Tales of a Bush league outfielder (National Post, June 29, 2005)

National Post
June 29, 2005

KENNEBUNKPORT, Maine - As Canada Day approaches -- with American Independence Day close on its heels -- I feel distant from Prime Minister Paul Martin and very close to President George Bush. It isn't disloyalty. It's just that I am very close to Bush -- or at least to his family estate near Kennebunkport, Maine. About nine miles away, to be precise, in the beach house to which we return like homing pigeons every June, avoiding the tourist swarm and Route #1 gridlock of high season.

Every president seems to cherish a landscape of the heart -- sometimes but not necessarily his birthplace -- which becomes a retreat from the Sturm und Drang of high office, and a more intimate setting for entertaining peers. For recreation, Ronald Reagan rode horses on his ranch in San Clemente, Calif., JFK played touch football and sailed at the Kennedy family compound in Hyannisport, Cape Cod, while Jimmy Carter found respite working the fields of his Georgia peanut farm.

Bush Senior adores his ocean-drenched time at his coastal home in Kennebunkport.

W is happier clearing brush at his ranch in Texas, where he grew up, though he often vacations with the extended clan in Maine. How he can prefer the dusty, parched flatlands of Texas to the briny air, tide-rinsed sands and craggy splendour of the Maine coast is a great mystery to me.

We get our Maine "fix" on a tranquil beach between the resort towns of Ogunquit and Kennebunkport -- closer to Ogunquit, which attracts a more diverse sociological cross-section of New England (and Quebec) than K'port, the more Republican, self-conscious and preppy of the two. We love Ogunquit, but often visit adorable K'port to shop and eat. So we're very conscious of how influenced K'port is by the Bush family presence.

Their house is a tourist magnet, majestic in the old-fashioned New England style -- weather-beaten shingles, multiple porches -- iconically fortress-like, ocean-oriented and beyond outsiders' reach at the tip of its commanding peninsula. Even when the family is away, people perch on the rocks beside the road with binoculars and cameras to gaze and admire, closely observed by the continuously patrolling secret service.

We ran into George Bush Sr. about 19 years ago shopping in a shoe factory outlet. He was wearing a red and white-trimmed navy satin baseball jacket, on its back in bold lettering the words "Vice President of the United States of America" above an embroidered Seal of Office. We took that to mean he was approachable -- can you imagine seeing a similar self-advertisement on a high public official anywhere else in the world? -- and so he was, affably autographing our shoe boxes with a flourish.

A few days ago we missed him by mere hours at Barnacle Billy's lobster pound in Ogunquit, and were absurdly disappointed. But yesterday in K'port, alerted to his arrival by black secret service boats making a preliminary area sweep, we waved from the deck of the Arundel Wharf, where he occasionally lunches, as he piloted an outboard motor boat through the harbour.

The most determinedly Bush theme site in K'port is Bartley's Dockside restaurant, a clam shack/diner with a more upscale dinner menu than its appearance suggests, and a shrine to the Bushes, as well as a preferred hangout for the secret service. The walls are plastered with photos featuring various Bushes hugging various Bartleys. Amongst other Bush-related items for sale are T-shirts reading "One Town -- Two Presidents."

The Bartleys claim they don't lose custom over such ostentatious partisanship, but we saw one couple enter, absorb the monolithic aesthetic, exchange a speaking look and slip away. Perhaps they were Canadians.

I asked one of the waitresses at the Arundel Wharf if there are any Democrats in K'port. "Oh sure, all the wait staff." That makes sense, as most are college students. Is anyone ever rude to the Bushes when they eat here? She laughed merrily at the very idea: "Nobody would dare to in this town. It's Bush territory."

K'port is one of the prettiest towns in America as a tourist destination, but if the thought of breathing the same air as a critical mass of Bush conservatives makes you gloomy, head directly south 10 miles on Route #1 to Ogunquit, an equally charming village boasting no U.S. presidents, but a flourishing artistic community, a magnificent public beach (family and gay turfs amiably contiguous, virtual boundary meticulously respected), and more than a few faded Kerry/Edwards bumper stickers.

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Tales of a Bush league outfielder (National Post, June 29, 2005)