George H. W. Bush, the 41st President of the United States, passed away November 30, 2018, in Houston, Texas, at the age of 94. His body was flown to Washington D.C. for a national funeral service. On Wednesday, December 5, President Bush’s body was flown back to Houston, where he was to lay in repose for 12 hours at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church for public viewing.
“I want to go,” said Susan, “and take the kids. You up for a crazy adventure?”
This was on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, the kids arrived home from school around 3 p.m. By 3:30 p.m., the four of us had piled into my car and were headed south, Houston bound. Google Maps says Houston is 465 miles and roughly seven hours away. It took us longer. We stopped for dinner at Two Frogs in Ardmore and made more stops for drinks and gas. We didn’t arrive in Houston until after 1 a.m.
The plan, as we understood it, was that President Bush’s body was laying in repose from 6:45 p.m. Wednesday evening through 6 a.m. Thursday morning. Visitors were to park at the Second Baptist church in Houston, where they would take a shuttle to St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, the church Bush and his family regularly attended.
When we arrived at the Second Baptist Church a little after 1 a.m., we discovered we were the only people there. After making a couple of laps around the parking lot looking for a way in, we discovered something — there are more than one Second Baptist Churches in Houston, and we were at the wrong one. With an updated (and now correct) address, we zipped another ten miles away to the next one.
“How many people could possibly be there at 1:30 in the morning?”
At least a thousand, turns out.
We knew that we were on the right path when we saw a lone police car with its red and blue lights flashing, blocking traffic. Then we saw a second car. Then, we saw twenty — and not just normal patrol cars and police suburbans. The church’s parking lot looked like any mall’s on Black Friday. We parked in a too-tight spot across from a military-grade truck. The presence of law enforcement (both local and federal) was prominent.
First we made our way to the line going into the church; then we made our way to the rear of the line, which had wrapped around the building. On our walk, we were stopped by a local news reporter for KPRC in Houston and interviewed (still looking for the clip). In line, we stood next to a chatty lady and her adult daughter. The woman had come earlier, but lines were so long that the church had shut down operators. “There were at least 3,000 people here earlier,” she said. “Now there’s only around a thousand.”
It was 1:45 a.m. when we joined the end of the line, which moved relatively quickly. We entered the church around 2:15 a.m. — not the church where President Bush was. Remember, this was still the line at the first church to get us to the shuttles that would eventually take us to the other church. After standing outside in 40 degree temperatures, it was nice to be inside. The line snaked around through lanes marked with ropes. There was no pushing, no cutting, no anything of that nature. Just people talking — a few about President Bush, the rest about how their nights had gone, or how exhausted they were going to be at work in a few hours.
At the other side of the church, a security checkpoint had been established where visitors had to funnel through one of maybe a dozen metal detectors. Law enforcement presence was heaver here. Guys with guns manned the metal detectors while other guys with guns stood close by, watching. Walking around those guys were stereotypical secret service agents — black suits, with pins on lapels and earpieces in their ears. The line through the metal detectors went quickly. Large signs instructed visitors to take everything metal out of their pockets and place it on the metal table in front of the office. I got wanded separately because I’m “that guy,” and soon we had filed into another line. This line also moved quickly, and soon we were being loaded onto city buses.
We were almost there! Except, we weren’t.
While the bus ride only took a few minutes, the wait to exit the bus took forever. We had boarded the bus right around 2:30 a.m. and by 3:30 a.m., we were still on it. Sweat dripped down my back in the non air-conditioned bus as we sat (or, in my case, stood), with no idea how long the wait would be. In the tight confines of the bus, conversations erupted. The couple to my left lived less than a mile from the church. “Coulda walked here quicker,” was all I heard him say. The man to my right attended Texas A&M — Bush’s Alma mater — and was proudly wearing his own A&M baseball cap. The lady standing in front of Morgan talked the entire time about how much she hated being trapped inside elevators. Which we weren’t in.
The woosh of the bus’s doors opening caught everyone off guard. Suddenly we were back in the 40 degree night air standing in another line, this one leading to St. Martin’s Episcopal Church. The church is royal; fit for a King or a President. People snapped pictures of the church in the darkness — not because any of us thought they would turn out, I don’t think, but because for more than two hours there hadn’t been anything to take pictures of.
The closer we got to the church, the more somber things became. Conversational voices turned to whispers. Phones were put away.
The inside of is awesome, in the true sense of the word. We walked down the outside aisle, single file, until we reached the front of the church. There, we turned and walked past President Bush’s casket, draped in an American flag and surrounded by guards.
(This picture is from CNN. No photography was allowed inside the church.)
I spent my brief moment in front of the casket thinking about public service. I’m not going to write a tribute to the former President, and I don’t want this post to become political. But I will say that President George H. W. Bush spent sixty years in federal service — from serving in World War II to becoming the director of the CIA, vice-president, and eventually President. He did some great things, and probably some not so great things, but at the end of the day, it seems to me President Bush committed his life to making the United States a better place to live.
The brief time we spent inside the church was dreamlike. In the blink of an eye we were back outside, on our way back to the shuttle buses. The ride back was quieter, except for one lady’s cell phone alarm. It was her daily wake-up alarm. It was officially 4 a.m.
According to news reports, just under 12,000 people went through St. Martin’s Episcopal Church to see President George H. W. Bush laying in state (not to mention all the people who attended the services in Washington D.C.). After a private ceremony Thursday morning, President Bush was loaded onto a custom locomotive painted to look like Air Force One, and moved to his final resting place at the presidential library in College Station, Texas.
The O’Haras, cranky and sleep-deprived, were loaded into a 2017 Ford Flex and driven back to Oklahoma.
Cool memories for your kids.
The night before he passed, I had given my son a 1991 Pro-Set card of the Commander-in-Chief of the Gulf War. He is studying politics at 16YO.
I do a close enough impression of 41. So, I’ll wake him up as 41 in the morning. Or have conversation as 41. I think Ben will someday be remembered by some as a number.
He won’t allow me to audio tape our conversations any longer. He believes that should he run for office, his past (current) views and opinions will hurt his chances as a candidate. True story.
You’re a brave man Rob. I would have phoned it in. Impersonating 41 while doing it.