- Bastiaan M. Drees, Jan. 20, 2017
I’m writing this personal narrative on the morning our 45th president, Donald Trump, is to be sworn into office. I’ve had a bad cold for almost a week, and it has been cold, gloomy, and rainy outside (it seems like it has been like that ever since the election last November). I will sincerely miss the Obamas in the White House, who represented America to the world as decent, fair, diplomatic and well-meaning symbols of our free country. Who knows what will be in store for this country after today. All I can hope for is that our lives do not begin to resemble “Pottersville” from the movie, It’s a Wonderful Life. I’ll be waiting to wake up from this nightmare.
Today reminds me of when I once met another president-to-be, George W. Bush, who may have been the worst president in my lifetime – until now. When Bush was campaigning, my Mom was interviewed by a Dutch news agency and was quoted as saying that Bush was like an empty paper bag that had nothing to offer to help this country. With Dick Chaney, his Vice Presidential pick, running the presidency from the shadows, she was pretty much dead on.
In late 1997, the Texas legislature approved funding for the “Texas Red Imported Fire Ant Research and Management Plan” that I helped develop along with my department head, Dr. Ray Frisbie, and colleague, Dr. S. Bradleigh Vinson. The plan provided $2.5 million to fund applied research and outreach education efforts to combat this invasive pest ant species in Texas. It was awarded to Texas A&M University’s Agricultural Experiment Station, Texas Tech University, University of Texas, Texas Department of Agriculture and the Texas Agricultural Extension Service where I worked. I was asked to coordinate the program and assure that funding was spent as specified by the law passed (Bill Number TX74RHB 2341, May 12, 1995 introduced by Representative Tom Ramsay, D – Mt. Pleasant). What an honor.
The project was successful and enjoyed high public visibility through its website (http://fireant.tamu.edu), billboards, public bus banners, public service announcements and many news releases. In 1998, Governor George W. Bush was encouraged to establish the second week in September as “Fire Ant Awareness Week” in Texas forevermore. This designation was approved in 1999 by the Texas legislature through H.C.R. No. 259. That week would henceforth be accompanied by events and press releases encouraging citizens to manage their fire ants in the fall using methods promoted by the program including using the ant bait insecticide-based “Two-Step Method” and doing it in their communities (for example, throughout entire city blocks of homeowners association groups).
A meeting was set up for a photo opportunity with the governor and dignitaries involved with the Fire Ant Program. Unfortunately, last minute scheduling changes by the governor’s office kept changing the meeting time, so by the time the opportunity took place, only my Texas Tech colleague, Harlan Thorvilson, and I joined Representative Ramsay for the meeting on the second floor of the State Capitol. We arrived bearing “gifts”or “gimmies” promoting the fire ant program. We waited, busying ourselves with small talk and nervous chatter that included mention of the fact that George W. Bush might become the next President of the United States.
Finally, the side door opened and in came Governor Bush. He shook our hands, and we managed to give his assistant our gifts. Then he quickly sat down at a big desk in the room with a sheet of paper and pen. We posed. The photographer quickly took a few pictures of the governor pretending to sign the paper before he got up and left the room. That was it.
We were stunned. I asked, “What just happened here?” All we could do was laugh and marvel at our experience. Harlan and I stumbled downstairs, said goodbye to Representative Ramsay, and made it to the front steps of the State Capitol, getting ready to leave. Suddenly the governor emerged from the front door. He recognized us, said hello, and asked about making his appointments to committees overseeing the Fire Ant Program. I gave a fumbled response, and he bounded down the steps to his waiting limousine and was gone. At Christmas time that year, I received a beautiful photograph of the session, signed by both Governor Bush and Representative Ramsey.
George W. Bush was elected president and served two terms from January 20, 2001 – January 20, 2009. (Rick Perry, who I got to know briefly as Commissioner of Agriculture when he headed up a committee to address red imported fire ants, was appointed to serve out Bush’s term as Texas’ Governor.) On the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, “a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks were carried out by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda on the United States. The attacks killed 2,996 people, injured over 6,000 others, and caused at least $10 billion in property and infrastructure damage and $3 trillion in total costs” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks). Everything suddenly changed.
On the evening of September 11, 2001, I was scheduled to make a presentation about “Fire Ant Awareness Week” in Bellville, Austin County, Texas at the request of County Extension Agent, Philip Schakleford. He did not know what else to do but go ahead and have the meeting. Evidently, residents of the county did not know what to do either, and so there were about 30 people in attendance. We all were stunned and knew the world had changed dramatically. However, sometimes there is no other course of action but to continue life as normally as possible. Philip held meetings each year during that week for the rest of my working life (until 2013), but “9/11” eclipsed “Fire Ant Awareness Week”. This overshadowing historical event, together with dwindling amounts of funding provided to the Fire Ant Project by the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station administration after the initial 6-year plan, caused the program – and my position as coordinator and director – to quietly fade into history.
We are probably all closer to history than we think. My mom was in the Dallas, Texas Holland-America Club in the early 1960s where immigrant families got together to share the challenges of adopting to their new country. When President John F. Kennedy was shot on November 22, 1963, Mom and fellow club members remembered Lee Harvey Oswald’s wife, discussing with club members her worries about her husband and his involvement well before he was implicated in the shooting.
My brush with George W. Bush did not change history. The political climate during his two terms in office was horrendous. Any criticism of him or his actions (like when the country group, The Dixie Chicks, exclaimed that they did not support the president) was met with scorn and ridicule. He split families, including mine, into opposing groups: my Democrat mother could no longer discuss politics with my Republican sister! He left the country in a far worse condition than when he took over from Bill Clinton, losing the popular vote to Al Gore in an election for which the Supreme Court had to call the winner. Many today still maintain that he stole the election. We now find a country in a similar or worse state, with Donald Trump losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by 3 million votes, while winning the electoral vote – with the help of the Russian government!
All I can say is that I was a part of presidential history and have a photograph to prove it! Now the future — that’s another story.
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Drees, B. M. 2003. Red Imported Fire Ant Highlights 1997-2003. Texas Agricultural Experiment Station. College Station, TX. 14 pages.
