George Bush guided President Clinton and the first lady, two ex-presidents and various celebrities such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Kevin Costner Thursday through the presidential museum that bears his name.
About 40,000 people were invited to ceremonies dedicating the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum at Texas A&M University in College Station, some 85 miles northwest of Houston, where Bush now lives.The Rev. Billy Graham gave the invocation.
Among those in attendance were the Clintons; former presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford and their wives; Nancy Reagan and Lady Bird Johnson. Ten governors, several congressmen, both Texas senators, and about 20 Bush Cabinet members were present.
They were mixing with actors Schwarzenegger and Costner, country singers Crystal Gayle and Loretta Lynn, and pianist Van Cli-burn.
More than 60 members of Bush's family also were attending, from infant grandchildren Georgette and Robert to Uncle Lou and Aunt Grace Walker, both in their 90s.
The anticipated hoopla of Thursday's celebration made Bush a bit uneasy. After all, his mom taught him not to show off.
"You've got to recognize this is a George Bush Library, so a lot of it is about me, maybe too much," said the 73-year-old Bush, whose mother hated bragging so much that legend has it she punished him for starting sentences with the word "I."
"I'm nervous that if my mother is looking down . . . and hears people saying only nice things about her son and she sees an exhibit that is a bit of an ego trip, she'll be rolling around up there, bawling me out."
The $80 million library, museum and school of government on the site of what was once a Texas A&M hog farm chronicles Bush's life from infancy to the present, with an emphasis, of course, on his presidency from 1989 to 1993.
"Maybe out of all these archives and histories and little notes and pictures we'll have a better understanding of the heartbeat of the president," Bush said.