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THROUGH ALL THE travel and politics of the vice presidential years, family remained central to my father’s life. He visited Walker’s Point for family gatherings every summer. He loved to entertain there. When the National Governors Association held its 1983 meeting in Portland, Maine, Dad invited all the Governors and their families to a clambake. For one night at least, there was no partisanship on display. The guests included members of both parties, including two Governors that George Bush would see a lot of in the future: Michael Dukakis and Bill Clinton.

As Bill Clinton tells the story, he and Hillary brought their three-year-old daughter, Chelsea, to the gathering. As they waited in the receiving line, they schooled her on how to greet the Vice President. When the big moment arrived, she blurted out, “Where’s the bathroom?” To Governor Clinton’s astonishment, the Vice President left the receiving line, walked Chelsea to the house, and introduced her to his mother, who showed her to the bathroom. The gesture of kindness made an impression for years to come.

Throughout his years as Vice President, Dad maintained a close bond with his mother. She visited Washington frequently, and even when she wasn’t in town, she kept an eye on her son. After one of President Reagan’s State of the Union addresses, she called to inform Dad that she had caught him looking down during the speech. “When the President is speaking, you should be listening,” she admonished him. He protested that he had been reading a printed copy of the speech. She was not persuaded. He might have been Vice President of the United States, but he was still Dorothy Walker Bush’s son.

No matter what was going on in the world, Dad was never too busy to talk on the phone or send a letter to check in with my siblings and me. In a typical note to us in 1983, he wrote, “I’m getting a little older. I’m not sure what the future holds. I don’t worry about that. Win or lose, older or younger, we have our family.”

Dad didn’t just express his commitment to his family. He lived it. When my brother Marvin checked into the hospital suffering from a severe form of colitis, Dad visited every day. On the days when Marvin was in the most pain, my father rescheduled meetings and practically moved his office to the hospital so that he could sit at his son’s bedside. Marvin lost forty-five pounds, and at one point his vital signs failed. I know my parents were thinking of Robin and praying that they would not lose another child.

Fortunately, Marvin rallied and regained his health. To help lift his spirits after a difficult surgery, Dad reached out to a friend in the front office of the New York Mets, Arthur Richman. Before long, ballplayers were calling Marvin to cheer him up. He made a full recovery and soon had a reason to celebrate when he and his wife, Margaret, adopted their first child, their daughter, Marshall, from the Gladney Home in Fort Worth, Texas. They later adopted a son, Walker, from the same wonderful place. Dad remained grateful to the Mets for their generosity

—until they beat the Houston Astros in the 1986 National League Championship series. For his part, Marvin remembered how much it helped to have people call to cheer him up. When Speaker Tip O’Neill underwent surgery for a similar condition, Marvin called to lift his spirits. The Speaker later told my father, “Anybody who raised a person as fine as Marvin ought to be all right.”

Marshall and Walker were not the only additions to the family during those years. My siblings and I produced eight grandchildren in eight years—incl

uding Laura’s and my twin daughters, Barbara and Jenna, who entered the world on November 25, 1981. Dad summed up his feelings about family in a letter to Jeb and Colu after their third child, John Ellis Bush Jr., was born in 1983: “Last night’s phone call brought us true happiness,” he wrote. “Nothing else matters. The birth of JB Jr. put everything that is important into perspective.”

Twenty-eight years later, in August 2011, Jeb Jr. and his wife, Sandra, were on the receiving end of another note from George Bush. In a sign of the times, it arrived not through the postal service but via e-mail. “I haven’t seen you yet and I love you already,” Dad wrote. “You are one very lucky little girl.” The message was signed “Gampy” and addressed to his first great-grandchild, Georgia Helena Walker Bush.

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LIKE MOST MODERN Vice Presidents, George Bush spent a good amount of time tending to the political grassroots. That came naturally to Dad given his love of people and his experience as a party Chairman. As the 1984 election approached, Dad traveled to all fifty states to tout the President’s record and fire up campaign volunteers. He attended a steady stream of fund-raisers and rubber-chicken dinners. I think his favorite event was an Old Timers baseball game at Mile High Stadium. He had been campaigning in Colorado and sent word that he’d like to drop by the game. The organizers of the exhibition game surprised him by inviting him to take the field at his old position: first base.

For a sixty-year-old politician, that was a risky proposition. The game offered plenty of potential for national embarrassment. But the former captain of the Yale baseball team still had a lot of young man in him. He put on the uniform of the Denver Bears, a team in the American Association league. When he came to bat against former Baltimore Orioles and Chicago Cubs pitcher Milt Pappas, a three-time All-Star who had pitched a no-hitter, he slapped a single into right field. It certainly didn’t hurt that Milt had served up a fat fastball for the Vice President to hit. Pappas and Dad stayed in touch for years after the game.

Dad held his own in the field as well. Orlando Cepeda, a Hall of Fame slugger who played most of his years for the San Francisco Giants, hit a rocket down the first-base line. Dad made a slick play, stabbing the hot shot and tossing the ball to the pitcher to beat Cepeda to the bag. I still remember his look of joy as he jogged back to the dugout.

Dad’s political travels intensified once the Democrats selected their presidential nominee for 1984: Walter Mondale, who had served as Vice President under Jimmy Carter. Mondale had won a tough primary over Senator Gary Hart of Colorado. Typical of the sound-bite era in American politics, the race was defined by a single phrase. In one of the Democratic debates, Mondale criticized Hart’s lack of substance by demanding, “Where’s the beef?” a line he borrowed from a commercial for Wendy’s hamburgers. Like Ronald Reagan’s devastating question at his 1980 debate with Jimmy Carter—“Are you better off than you were four years ago?”—Mond

ale’s sound bite effectively encapsulated his criticism of Hart.

President Reagan held a comfortable lead in polls for most of the summer, but shortly before the Democratic convention, Mondale shook up the race by naming Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate. The first woman ever to appear on a presidential ticket, Ferraro was a savvy politician and former prosecutor from Queens, New York. She had little experience on the national stage, but her selection generated excitement and big crowds across the country. Dad sent a letter to the Congresswoman the day of her nomination. “Dear Geraldine, It is a good job,” he wrote. “Congratul

ations on your selection. Good luck—up to a point.”

A month before the election, Dad had the unenviable task of debating Ferraro in what remains one of the most anticipated vice presidential debates in American history. His knowledge and experience dwarfed hers, but he was wary of appearing condescending. He knew the press was ready to pounce on him for even a hint of sexism. He prepared for the debate by sparring with Congresswoman Lynn Martin of Illinois (he was impressed enough that he later named her to his Cabinet). All things considered, the big night in Philadelphia went well for Dad. He treated his opponent respectfully, but he did not hesitate to point out their differences or call out her mistakes, such as when she mischaract

erized the administration’s position on the START treaty and missiles in Europe. Years later, when I debated Ann Richards in the race for Governor of Texas, I remembered Dad’s example as a lesson in how to be firm without being insulting.