Splendid, modest, funny, bright. That’s how Curt Smith remembers President George H.W. Bush.
Smith is a UR lecturer and former speechwriter for President George Bush. Smith, a Livingston County native who previously also hosted a program on WXXI, worked with Bush for his full term as president as well as years after that time.
Smith said Bush's passing struck him "rather fiercely on a personal level," describing the man as an extraordinary person, and a great president.
"And he was so modest! That he literally, when I was writing speeches for him, hated to use the word I, now you try writing a speech not using the word I, much easier said than done. But that was the kind of person he is and was."
As the nation remembers Bush, Smith is looking back at an old friend and boss. Smith touched on Bush's other accomplishments, as a war hero and a collegiate baseball player.
"He acted as if he were an everyday American. And I used to say you know if all of us were more like George Bush this would be a better place and I know as a dad, I used to say if I were half the father that George Bush is I would be a very happy dad."
Smith said he never thought of the president as a President while working with him, especially when they worked outside the White House. He says both political parties respected him.
"As the two parties, the ideologies, we’ve become so split and so divided. I think the country has looked to him as a symbol of how things are not today as they should be and once were."
Bush passed late Friday at the age of 94.
