For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
April 26, 2001
Remarks by the President, Former President Bush, Laura Bush, Former First Lady Bush and Former Prime Minister of England John Major
The Wortham Theatre Center Houston, Texas
7:04 P.M. EDT
MRS. BARBARA BUSH: Welcome to this
year's Celebration of Reading. I can hardly believe it, but
this is our seventh year. We see so many familiar faces
coming from year to year that we're beginning to think that you even
maybe enjoy the evening, or that you're gluttons for punishment.
(Laughter.) But we are honored and blessed by your support, and thank
you from the bottom of our hearts.
Once again, you have managed to outdo
yourselves. Incredibly, we will raise more than $2 million
tonight, which -- (applause) -- which means we can help more people
read and build better lives for their families. That's what tonight is
all about. So, thank you for taking the time out of your
busy lives to be with us.
FORMER PRESIDENT BUSH: This is
indeed a banner -- a banner year for Barbara's
foundation. But if I may say so, it's been a special year
for the Bush family. (Applause.) As Barbara
noted, we have so many friends here, particularly Texas friends, that
we would be remiss if we did not take this opportunity to thank all of
you for your good wishes on the election of the 43rd President of the
United States. (Applause.)
You know, it is impossible to describe how
43's election has impacted our
lives. (Laughter.) Fortunately, I don't even have
to try to explain it. And somehow, some of the changes have
been captured on video. And we thought we would give you a
glimpse of what life is like for us today.
(A video is shown.) (Applause.)
MRS. BARBARA BUSH: Ladies and
gentlemen, the President of the United States and Mrs. Laura
Bush. (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all very
much. Thank you very much. Laura and I are really
glad to be back in Texas. (Laughter.) I didn't
realize, Dad, until I saw that video, how different your life has been
since I'm the President and you're
not. (Laughter.) Sounds like it's been pretty
rough. And perhaps you and I should sit down and have a discussion,
talk about it. Let me think: I have an opening the 27th of
September. (Laughter.)
We have some other family issues to discuss,
like where to put my presidential
library. (Laughter.) I've decided not to go
through the hassle of raising money. And so, you know my
dad's library? We're just going to add, "And
Son." (Laughter and applause.) As you can
already tell, lately my dad has been calling me "43." I call
him "41." It's kind of shorthand we have in our
family. And we have a nickname for mother as
well. To show you where she stands in the power structure of
this family, we call her "Number One." (Laughter and
applause.)
And so I'm going to turn the stage back to
Number One, and then close the program with some remarks of my
own. It's really great to be back in Houston, and to return
bearing the proudest title ever been given to me: son of Barbara and
George Bush. (Applause.)
MRS. BARBARA BUSH: Well, I want to
thank the President and our fabulous First Lady for taking the time to
be here. It's hard to really judge what their loyal support
to our little event has meant to its success. And, needless
to say, speaking as a literacy advocate and a mother, I think they're
doing a fantastic job in Washington, D.C. (Applause.)
I also want to thank our extraordinary group
of authors for joining us tonight to share their remarkable writing
talents. Tonight, we're pleased to announce the winners of
our 11th National Grant Competition, which you will find listed in your
program along with three new grant winners from Texas.
As many of you know, over the past six years
our celebration has been funding the development of a network of strong
family literacy programs across the state through the new Texas Fund
For Family Literacy, and the First Lady's Family Literacy Initiative
For Texas. Nearly $1 million awarded to 50 family literacy
programs in 41 different cities so far.
This initiative is still going strong and is
headed by its founder, America's superb First Lady, Laura
Bush. As in past years, we will be splitting the proceeds
from tonight right down the middle: 50 percent for Texas and
50 percent for the rest of the country. Sounds kind of
fair. (Laughter and applause.)
We're pleased to have the U.S. Secretary of
Education here with us tonight, our superb former Superintendent of the
Houston Independent School District. A strong supporter of
family literacy and our very dear friend, Secretary of Education Rod
Paige. (Applause.)
The Secretary has told me that I can announce
tonight that he plans to highlight adult and family literacy in the
department, and bring it to new prominence. And I cannot
think of a better note of encouragement to start our program.
* * * * *
MRS. BARBARA BUSH: As many of you
know, we were originally scheduled to have John Major, the former Prime
Minister of Great Britain, and our very dear friend, at the celebration
last year. We were very sad when an emergency back surgery
forced him to change his plans.
However, we had no intention of letting him
off the hook. So we're delighted that he is here with us
tonight to read from his wonderfully engaging
autobiography. It's a fabulous book, not only because it
provides fresh insight into historic events, but it is also a great
story.
Please join me in welcoming the Right
Honorable John Major. (Applause.)
FORMER PRIME MINISTER OF BRITAIN JOHN
MAJOR: As Barbara said, I should have been with you last
year, but I was having surgery on my back. It was one of those rare
occasions when a politician had a knife in his back and it did him
good. (Laughter.) But I am, in any event,
delighted to be here for George and Barbara Bush, two of the loveliest
people that I know. These readings are about
my life. My father was brought up in
Pennsylvania. As a boy, he joined a fife and drum band and
twice paraded in front of President Grover Cleveland. By the age of
eight, he taught himself acrobatics, and was the top of a four-man
pyramid.
As a teenager, he performed on the flying
trapeze without a safety net in order to attract a larger crowd and
earn a bigger fee. When I was born, my father was in his
sixties, and my mother was
surprised. (Laughter.) I only remember him as a
stern, but kind old man.
My mother was a Peter Pan figure with a gift
for attracting lame ducks. I remember sitting at the table,
about to eat my lunch, when a cold and hungry gypsy knocked at the
door. He was invited in, and my mother served him my meal,
leaving me hungry. Afterward, she had the grace not to ask me to do
the washing up. She didn't consider that fair; but being
superstitious, nor did she ask the gypsy to do it.
Books introduced me to a world I had never
known and to people I'd never meet. To me, they were an
escape and an education. Some became lifelong
friends. "Fame Is Despair." "A Horseman Riding
By." "How Green Was My Valley." "Trollope,"
"Phineas Finn," and "Phineas Redux" were never far from
hand. Biographies and histories joined Agatha Christie,
Neville Carters, Thomas Costain and many more. I love Jane
Austen and Dickens.
Such books became cherished friends,
companions and tutors; the true furniture of the mind. In my
late teens, I read Kafka and Voltaire, Spinosa on ethics and Aristotle
on politics. I dipped into Colette and Hardy. And
all those books remain on my shelves today.
When I was 12, my father's business failed,
and he lost all that he owned. Our family moved from
comfortable circumstances to an old victorian house in Brixton, South
London, where we lived in an apartment of two rooms for the five of us,
plus of course Butch, the dog. We shared a cooker on the
landing. There was no bathroom. We washed at the
sink or in a tub.
That house was home to a rich collection of
characters. On the floor below us were three Irish boys, one
of whom invited my sister to run away with
him. (Laughter.) Another actually proposed to her
one morning as she left for work, but she wasn't really listening; a
convenient gift that she retains to this day. (Laughter.)
Another tenant was a middle-aged cat
burglar. He lived with a girl who used to walk around the
house in her underwear. Something of a novelty in the 1950s,
but one that added pleasurably to my education. (Laughter.)
The cat burglar occasionally asked me to place his bets on race horses
with a book maker who operated illegally in the tunnel of the local
railway station. Once he offered me half a crown to check if
there were any policemen around before he went out of the
house. I agreed to scout with him, but high-mindedly refused
to take the money. It probably wasn't his anyway.
The indignity of our situation affected my
parents deeply as they lived through setback and
disaster. They were never crabby or miserable, but fought
adversity in their own way, laughing joyfully at minor triumphs,
outwardly optimistic, and forever hoping for a future that to them
would never come. Too proud, too stiff to acknowledge ill
fortune. My father saw his troubles, his health, his
blindness, as temporary setbacks, from which he would somehow emerge
triumphant.
As for my mother, if I found her with wet eyes
often enough, I never found her without hope. If the rain
came through the ceiling, well, the water would be mopped
up. If the bills piled up, well, they'd be paid
eventually. If their health worsened, well, it would surely
improve. There was always tomorrow, full of wonderful
possibilities. Especially, they thought, for
me. I was to achieve what they had not. I was to
put right what was wrong. My mother, at least, was confident
of that.
At the age of 13, I visited the House of
Commons for the first time and I fell in love with it. From
that day, my ambition to enter Parliament never wavered, though it
often enough seemed to be an impossible dream.
At 16, I found a job, and I went out into the
world as my father retreated from it. And I can see him
now: Thick, over-long grey hair swept back. Stern
features, shirt and Fair Isle sweater under a tweed jacket, stepping
out as fast as he could without hesitation, using his walking stick to
lever himself upright.
He didn't stroll, he marched. Near
blind he may have been, but he was devoid of self-pity. He
taught me so much. Not to be deterred by
obstacles. Not to give in to fate. For him,
triumph and disaster were passing moments to be enjoyed or to be
endured. When they had gone, he moved on without
regret. All this, he taught me.
A lifetime in politics brought many memorable
moments. One day in the mid-1995s, Boris Yeltsin came to
stay at Checkers. Checkers is the British Prime Minister's
Camp David. A beautiful historic house set in hundreds of
acres of beautiful rolling countryside.
We had had some lengthy meetings, and I felt
like some fresh air. And I said to Boris: How do
you feel, Boris, about a walk? He agreed. But he
went upstairs to change and he came down a few moments later in an
electric blue track suit and
sneakers. (Laughter.) And off we went -- myself,
Boris, Naina Yeltsin, my wife, Norma; 40 or 50
diplomats. (Laughter.) Sixty or seventy protection
officers. The sort of everyday walk for heads of
government.
And we hadn't gone very far -- about 300 yards
-- when it became apparent even to the most casual observer that Boris
Yeltsin was not one of the great walkers of our
age. (Laughter.) We walked for a while, and we
stood on the prow of a hill, overlooking some sleepy English
villages. And I said to him, Boris, you have three
choices: We can retread our steps all over the fields and
walk back to Checkers. He said, "Baahh." We can
climb into those cars down there, Boris, and be driven
back. "Bbbhhh."
Over there, Boris, I said, in the distance, in
that village, you can see the Bernard Arms, Boris. An
old-fashioned English pub. (Laughter.) Where we can get some
refreshment. And it was at that moment that for the first
time, Western intelligence learned that President Yeltsin had a few
words of English: "Gins and tonic," he
said. "Gins and tonic." (Laughter and applause.)
And off we set to the pub. The long
crocodile followed behind us, and we arrived at the pub, and it was
shut. (Laughter.) Boris Yeltsin's aids were not at all
happy. Their president was not used to being shut out of
anything, let alone an English pub. And there, in the middle
of this beautiful summer day in the English countryside, their aides
went 'round, banging on the door. "Open up," they
yelled. "It's the President of Russia." "Oh,
yes," said a voice from inside, "and I'm the Kaiser." (Laughter.)
Of course, in politics, sometimes you lose, as
well as win. On the day after my election defeat in 1997,
the telephone rang. It was George Bush. I know what losing's
like, he said. I've been there. And he went on,
warmly issuing invitations. Come to Kennebunkport, bring the
children. The bluefish are biting. Barbara sends her love.
It was a very cheerful and uplifting call,
very George. He was the first to call me on the day I became
Prime Minister, and the first to call me on the day I ceased to be
Prime Minister. The weather was beautiful, as the new Labor
government took up office. And at our home in Cambridge
here, Norma and I considered the future.
On Sunday, we had a buffet lunch for some of
our closest friends. It was a very jolly
wake. There was no shifting of eyes, no mumbled sorries from
our guests. There were hugs, and a few tears, and much
cheerfulness. We raided my best wines and my guests sank the
lot. (Laughter.) Lunch spread into supper, as the
party rolled on. The whole weekend was a mental
windbreak. I went to bed on Sunday night thinking not of
what had been, but of what was yet to come.
Thank you. (Applause.)
MRS. LAURA BUSH: Before I introduce
my husband, I want to congratulate Barbara Bush once again for such a
really fabulous evening. (Applause.) I also want to thank
the writers for inspiring and entertaining us. Your readings
were terrific. And I want to thank everybody else here for
coming tonight and for supporting literacy -- 50 percent for Texas and
50 percent for the rest of the country. (Laughter and
applause.)
You know the old saying that something
happening once can be a fluke, two times makes it a coincidence, three
times makes it a habit, but seven straight years of the Celebration of
Reading makes it a wonderful tradition. I hope this
evening's emphasis on literacy inspires more Texans and Americans of
all ages to read.
And, needless to say, I'm very proud of the
efforts of the next speaker to help make sure that every child is
educated. If we follow his lead, we'll certainly become a
nation of readers.
Ladies and gentlemen, my husband, the
President of the United States, George Bush. (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank
you. Thank you, Laura. One again, thank you all
for that warm welcome. I know all of you join me in thanking
the authors for being here tonight. The readings were
fantastic, and we appreciate it. (Applause.)
You've certainly set a high standard for a
little reading I intend to do
tonight. (Laughter.) Now, some people think my
mom took up the cause of literacy -- (laughter) -- out of a sense of
guilt over my own upbringing. (Laughter.) That's
one reason why she was so happy I married a teacher.
The truth is, I guess I could have paid a
little closer attention when I was in English class, but it all worked
out okay. (Laughter.) I'm gainfully
employed. (Laughter.) And I even have a new book
out. And I brought along a copy. Right here it
is. I didn't actually write all of this, but I did inspire
it. (Laughter.) Some guy put together a
collection of my wit and wisdom. (Laughter.) Or,
as he calls it, my accidental wit and wisdom.
It's not exactly a world transformed, but I'm
kind of proud that my words are already in book
form. (Laughter.) And I thought tonight I would
share a few quotable passages with
you. (Laughter.) It's kind of like thoughts of
Chairman Mao. (Laughter.) Only with laughs and
not in Chinese. (Laughter.)
Here's one. And I actually said
this. (Laughter.) "I know the human being and
fish can coexist peacefully." (Laughter.) Now,
that makes you stop and think. (Laughter.) Anyone
can give you a coherent sentence, but something like this takes you to
an entirely new dimension. (Laughter.)
Here's another. "I understand small
business growth. I was one." (Laughter.) My, do I
love great literature. I said this up in New
Hampshire. "I appreciate preservation. It's what
you've got to do when you run for
President." (Laughter.) "You've got to preserve."
You know, I really don't have the slightest
idea what I was talking about there. (Laughter and
applause.) You know, a lot of times on the campaign, they
asked me about economics and I actually said this. "More and
more of our imports come from
overseas." (Laughter.) Now, most people would say
this when they're talking about the economy. We ought to
make the pie bigger. (Laughter.) However, I said
this. (Laughter.) "We ought to make the pie
higher." (Laughter.) It is a very complicated
economic point I was making then. (Laughter.) But
believe me -- believe me, what this country needs is taller
pie. (Laughter and applause.)
And how about this for a foreign policy
vision? "When I was coming up, it was a dangerous
world. And we knew exactly who the they were."
(Laughter.) "It was us versus
them." (Laughter.) "And it was clear who the them
was." (Laughter.) "Today we're not so sure who
the they are" -- (laughter) -- "but we know they're
there." (Laughter and applause.)
John Ashcroft, by the way, attributes the way
I talk to my religious fervor. In fact, the first time we
met, he thought I was talking in
tongues. (Laughter.) Then there is my famous
statement. "Rarely is the questioned asked, is our children
learning?" (Laughter.) Let's analyze that
sentence for a moment. (Laughter.) If you're a
stickler, you probably think the singular verb "is" should have been
the plural "are." But if you read it closely, you'll see that I'm using
the intransitive plural subjective
tense. (Laughter.) And so the word "is" are
correct. (Laughter and applause.)
Now, ladies and gentlemen, you have to admit,
in my sentences, I go where no man has gone
before. (Laughter.) But the way I see it is, I am
a boon to the English language. I've coined new words, like
"misunderestimate" -- (laughter) -- and
"Hispanically." (Laughter.) I've expanded the
definition of words, themselves, using "vulcanize" when I meant
"polarize" -- (laughter) -- "Grecians" when I meant "Greeks,"
"inebriating" when I meant
"exhilarating." (Laughter.) And instead of
"barriers and tariffs," I said "terriers and
barrifs." (Laughter.)
We all make our contributions in the world,
and I suppose mine will not be to the literary treasures of the western
civilization. (Laughter.) But I do hope to contribute in my
own way. And one of those ways is to bring closer the day
when every child and every American learns to read. And that is why
the budget I submitted to the United States Congress triples the amount
of money available for reading programs all across
America. (Applause.)
I'm proud of mother. She took up
the cause more than a decade ago. And she didn't leave it behind in
the White House. Through her efforts, and the efforts of all
who have helped the Barbara Bush Foundation, so many lives have been
enriched with new opportunities.
We heard Norma Vargas beautifully describe the
good that has come into her life since she has found the courage to
walk into that San Jose classroom to begin her first
lesson. Tens of thousands more have their own
stories. Stories of people finding new and better jobs, and
gaining a new sense of dignity, because now they can read.
And I'm proud that Laura has her own
commitment to education. She was a teacher when I met
her. In her own way, she will always be a teacher. She's
the best kind of teacher, too, the kind who leaves no one out, and
believes in the possibilities of every person.
That's the spirit of your cause, and
ours. I thank each of you for all you have
contributed. It will be repaid many times over, in lives of
new achievement and lives of new hope. Thank you, and God
bless. (Applause.)
MRS. BARBARA BUSH: That ends
another Celebration of Reading. Thank you very much for
coming, and a special thank you to our authors. You were
terrific, all of you. And a very special thanks to the
President and the First Lady. I still can't get used to that
-- (laughter) -- who have decided to forgo supper in exchange for more
sleep. Maybe he'll do a little better on the language if he
sleeps a little more. (Laughter.) We bid them
farewell, and thank you very much. And God bless you all.
(Laughter.)
END 8:44 P.M. EDT
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