How fast they fade. Poor George Bush decided that an unannounced visit to a Dallas hardware store would be a fun way to emerge from a month of post-presidential purdah and make a splash with his new neighbours. But the greeter who met him inside, a pensioner named Henry Long, didn't recognise him.
It could be that Bush looks smaller in real life than he does on television. That, at least, was the observation of Andrea Bond, the marketing director for Elliott's Hardware, who was there the moment the 43rd president of the United States pushed open the door and asked Long where he might find a torch and batteries.
Continues Below ↓
It probably didn't help that Bush was dressed not in a suit but, Bond says, "sweatpants and windbreaker".
No one would fault Bush for having kept a low profile - mostly at his Crawford ranch with his wife, Laura - this is just politeness as someone else is in charge. But sweatpants obscurity is not something he can afford to contemplate.
There are memoirs to sell - no luck so far - and lectures to give, and he has the serious handicap of having left office with some of the lowest approval ratings of any president in modern history.
The resurfacing of "W" began with the moving vans arriving at the Bush's new, single-storey home in the fancy Preston Hollow neighbourhood of north-west Dallas last month.
The house, a 1959 four-bedroom brick "ranch", is at the end of a cul-de-sac called Daria Place that is soon to be shut off with heavy-duty security gates for which the Bushes have agreed to pay.
A police checkpoint is in place to discourage gawkers.
A few "Welcome Home, George and Laura" signs have sprouted on lawns.
The area is close to where Bush lived before he became the governor of Texas in 1994 and is handy for the Preston Centre, where he will have a temporary office for planning and fundraising for his presidential library.
Continues...
|
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Digg
Delicious
Newsvine
Facebook
muti
Twitter
