“Very nice, Will. Very restful. It looks like the world survived without me.”
“Yes, sir, we struggled through. When do you plan to shave, sir?”
“I shaved this morning, Will,” I answered, smiling. I figured I could drag out his discomfort.
“Uh, yes, sir, I mean, uh, all of your face.”
“Did Frank call you and tell you about this?” I quizzed.
“There might have been some hair related conversations. Are you going for a new look or something?”
“Why not? Think America will survive the shock? Worried I’ll lose the next election?”
“Well, you’ve seen the uproar every time your wife changes her hair. That will be nothing compared to this!”
That was true enough. Marilyn had changed her cut a couple of times, and the press had given each style its own name! “It’s only eight weeks, Will. The nation will struggle through.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll go warn the barber!”
I laughed loudly at that. Human hair grows about half an inch a month, or so I had been told once. Back when I was a civilian, I used to get a haircut whenever it got a bit too long, maybe every six weeks or so, unless I got caught up in something and forgot. Once I got into politics it became a scheduled event every two weeks! If my hair grew one-quarter inch, it was time for a precision styling. Your hair and appearance can’t change one iota compared to your campaign posters or publicity shots. I could launch a war on somebody, but if my hair appeared mussed that would be the lead topic on the news, before the war.
My new look was national news that evening, with telephoto lens shots of Marilyn, Stormy, and me climbing down from Marine One. The regular networks just did a quick thirty second piece on it, comparing me to other presidents with beards or mustaches, almost all of whom, it turned out, were Republican. (Except for Grover Cleveland, a Democrat; not sure what the significance of any of this really was.) The news networks, on the other hand, spent massive time and money on this, bringing in various experts to consider the significance of my facial hair, and whether I could have been elected with a beard or mustache, and commenting copiously on Thomas Dewey, the last major candidate with a mustache, who had lost to Truman in 1948. Did the mustache cause Dewey to lose? Fox News did a half hour special on this.
Will, who was waging a losing battle against male pattern baldness himself, was at a loss to explain this silliness to anybody. He did point out that if any of the reporters bothered to go into their photo archives from my time with the Buckman Group they would find any number of photos of me with a mustache and goatee. The silliest exchange was on Wednesday morning, when it became obvious that I was ignoring the calls to shave.
Q: “Has the First Lady commented about whether she likes the President’s mustache and beard?”
A: (Staring!) “No, that hasn’t come up in any conversation that I’m aware of.”
Q: “If she complained, would the President shave?”
A: “You’ll need to ask her that.”
Q: “Why are you ducking the question?”
A: “I am not ducking the question. I am giving it the attention it deserves. The Buckmans have been married 30 years. Mrs. Buckman is certainly capable of telling her own husband whether she likes his mustache and beard. He had it for ten years before he got into politics, and he’s had it almost two weeks now. I would think that if she objected to it, she’d have divorced him back in the Eighties! Next question!”
I was dying of laughter watching that, and I made sure we replayed it for Marilyn that afternoon. Everybody wanted to know our divorce plans.
On the plus side, various mustache fanciers and beard lovers groups promptly named me their Man of the Year. It wasn’t quite Time’s Man of the Year, but it was a nice touch. Besides, I had gotten Time’s nod in 2004, after being re-elected. Cosmopolitan had a special list of celebrities with beards and mustaches, and I placed in their Top 10. In the same issue was a list of tricks to use in the bedroom if you had a beard or mustache. I made sure to show Marilyn that article, and she turned beet red! Will simply refused to comment when questioned, and turned beet red himself.
The nation muddled on through the end of November and into December. Nobody was doing anything legislation wise, not with a new administration coming into power, and the Christmas recess beginning shortly. Assuming nobody attacked us between now and January 20, my responsibilities were relatively limited. Congress and the Senate would be sworn in on January 6th, and John would be inaugurated January 20th.
The week before Christmas, I had what would probably be my final press interview. I did a one-on-one talk with Tom Brokaw from the Oval Office. Tom was semi-retired from NBC News, having given up his regular anchor spot to Brian Williams several years ago, but he still did occasional stories for them. I never quite figured out how Ari and Will picked out who got to do interviews with me. Maybe it was whoever pissed them off the least lately.
We started off actually in the Map Room, with both Marilyn and me on a love seat facing Tom in a wingback chair. The plan was that he would ask us some personal questions, and then when we were in the Oval Office would segue into some policy questions.
Tom: “Thank you for speaking to me, Mister President, Mrs. Buckman.”
Me: “You’re welcome.”
Marilyn: “Yes, thank you for coming.”
Tom: “Mrs. Buckman, your time here in the White House is shrinking rapidly. Are you going to be glad to leave?”
Marilyn: (Smiling and glancing at me.) “Yes, I really am. Oh, don’t get me wrong. It is an absolute privilege to live here, and the staff is simply amazing. It’s just, well, when we first moved in, we told the kids that living here would be like living in a museum, and that’s really true. It’s amazing, but it’s not home.”
Me: “I think that’s true. The staff here are simply unbelievable, and we can’t thank them enough. Still, it will be nice to just go back to Hereford and be able to have some friends and neighbors over for a barbecue. You just can’t do that as the President.”
Tom: “Is that where you plan to live? Hereford in Maryland? You also have a vacation resort in the Bahamas and a mansion in Georgetown.”
Me: “Home is Hereford. We love our vacation home in the Bahamas, and we’ll definitely spend more time there. The home in Georgetown is not so much a mansion as it is a really big house, and was always more of a residence for when I needed to be in Washington. We haven’t lived there since I was elected as Vice President. We use it for friends and relatives, and Charlie and his fiancé are using it currently, though that’s probably only going to be until they get married and get a place of their own. We’ll keep it, but only for when or if I have business here in town in the future.”
Tom: “You mentioned your children. Mrs. Buckman, when you first moved into the White House, you were still a stay-at-home mom to your daughters and living back in Maryland. Now your children are grown up and moved out. Big change since then, isn’t it?”
Marilyn: “My babies are all grown up! I miss them, but they’re doing fine on their own.”
Tom: “What are they doing? It almost seems like the nation has watched them grow up as well. Your son was in the Marines and your daughters were high school cheerleaders.”
Marilyn: “Well, Charlie can’t race anymore, but he seems to be doing well broadcasting for ESPN. This spring he started with them, and they’ve signed him to be an announcer and commentator. He’s engaged, of course, to a lovely girl and they plan to get married sometime next summer or fall. Holly is still at Princeton and is working on her doctorate, and is with a very nice young man who also is a doctoral student, and Molly is living in Maryland with her husband, and they’re starting to talk about children of their own. That would be very exciting!”