Do you find yourself wondering what George and Laura are doing today, tomorrow, this weekend, now that they’ve packed up and left the White House?  I do.  It’s a weird gig really, having a job that involves moving into a house, and then zip, job’s over, thanks very much, don’t let the door hit ya on the way out though.

I know it’s not really like that, but isn’t kind of?  I don’t know why I’m thinking of the Beverly hillbillies in reverse here.  Remember when Jed, the old mountaineer, shot at some possum, hitting some oil mine, ‘black gold’, as they called it, so they loaded up the truck, and moved to Beverly, hills that is, as the theme song goes.

So it was granny, and Jed, and Ellie May, and their dumber than dirt nephew Jethro.  Thank God for their banker, Mr. Drysdale, and his faithful assistant Miss Hathaway.  Without them, those gosh darn Clampits would have been far more out of their league than they already were.  I mean really.  Who cooks vittles in Beverly Hills?  Who cooks vittles anywhere?  And what about their cement pond?  Seriously!

So that’s what I’m thinking of here, a kind of weird montage of George and Laura walking backwards, slow motion, into their former, though now new again everyday lives.  How do they do that?  I know they’re far from hillbillies, and Texas ain’t Beverly Hills, but still.  Maybe there’s a part of them that is glad to go, back home where George can fish, and Laura can hang out and read without being until such intense international scrutiny every single day, 24/7.

Before George W. was in the White House, but after his father had left, when Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea lived there, we were vacationing one summer up in Kennebunkport, Maine.  It was a charming and authentic fishing village, kind of like that town Jessica Lansbury lived in on that show ‘Murder she Wrote.’  George and Barbara had a summer place there, and had been coming for years.  They were vacationing the same time we were, at the same place, boating in the same water.  Though we might have been continents apart.  Poor George senior I thought.  Here the dude was on vacation, likely just wanting to fire up his cigarette boat and go for a ride, but no, loads of secret service agents were on the property, alerted, then cruising along side, and behind him, out in the open water. 

Bummer I thought.  The guy probably just wanted to hang out.  My husband told me and our daughters, that’s the way it is, even after you move out of the White House.  Once a president, always a president.  Mr. President.  Today, yesterday, and tomorrow. 

Goodbye George and Laura.  Hello Barrack and Michelle, and young daughters.  Always, whoever is in office at the time, it’s something to experience, however at a distance.  The song by Elton John is coming to mind - the part of the lyrics that say
  ‘so goodbye yellow brick road
    where the dogs of society howl
    you can’t plant me in your penthouse
    I’m going back to my plough.’