Barbara Bush (the matriarch, not the first daughter) visited the library where I was working (the Special Needs Library in Montgomery County, MD, which serves people with disabling conditions), during the time she was First Lady. The whole event was planned to a fare-thee-well, and was a rather surreal experience. I guess I can't blame Mrs. B. for the fact that the whole staff had to stand in the stairwell for at least an hour and a half beforehand,while the bomb-sniffing dogs did their thing, but I thought her behavior during the actual event was downright rude.

We had brought in some of our best, most articulate clients and volunteers to demonstrate the various services we provided. One of them was a very nice, very presentable young man about 16 or 17 years old; he was learning disabled and was to demonstrate the Kurzweil reading machine, which reads text aloud for people who can't read print. He had chosen a copy of Time Magazine, with George-the-Elder signing the Americans With Disabilities Act on the cover, as the text he'd use to demonstrate the machine. Pretty damned appropriate, I thought. He was introduced to her, and she gave him a handshake and a phony smile. But when he brought out the magazine to start the demonstration, she snatched it out of his hands, slapped it face down on the table, and said, "Oh, we don't like Time!" The poor kid was absolutely devastated.

I've never been able to feel positive about her since then.

Nancy