Homesick for Detroit
As the city’s political and business elite woo expats with post-bankruptcy blueprints, a native son contends with his hometown’s past and future.
How Two Presidents Helped Me Deal With Love, Guilt, and Fatherhood
A journalist takes his son, who has Asperger’s, to meet Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and learns to be a better father after the meetings:
“Bush had connected. With an impish smile, he told Tyler about the time that rocker/humanitarian Bono was scheduled to visit the White House. The president’s aides, knowing that their boss was unimpressed by celebrities, worried that Bush would blow it. ‘[Chief of Staff] Josh Bolten comes in and said, “Now, you know who Bono is, don’t you?” Just as he’s leaving the Oval Office, I said, “Yeah, he’s married to Cher.” ‘ Bush raised an eyebrow. ‘Get it?’ he asked Tyler. ‘Bone-oh. Bahn-oh.’
“Afterward, I asked Tyler about the Bono joke. He said, ‘Sounds like something goofy you would say.’ But for me, the exchange was an eye-opener. Tyler was terse, even rude, but Bush was solicitous. Rather than being thrown by Tyler’s idiosyncrasies, he rolled with them, exactly as he had in the Oval Office nine years earlier. He responded to every clipped answer with another probing question. Bush, a man who famously doesn’t suffer fools or breaches of propriety, gave my son the benefit of the doubt. I was beginning to think that people are more perceptive and less judgmental toward Tyler than his own father is. Bush certainly was.”
