"Don't forget tiddlywinks and Ping-Pong," he says. He's here to talk about football, baseball, soccer, wrestling, tennis, squash, golf, fishing, hunting, jogging, horseshoes, boating and skydiving. But, with an assist from a burled maple cane, the 85-year-old former President keeps up his pace.Ĭlear-eyed, his thick hair graying slightly on the top and at the temples, Bush pauses at his photo-strewn desk. George Herbert Walker Bush enters his sun-drenched Houston suite and breezes past a black-suited Secret Service agent and four employees of his office, whom he greets with a nod and a hearty "fellow Americans." There is a limp in his gait now, the result of a second hip replacement three years ago. And for a few brief moments in history-unbeknownst to anyone, save for those in attendance-Tip O’Neil, then the speaker of the House, became the most powerful man in the world. At one point during the match, he fell and hit his head. Bush, ever antsy to compete and play a game-any game-decided to spend some of those hours engaged in a vigorous match of tennis. For eight hours during the surgery, he transferred the power of the presidency to Bush, his vice-president. That was the day when then-president, Ronald Reagan, had surgery to remove cancerous polyps from his colon. My favorite anecdote from it, which had never been told before, was about a globally important event that happened on July 13, 1985. I’ve pasted my original story, from a March 2010 issue of Forbes, below. And his mother was perhaps the fiercest competitor, as a nationally ranked tennis player. His father was the president of the United States Golf Association. against those of Great Britain and Ireland. His grandfather founded the Walker Cup, a biennial match that pits the best amateurs from the U.S. His love of sports was perhaps partly genetic. But he was still a sportsman, still going on fishing trips and, perhaps most impressively, still jumping out of airplanes from 10,000 feet. His days of playing baseball and tennis and soccer and golf were behind him by then. He was 85 at the time, and walking with the assistance of a cane. In 2010, I flew down to Houston to meet with Bush to do a story about his sporting life. Bush, in terms of the breadth of the sports in which he engaged, and the longevity of his sporting career. But none of them was quite the match for George H.W.
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