Posted on 06/07/2009 9:42:36 AM PDT by JoeProBono
The usher in chief to seven presidents has cracked open the White House door -- dishing on the household lives of the "first families" he served. From Richard Nixon to George W. Bush, Gary Walters spent 37 years observing sitting presidents from the shadows, sometimes at their most vulnerable moments. Walters recalled the last President Bush lying on the White House lawn alongside his dying dog, Spot, to comfort him before he was put to sleep.
"I am getting emotional right now," Walters said, speaking to residents of a Virginia retirement home Friday, according to The Washington Post. "These are the kind of things people don't know about the president." In another anecdote, Walters recalled Nixon's final day in office, after he resigned over the Watergate scandal in 1974. Nixon insisted that in his final walk to the residence from his office, "he didn't want to see anyone," Walters said. The security officer was told to hide behind a pillar, "sort of like a squirrel does behind a tree," while the press corps was locked in a briefing room. Walters served as an assistant usher in 1976 and was appointed chief usher by Ronald Reagan in 1986, with duties ranging from running the White House residence with a staff of 100 to preparing state dinners and official ceremonies. He retired in 2007. Jimmy Carter was a bit of a stickler for keeping order, Walters admitted. Carter ordered that the White House thermostats stay at a chilling 65 degrees. Walters' drafty office became a freezer. So he had the thermostat cover removed and the thermometer painted red to look as if it were 65 degrees. "We didn't want to defy the president, but we didn't want to freeze," he chuckled.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Pure observation.
LOL only in DC; people and their comfort zone are funny, I grew up in Texas (100 May thru Aug) and Colorado (-30 a good bit of Jan and Feb) and now live in San Francisco (please be kind, we are pilgrims in a heathen land) where it is pretty much 65 degrees 90% of the time; when it is 45 people wear heavy coats, when it is 85 they start fainting in the streets.
Yep, they might...LOL.
Gets tiresome, doesn’t it?
Well said and oh, so true.
perhaps we could just get the Bush Bashers to at least limit the content of their posts to:
“IABF “
( its all Bush’s fault)
or
“DDM”
(daddy disappointed me)
that way they could have their say and we wouldn’t have to yawn. ha.
Hey,I like that, LOL.
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