Black Lamb

June 2010 in Black Lamb

Volume 8, Number 6 — June 2010

June 1st, 2010

In the cover essay of our June issue, A Mad Tea Party, Toby Tompkins takes a look at America’s screw-loose political movement. Greg Roberts remembers raising bunnies as a kid with In praise of rabbits. In Name dropping in the Bush League, John M. Daniel relates family anecdotes of the George Bushes, father and son.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by: The Editors
Category: Month summaries | Link to this Entry

Name dropping in the Bush League

June 1st, 2010

BY JOHN M. DANIEL

My late brother, Neil Daniel, used to enjoy saying, “The last time I saw George Herbert Walker Bush, he was sitting on my toilet, moving his bowels.” (Actually, he said “Poppy Bush,” not the full four-part name, and he had a less formal way of saying “moving his bowels,” too.) Neil was a wit with a sophisticated sense of humor, so it’s curious that he would bring this matter up, and equally curious that it always got a laugh. After all, we’re talking about an act that everyone in the room, presumably, has done more than once. Even future presidents of the United States, future protectors of the Free World.

(In England, I’m told, the Queen does not go to the bathroom. Parliament passed a law back during the realm of Queen Victoria that the bathroom must come to the Queen.)

I don’t think my brother was simply looking for a cheap laugh; nor was he making a pompous egalitarian statement along the lines of “Everybody poops.” No, Neil was doing some sophisticated name-dropping, downplaying the long-standing close relationship our family had with the Bushes of Kennebunkport.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by: The Editors
Category: Daniel | Link to this Entry