 One of the people who was taped recently referred to Lady Bird as Lyndon Johnson's North Star. Would you comment on that? Yeah. Well, that is a lovely comment and she was an anchor for it as well as something to follow. And I did recently run across some notes that she had done in Shorthand when she had been listening to, I guess she had been listening to a Johnson Press conference from the East Room and she had been watching it on television and she had made these notes about how he should look into the camera and how his pauses were good, but how his pauses could be improved and words to emphasize and she was, she was, they were not critical comments, they were things that she thought would improve his presentation and she, when, I didn't know Mrs. Johnson, when she was, when people talked about her as being this shy little butterfly, fragile person, I knew her after she had been in speech classes with Hester Bell Provenson and would, and she knew how to mark her speech cards and she knew how to emphasize certain sections and how to look at an audience and sometimes you would just walk into her room, you were coming, I was coming over to work with her on perhaps a guest list or a White House entertainment and I'd walk into her bedroom where her desk was and she would stand up and start talking to me and it would be kind of a shock, momentary shock because before I realized that what she was doing, she was using me as the audience to practice her, to practice her speech cards but Mrs. Johnson is a person who I don't think in her whole life was ever born because she had this deep curiosity about everything and everybody, whether it was learning about a new plant and what would make it grow or whether it was a new person or whether she was seeing you for, and she hadn't seen you a while, she was interested in what you were doing, what you were interested in and she just viewed life as a rich experience and I sometimes thought of that line in the play Annie Mame where Annie Mame says that life is a banquet and most poor fools are just starving to death. Well Mrs. Johnson was never starving to death and when you were around her you were never starving to death either because she brought you into the excitement of what she was interested in and what she was doing and knew things that she was exploring and that's one of the reasons that the Wildflower Center first called the what the National Wildflower Research Center and then became over Mrs. Johnson's initial protest because she did not want it named after her but after it had been in business for I guess about 18 years it was renamed the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center but she always had a joy in life and a joy in discovery, a joy in doing something new and exploring something new. I was with her in the Virgin Island, she had gone down to give the graduation address at the University of the Virgin Islands and after the ceremonial activities at the university we went over to the island of St. John for two days of R&R rest and relaxation and I had brought along my mask and flippers and snorkel to go out and see this the wonderful things in that clear water of the Caribbean and she she wanted to go too so we got a mask and flippers and snorkel for her and I had been with other people when that was the first time they had put a mask on their face and breathing through a tube through the water and there's a certain time getting used to it and a little bit of discomfort but for Mrs. Johnson as soon as she put that mask on and put her face in the water and realized that she was like her very own glass bottom boat and she could see what was on this the floor of the Caribbean and she could see all these beautiful fish and the coral and so forth she just never wanted to take her head out of the water we had this ranger naturalist with us a man named Noble Samuels who knew all the flora and fauna whether it was above above the earth or below the water and at one point she was swimming along with Noble and she took her head out of the water and she said noble what is that silvery fish with the long mouth and instead of answering her directly he pointed to another quite wonderful colorful fish and told her about that fish and what it did and what its name was and what it ate and sometime later when we got back in the boat Mrs. Johnson said to Noble that long silver fish with the long mouth that was a barracuda wasn't it and he said well yes Mrs. Johnson but it wasn't going to bother you so she had it was a great day of discovery of things in the things in the water and what they did and what they ate and she was back in the water the next day and has enjoyed snorkeling since then I think she was about 55 then and to show that she's always doing and always doing new things I think it was about two years later I think she was 57 when she learned a waterski. Soon after the Johnsons came to the White House Mrs. Johnson was interviewed by a reporter who wanted to know her theories on entertaining and what sort of menus they would be serving and what sort of flowers and how they how the tables would be decorated and after listening to this very long question Mrs. Johnson just said oh my goodness I've had to worry about those things for more than 20 years and now I'm in this beautiful house and we have this wonderful staff all these people that worry about those things I don't have to worry about those things anymore I can concentrate on the guests and that's what she did both who to invite and once they were invited how to make that experience of being in the White House a rich and wonderful time for them and she would before before a large large or small occasion she would study the guest list and go over who was who was going to be there and think about introducing various people to each other but also making that brief experience of guests when they go through a receiving line of making that a meaningful moment having something to say to that guest whether it was an author about his book and one of the things that she did with with authors was that she would have them autograph their books that were to be placed in the White House library which made the book more wonderful for the White House library and also it was a wonderful flattering thing to do for the for the author but she would and people going through their receiving line she would say now I want you to meet so-and-so or she would tell them that she wanted them to see some object that was in the White House that might have come from their state or that they might have some special tie with when Mr. Johnson was vice president the the ambassador of Iran used to send over to the vice president's house about every six or seven weeks a big box of pistachio nuts from Iran and also a wonderful generous tin of that fabulous Iranian caviar from the Caspian Sea and the Johnson's just delighted in that enjoyed the pistachio nuts and reveled in the enjoying this fabulous caviar from Iran and after they had been in the White House for several months Mrs. Johnson called me and she said I keep signing these letters to the ambassador of Iran thanking him for the pistachio nuts and thanking him for the caviar where are the pistachio nuts and where is the caviar and I said well I have no idea I thought that it would be going to you but upon a little investigation I found that the Secret Service just destroyed any foodstuffs that were sent to the president or his family so I relayed this to Mrs. Johnson and said that the Secret Service said that they were sorry but any foodstuff that came to the president or his family had to be destroyed and there was a long pause in this conversation with Mrs. Johnson and she said well you call the Secret Service and tell them to send me the pistachio nuts and send me the caviar and I will take care of destroying it personally. One time I was in Texas with Mrs. Johnson and this was before the days of plastic of credit cards and ATM bank cards where you could just plug a card in and assuming you weren't overdrawn at the bank you could get some cash well this was before those days and I had stayed down in Texas longer than I had anticipated and I had run out of cash so I'd asked Mrs. Johnson if she would cash a check for me she said yes indeed so we drove to the bank and I wrote her a check and she was going to take it into the bank and cash and she looked at it and she said my goodness you and Tyler have a joint checking account and I said well yes ma'am and she said my goodness I wouldn't have a joint checking account with the angel Gabriel I do have always seen Mrs. Johnson as somebody who was looking forward and a positiveness about life and I do believe that she believes the best in the best in us and the best that if you if you think about goodness in people that they will respond but in one of her one of the things that she has enjoyed and that business I think of as looking forward is the children of her friends and at a time in her life when politics personally for herself and for President Johnson was passed she enjoyed um thinking about and knowing about the sons and daughters of friends of theirs and sons and daughters of people who had been in the Johnson administration going into politics and running for office and it was just another link with the future and well that's not very interesting one Saturday I had come in to work with Mrs. Johnson on some guest lists and some entertainment and it was a lovely summer day and we were sitting out on the Truman balcony and she looked at me and she said you just look very tired and very haggard what is happening that that you just seem so exhausted and I said oh Mrs. Johnson we moved into this new house and I just don't think that that I'll ever get finished she said well of course not dear you never get finished with the house you never get finished until you move out and that is so true when it's something I've reminded myself often and also reminded friends of mine when they get in that same shape that well of course not you'll never be finished with your house not till the day you move out well that is all I have to say unless you can think of something else that's very good it's um it's a great picture of her talk a little bit about how the Johnson's treated the staff as family because I don't think that's ever been done before more sense well I don't don't um this yet one of one of the things that I remember um as if I can put it together is how the um I don't I don't like comparisons but when I at one point called somebody in my office who had worked in in Mrs. Kennedy's um social office and I asked them to bring something up to the second floor of the White House they were they they wanted to really be sure that that they had heard what I said and then afterwards said that it was the first time that they had been on the the second floor of the um of the White House that's um but that that's not that's not it it's um well they brought us in as guests they brought us in we were part of their part of their life part of their part of their family it was a great thing to be a part of um really did um adopt you I you're not running this are you are you running this oh shoot what yeah stop for a minute um and that's the way titer grew up so for us it wasn't unusual but I have crossed it with um with my daughter-in-law who my friend Ann Wood who has the office back there and it has used that space in the house for a long time as an office Deborah just took real she said what is this um most of us who worked for President and Mrs. Johnson became a part of their part of their family they were they were interested in us they were interested in our children they were interested in um uh what we were doing and we were just um a part of their life and vice versa um I think everybody that that worked for them in the Senate the vice presidential the White House years really felt um a part of their family and they made us part of the family they included they included us in special events they would invite staff members to um sometimes come to state dinners sometimes for um a reception toward the end of the Johnson administration the President Mrs. Johnson wanted to be sure that everybody who worked for them was invited to something or another and we began having more and more people come in after dinner for for dancing at um at events in fact one um one evening one of the last state dinners the president was dancing with various people and he was dancing with one woman who made Betty Tilson who worked in uh Mrs. Johnson's correspondence office and he came over to me afterwards and said now what does Betty Tilson do and I told him that she wrote absolutely the very best letters drafted the very best letters for Mrs. Johnson and he said oh well then he went over and um asked Betty Tilson to come to Texas with him and by Ollie Betty and her husband Don moved to Austin Texas and Don got a job down there I think maybe he worked for the government anyway and he got a transfer to a job in in Austin Texas and Betty and Don became a member of the of the Johnson extended family but they included us in Christmas they they were a part of people's weddings a part of their joys a part of their sadnesses and we were part of theirs another thing is that the um the family quarters of the White House were open to staff because we had that that area of the White House in past administrations had basically there was a line across there and you didn't go up that elevator to the second floor but the um with the Johnson's there were meetings up there there were luncheons dinners it was just a part of the house that we knew as well as the state floor is that that that party they had that was the last night they were in the White House and they had it for the staff right which is the other touching here the the the last night that the Johnson's were in the White House they had um well the second to last night they were there they had a party for the members of the president's cabinet and their wives and the last night they were in the White House they had a party for their staff and where we took pictures and shared memories and it's a very special memory looking back at that the dinner in the family dining room upstairs and cocktails before and coffee afterwards in the yellow oval room with that lovely view out the window across the south lawn to the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial beyond the prettiest view in the White House I like particularly what you said about you shared their happiness and shared their sadness they shared yours right that's nice that's a nice touch and then before I did tell that great story about Mrs. Johnson saying that um she was um oh when she when we asked her if she was going to miss the White House should I do that again toward the very end of the Johnson administration I was driving out of the White House grounds with Mrs. Johnson we were going off to some embassy reception and it was a lovely evening the sun was setting and it was just the sky was beautiful that the you could see the inaugural platform going up there on Pennsylvania Avenue as we were going out the North Gate and I said to Mrs. Johnson so we were leaving this beautiful house said are you going to miss all this when you're back in Texas and she said oh yes I'm just going to miss it I'm going to miss it like a front tooth but you know there's just absolutely nothing in the world that would make me willing to pay the price for another ticket of admission