REMEMBERING MR. H. ROSS PEROT
A few years ago, I was staying at a prosperous friend’s house in a Dallas suburb. He drove me around the neighborhood: “That’s the Bush house, that’s Don Henley’s compound (dude owns like a block of houses. All fenced in. Seriously), that’s Ross Perot’s house…”
“How is Perot?” I asked. “Unwell. We don’t see him much,” said my friend. I was overcome with sadness, remembering what he meant to a young me.
And now we have lost him.
“He was a legend. He was a business visionary. He was a presidential candidate. He was a national figure. But he was the most down-to-earth, decent, caring man I’d ever meet,” friend Ken Langone said at the memorial at Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas. “Above all else, that’s what he was.”
Life lesson: Always listen to Ken Langone.
Second life lesson: Study H. Ross Perot if you aren’t already familiar and learn from him. About family, about country, about business, and, simply, how to live and conduct yourself.
It was 1992 when I first became aware of him. He was on Larry King Live and challenged us to get his name on the ballot in all 50 states. He basically dared America to create a candidacy, and we did. I’ve worked in politics for nearly 40 years, and I will never, ever forget that campaign and the mark it left on the then-young me. I supported him and his candidacy with all the gusto I could muster.
I have not returned to the establishment Republican fold since and I have no plans to.
People like to say he brought us Bill Clinton, but I reject that. If more citizens were to do what Perot did, our nation would be exponentially better for it. Plus, for the record, George H.W. Bush brought us Bill Clinton, OK? He was a weak president with a thirst for war. Good man, bad president. Period. Don’t cry.
The work, both quiet and public, that Perot did for our veterans is the stuff of legend. And oh, how our veterans and service men and women knew it. It showed during the campaign, and it showed on Tuesday when the missing-man formation of F-16’s buzzed his funeral.
I’ve been writing a bit this week about turning 50. Work has put me in the New York City area a bit lately, so I’ve had the chance to pay visits to my 90-something father-in-law, who perhaps absent the billions, reminds me a great deal of Perot. He’s got that intense grit mixed with deep kindness that is so unique to their generation, and that we have generally lost. I hope we can find it again somehow, though it will probably take a catastrophic event at the rate we are going.
Anyway, there’s not much else to say except thank you, Henry Ross Perot. And may God bless Margot, Ross Jr, Nancy, Suzanne, Katherine and Carolyn.
What a fine American and brilliant man he was.
BTW, If God forbid you were to die tomorrow could you genuinely be characterized as “the most down-to-earth, decent, caring (person) (eulogist) would ever meet?”
It’s ok. There’s still time. Get on it. Do it for Ross.
“If you see a snake, just kill it — don’t appoint a committee on snakes.”
