PHOENIX - Gordon James still remembers his impressions of meeting First Lady Barbara Bush -- even though it happened more than four decades ago.
“I was afraid of her. Her reputation preceeded her as somebody who expected loyalty. She was 'the enforcer,'” he said.
Before becoming a public relations executive in Phoenix, James spent most of his life with the Bushes, working as a staffer for the first family and doing whatever it took to help the president and first lady in their day-to-day duties.
It didn’t take James long to see a different side to Barbara Bush.
“You know, she treated us all like she was our mother. She was so worried about all of us all the time. Of course, we were supposed to be worried about her,” he said.
James had a front-row ticket to a union that seems to have only strengthened with time.
“I have always been envious of their marriage and how long it lasted. You know, they were just a regular family. They had ups and downs just like any other family and any other marriage,” he said. “But they stuck it out through everything and he was right there with her [the day she died]. He was right there at her bedside.”
“She met him when she was 16. It's going to be real hard for him,” James added.
And his initial impression of the first lady was far from the woman he called his friend.
“People always say she was the enforcer and she demanded loyalty, but it was easy to give. It was just easy. She was a friend. As you are loyal to your friends, I was loyal to her, and she was more than loyal to me,” he said.