Bush comes home to Texas

Midland Reporter-News:

The former president and first lady appeared visibly glad to be back in Midland during a speech capping the couple’s “Welcome Home” rally at Centennial Plaza.

“You know, they asked me how do you feel after this momentous day,” former President George W. Bush began. “I am grateful. I thankful and I am grateful that you all came out to welcome us home.”

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Bush called the Midland backyard barbecue where the two met “the most important meeting of my life” and joked about his former Ohio Avenue home which has, in his absence, become the George W. Bush Childhood Home museum.

“(My mother) when she heard about the museum, she said ‘you better go clean your room,” Bush said.

A jovial former president joked often about his life after office: mowing the yard and taking out the trash would be his new “domestic agenda;” figuring out what to do with the rest of his time would be his “first faith-based initiative.”

More concrete plans for his post-White House life include a book project, a presidential library at Southern Methodist University in Dallas and a little bit of fishing.

“My father is America’s only skydiving president — and that is a title he can plan to keep,” Bush deadpanned.

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And though many Americans will remember Jan. 20, 2009 as Obama’s day, Bush said it was “also a great day for the Bush family.”

“A former president once said it was bittersweet to leave Washington,” Bush concluded. “But for me, there’s nothing to be bitter about. Today is some kind of sweet. I’m glad to be home.”

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There is more. This speech demonstrates a character that is absent in most of his critics and they are the lessor for it. If he needs any help cutting bodarc trees on his ranch I will be there with my chain saws.