When I bowl I really never care whether I win. When I make a good score it is luck. It is talk I enjoy. It gives me an uplift. It’s an exchange, maybe, if I relate one of my circuit stories.
I can not go bowling when men are dying. There is no escape. I should not look for an escape. I want cessation of conflict. Enduring peace. I wish to command a strong nation, a great nation that can stand before the world as an example of what men can achieve.
A sadness pervades our White House gardens, a more than autumn sadness.
Mary and I tried to make a haven of our garden whenever possible. Sunsets have been Potomac sunsets, wilderness and prairie sunsets. Nevertheless, that great stillness intrudes as we walk and talk about our family and obligations. Flowers lie in Mary’s lap, as we sit on a bench. She smiles.
Now four years have come and gone.
We measure those years, wanting to understand. We no longer speculate about the future, our future. Life, for the moment, is held in balance like an upraised oar.
Was it yesterday, after the rain, with a faint rainbow, that the sentries paced along the far side of the gardens, and a white duck waddled toward us?
The White House