America's elite.... Greenwich Country Day School [was] an exclusive all-male academy
for youngsters slated for private secondary schools....
``Alec, the family chauffeur, drove the two boys to school every morning after dropping
Prescott, Sr. at the railroad station for the morning commute to Manhattan. The
Depression was nowhere in evidence as the boys glided in the family's black Oldsmobile
past the stone fences, stables, and swimming pools of one of the wealthiest communities
in America. ''
But though the young George Bush had no concerns about his material existence, one
must not overlook the important, private anxiety gnawing at him from the direction of his
mother.
The President's wife, Barbara, has put most succinctly the question of Dorothy Bush and
her effect on George: `` His mother was the most competitive living human. ''
If we look here in his mother's shadow, we may find something beyond the routine
medical explanations for President Bush's `` driven '' states of rage, or hyperactivity.
Mother Bush was the best athlete in the family, the fastest runner. She was hard. She
expected others to be hard. They must win, but they must always appear not to care about
winning.
This is put politely, delicately, in a biography '' written by an admiring friend of the President: She was with them day after day, ... often curbing their egos as only a
marine drill instructor can. Once when ... George lost a tennis match, he explained to her
that he had been off his game that morning. She retorted, `You don't have a game.' ''
According to this account, Barbara was fascinated by her mother-in-law's continuing
ferocity:
George, playing mixed doubles with Barbara on the Kennebunkport court, ran into a
porch and injured his right shoulder blade. His mother said it was my ball to hit, and it happened because I didn't run for it. She was probably right, '' Barbara told [an interviewer].... When a discussion of someone's game came up, as Barbara described it,
if Mrs. Bush would say, She had some good shots,' it meant she stank. That's just the way she got the message across. When one of the grandchildren brought this girl home, everybody said,We think he's going to marry her,' and she said, `Oh, no, she won't play
net.' ''
A goad to rapid motion became embedded in his personality. It is observable throughout
George Bush's life.
A companion trait was Poppy's uncanny urge, his master obsession with the need to ``
kiss up, '' to propitiate those who might in any way advance his interests. A life of such