets to hand out to customers. They were sinking a ton of money into this book signing. And why wouldn’t they? The Bushes (and their pets) were very, very popular in Texas.

And then came that horrible, horrible day. I was running the bookstore (while my crew was doing most of the work) and suddenly five men in black suits and sunglasses appeared in the store. (Despite being indoors they were seriously wearing sunglasses. I’m not lying.) One of the men came up to me and opened up a little billfold-type thingie which I could not read before he closed it, and said, “Secret Service. We’re here to check on security.”

The men in black suits spread out through the bookstore peering into every nook and cranny. Two of the men went into the back room and I quickly followed them. One of the men went into the two employee restrooms and rifled through the trash can, paper towel dispenser and toilet paper dispenser. The other one went into my office and rifled through every drawer in my desk, leaving it all a mess. Then one of them opened the back door setting off the alarm. I took out my keys and unlocked and turned off the alarm. The Secret Service agent studied the hallway that led out from the back door to the service entrance.

Within fifteen minutes those five Secret Service agents looked over every inch of the bookstore and then they were gone. It was the only experience I’ve ever had with America’s Secret Service.

Two days later I got an emergency communique from the corporate head office saying that the book signing had been cancelled. The Secret Service had determined that the bookstore was “not secure enough.” I was ordered to take down all the posters and to ship the pallet of Barbara Bush’s books (at the bookstore’s expense) to the local elite, posh country club where the book signing had been moved to.

So I never got to meet Barbara Bush. I never got to host a book signing for her. I never got to rub elbows with the Washington elite.

That was the very early beginnings of my aversion to book signings. More importantly, it was the very early beginnings of my aversion to the Bush family.

But hey, I’m a dog lover! How can I get upset about a book written by a dog? And furthermore, I have a Cancer Ascendant in my astrological chart. For those who don’t consider astrology to be pure poppycock, Cancer is the sign that resonates to pearls! I have always had a fondness for pearls. In my little leather pouch containing my three I Ching pennies and my special quartz crystal there is also a single, lone pearl.

Today I read about how Barbara Bush has stopped accepting medical aide in her very advanced age. She is obviously preparing to die.

And, sadly, all I can think about is that damn Barbara Bush book signing that never happened.