[During his time in the Texas Air National Guard] there were a stream a reminders that George W. Bush wasn't just another rank-and-file military pilot.
The most memorable came in early 1969 when his father [George H.W. Bush], who was throwing a party at Washington's Alibi Club for Apollo 8's commander, Frank Borman, called his son with a proposition. "How would you like to fly up to Washington for a dinner with an astronaut?" he asked in a phone call, adding that he had also invited first daughter Tricia Nixon. "I thought it might be fun if you took her to the party," he said. Taken aback and noncommittal at first, George W. accepted the blind date only after betting his doubtful flight school buddies that the invitation was real. He found himself fifty dollars richer when a military plane later arrived at Moody [Air Force Base] to whisk him off to Washington for the occasion.
In spite of his father's best matchmaking intentions, the date ended up a bust. What started less than auspiciously, with George W. entering through the gates of the White House for the first time in his life -- behind the wheel of a purple AMC Gremlin, complete with Levi's denim seats, that he had borrowed from his parents -- ended up with the President's elder daughter asking to return home just after dinner. "Being a swashbuckling pilot, I had taken to drink," George W. recalled of the date much later. "I reached for some butter, knocked over a glass and watched in horror as a stain of red wine crept across the table. Then I fired up a cigarette prompting a polite suggestion from Tricia that I not smoke." When he returned to the dinner after escorting Ms. Nixon home, a friend of his father discreetly asked, "Get any?" Not even close, Bush replied.
-- George W. Bush's disastrous blind date with President Richard Nixon's eldest daughter, Tricia Nixon, in 1969, as recounted by Mark K. Updegrove in The Last Republicans: Inside the Extraordinary Relationship Between George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)
