Bush then attacked the "boom men," who hold microphones on long poles to pick up
Bush's remarks. Not long before, a boom man had accidentally dropped a microphone on
a table in the Oval Office, and Bush had apoplectically complained of ruined antiques;
had it been the Theodore Roosevelt desk? Bush railed that if the boom men exercised
more, they would have more "strength in the forearms to keep these microphones up in
the air." One reporter responded to the tirade: "I do not get paid to play with the president
when he feels like playing." [fn 21]
When on vacation, Bush has always maintained a frenetic, hyperkinetic pace. After
winning the 1988 election, Bush repaired to Delray Beach, Florida, to cavort with his
plutocrat friend William Stamps Farrish III. Despite the exhausting rigors of the
campaign, Bush "spent the bulk of his day exercising and resting: a quarter-mile swim, a
20-minute run, and a nap." He came back from a two-mile run in an "upbeat, almost
giddy mood." [fn 22]
Bush's hyperkinetic antics at Kennebunkport during September, 1989 were described as
follows by a first-hand observer:
It was just an average day on President Bush's vacation.
Hungering to catch a bluefish, he packed up his speedboat Fidelity and headed out to sea.
But when he remembered that he had forgotten First Lady Barbara Bush, he turned the
boat around and accidentally ran over a board, which broke a propeller.
Undeterred by his disabled boat, the president took his party to the horseshoe pit, where
they tossed several games for about 45 minutes as Mr. Bush exclaimed, "Mr. Smooth
does it again" with each ringer. But soon that got old, and it was time to head to the golf
course for 18 holes.
This is President Bush, a man of nearly manic movement. All during his vacation, the last
thing he did was relax. He's up at the crack of dawn for jogging, out on the tennis courts,
teeing off for golf, pitching horseshoes, fishing, swimming, entertaining friends.
Bush, in sum, "can't sit still"; he even accepted a dare from his grandchildren and dove
off a stone pier into the Atlantic Ocean, which is kept cold along the Maine coast by the
frigid Labrador current. [fn 23]
George Herbert Walker had reformed the rules of golf, eliminating the stymie; George
Bush transformed the game into a manic exercise called "speed golf," whose object is to
complete 18 holes in the briefest possible interval of time. According to one journalist
who attempted to match Bush's record of 1 hour 37 minutes for a threesome, as compared
with almost four hours for leisurely golfers. Speed golf may not be for everyone,
but it is President Bush's game, however. He calls it cart polo. Bush has taken a leisurely
game and turned it into what one reporter called a forced march-- on wheels. "He barely
gets out of the cart, whacks it, and he's gone," says Spike Heminway, Bush's longtime