Part 4 (2/2)
As the fall of 1991 began to turn toward winter, Janet and I had seriously contemplated the idea of my running for the United States Senate and determined that it would be absurd for me to even entertain the notion. Bill Clinton had announced his candidacy for president in October of 1991, and we knew that that alone would change the political landscape of the state.
We carefully sought to weigh all the ramifications of stepping out from what was a very comfortable and desirable life to get into something that would be an incredibly uphill climb. To get elected, I would have to defeat Dale b.u.mpers, a three-term U.S. senator and two-term governor. As Christmas approached, we knew that to run in 1992 I would have to make my decision soon and that if I decided to run, it would require another major transition in our lives that would bring upheaval to the peaceful and comfortable world we lived in.
In December of 1991, within days of Christmas, Janet and I took a long walk around the streets of our neighborhood and talked very honestly with each other about what might be the most game-changing decision of our marriage and our lives. It was a cool but not especially cold night, and we were able to take our time as we walked past the nicely decorated homes in our well-groomed subdivision, where our friends and neighbors were behind their doors preparing for Christmas, oblivious to the fact that just outside, Janet and I were on a journey that wouldn't just end when we got back home. In fact, what happened on that walk would ultimately lead us further from home than we could have ever imagined.
Christmas is the perfect time to reflect; it's a time for looking back. You look back to the first Christmas, to the year behind you, and to the year ahead. At Christmas, you are reminded what really matters-sacrifice, love, family, purpose-and this Christmas was no different. Janet and I were grateful for everything we had, but we also knew that politics would give me the opportunity to give back even more. First, we knew that running for office would mean having to resign from the church, and that meant walking away from a good income and a comfortable life-better than either of us had imagined living. It would mean opening our lives up to a level of scrutiny, hostility, and criticism unlike any we had faced. We couldn't fully understand just how lonely the journey would be at times and how much it would empty us of pretty much everything we had materially, personally, and spiritually. But we decided that we could hardly encourage people to be ”salt and light” in a broken world if we weren't willing to step out of the boat and into the sea ourselves.
Somewhere along Cambridge Street, where our house sat at the end of the cul-de-sac, Janet and I decided that if G.o.d's purpose and plan for our lives was to get comfortable, then we had indeed found success. But how could we truly claim that G.o.d's purpose for us was to become comfortable? We agreed that we were on the planet to be light in the darkness and a preservative in a culture that was spoiling.
It was our custom to have a Christmas open house for our church family each holiday season, and that year, as we welcomed the several hundred people-many of them dear friends-who dropped in throughout the day, it was difficult to hold back the deep emotions that were going through our minds. I must confess that the thought of leaving such a gracious circle of affirmation was painful. I would later compare the move from the church to politics to stepping out of a nice, warm, soothing hot tub and into a tank of hungry sharks!
As we celebrated the Christmas of 1991, we were aware that no matter what, things would never be the same in our lives. We had no idea of just how different they would be for the next eighteen years. We waited until after Christmas to tell the kids about the decision, though they could tell that something major was in the air. We wanted to keep things as normal as possible for as long as possible, and I'm glad we did, because from that Christmas forward, there would be nothing normal whatsoever about our lives.
On the last Sunday of 1991, I announced my intention to step down as pastor of the church effective the first week of February. I wanted to make sure there was an opportunity to tie up loose ends and make the transition as smooth as possible for the church, the staff, and the family. I did not say what had led me to this decision, as I didn't want anyone to think I was using the pulpit to advance my bid for office.
It was one of the most frightening risks Janet and I had taken in our marriage. When we were younger, it had been fairly easy to walk away from something-when there was so little to walk away from. When it was just the two of us and everything we owned could fit into a pickup truck and the backseat of a car, a move to a new town or a change to a new job wasn't too daunting. Now there was a mortgage, three kids ranging in age from nine to fifteen, and the prospect of spending an entire year without an income in order to ”apply” for a job that was already filled by someone who was prepared to spend several million dollars to keep it.
In order to survive, we cashed in a life insurance policy and liquidated funds from an annuity, and I picked up freelance communications jobs so that we could keep food on the table and pay the bills. Miraculously, we were never late in payment on anything and we managed to survive, although there were many months when I wasn't sure how this had been possible. To this day, I find it stunningly stupid when columnists and pundits suggest that I entered politics for the money. Their ignorance of the real journey is staggering.
It was several years into my term as governor-several years after my initial run for office-before my income finally equaled what I had made as a pastor in Texarkana. Arkansas has the lowest salary for its governor of any state in the nation. I clearly didn't do it for the money. It was only because I had the opportunity to write books during my term as governor that I was able to get my kids through college without having to borrow a fortune, and it wasn't until my presidential campaign ended and I started working in television and radio again that my income increased to anything really substantial.
Life inside the fishbowl of politics is unlike what most people can imagine. Every aspect of one's life is open for inspection-tax returns, sources and amounts of income and expenditures, medical conditions, academic records, personal activities, and even friends and relations.h.i.+ps. Most of the reporters who are indignant when there is the least attempt to keep some area of life private would never accept or tolerate what they demand of candidates and officeholders, and they would of course argue that they are simply holding us accountable since we are getting a taxpayer-funded paycheck. Fair enough, but their words and opinions will directly affect how people feel about those candidates and elected officials, and perhaps it might be nice to know how much money they have and where it comes from; what organizations they are members of; what relations.h.i.+ps they have; what stocks they own; and what business relations.h.i.+ps they have. I know that isn't going to happen, and it probably shouldn't, but the self-righteous I-have-a-right-to-demand-information att.i.tude is often very difficult to tolerate knowing that most of the reporters who ask such questions would never answer them if the tables were turned.
Each Christmas is a time to reflect back on the year behind and to look forward at what lies ahead. We looked back in a very emotional review of not just a year but a career and a comfortable life that was coming to an end. We were looking ahead at the most uncertain since we had had to face Janet's cancer. There was no bridge behind us. We were walking the high wire with no net underneath us. There was a real risk of losing our house, our savings, and all that we owned. No one guaranteed us anything. But we were as much at peace with it all as if we had known the outcome was going to be better than imagined.
We learned from that process to keep things really simple. It was truly starting all over. We were forced to decide what was important in life and what things were just excess inventory. When the dust settled, what mattered was faith, family, and freedom. We would end up losing many things over the next few years, such as our privacy, our financial security, and our nice evenings at home, but we still had what mattered most. Simple things. And we rediscovered them during a transition at Christmas. A simple Christmas.
Faith.
My dad never finished high school. Neither did his father or his grandfather or any other male in my family before him. So the fact that I graduated from high school made me the Stars.h.i.+p Enterprise of my family-I had gone where no man had gone before. Graduating from college was an even bigger achievement. That doesn't mean my father was unintelligent, although it wasn't until I was married and had kids that I came to realize that having an education doesn't automatically make you smart.
On the campaign trail, I often described my dad as the kind of guy who lifted heavy things and only knew hard work. In addition to his job as a fireman, he worked as a mechanic, running a little generator repair shop on his days off, so his hands were always rough and deeply embedded with motor residue, no matter how hard he scrubbed. When I was growing up, the only soap we had in our house was Lava soap, and I was in college before I found out that it isn't supposed to hurt when you take a shower. So many refined ladies go to a spa these days and have an ”exfoliation.” A bar of Lava soap will do the same thing-for a fraction of the cost!
Mark Twain once said, ”When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.” It's that way for most of us, I suppose. We grow up thinking that we'll be nothing like our father, that he ”just doesn't get it,” and then one day we look in the mirror as adults and are startled to see him staring at us. I'm so much like my father that sometimes, when I say or do something like him, my wife and kids will say, ”There you go, Dorsey.” On a side note, you may be wondering about my father's name. I've often wondered about it myself. His full name was ”Dorsey Wiles Huckabee,” and the only explanation I've ever been able to come up with for why my grandparents named him that is that they must've wanted to toughen him up-like the dad in ”A Boy Named Sue” by Johnny Cash. I never knew exactly where the name came from, but I'm pretty sure my dad spent a good deal of his time with his fists balled up, taking on some punk who was giving him a hard time about his name.
My dad had a great sense of humor, although I don't think I realized that until I was grown. Kids never think their parents are really very funny or entertaining. Of course, my kids still don't think I'm very funny or entertaining, but I've fixed that by cutting them out of any inheritance until they acknowledge the wonderful world of humor that I've imparted to them. No laughs, no loot. I think that's fair.
Storytelling was a big part of our lives when I was little. We didn't think of it as storytelling at the time, just as my father's many recitations of his life and the lives of our relatives. I'm pretty sure that many of the stories were embellished and details were added or changed over time, but it was a part of our world and about the only real family history we had. It's caused me to realize just how important oral traditions can be and the value of a family pa.s.sing on the heirlooms of their heritage by way of stories.
I wasn't so conscious of such things as a child, but as I grew older, I realized that my dad lived with some regrets and even embarra.s.sment about not finis.h.i.+ng school and not having enough money to give us things others had. I eventually would realize that one of the reasons he pushed my sister and me to excel in all we did was that he wanted to make sure that we took advantage of all the opportunities we had. He encouraged us to play musical instruments, to try out for plays, to run for cla.s.s office, and to play sports. He never forced any particular activity on us, but if we showed interest, both he and my mother would insist that we do our best. If I heard that phrase once, I heard it a million times. ”Son, we don't care what you do as long as you do your best.” A halfhearted effort, whether in a science project or a household ch.o.r.e, was never acceptable. All endeav ors had better be accomplished with a sense of expeditious excellence, although neither of my parents would have used those words. They were old school in that they believed we were to respect authority whether we wanted to or not. That meant teachers, police officers, anyone deemed our ”elders,” or just about anyone else for that matter.
Getting in trouble at school was never a good thing, but it became unbearable if my parents found out. If the teacher or princ.i.p.al said, ”Do you want me to call your parents?” I suddenly became better behaved than Mother Teresa and Ma hatma Gandhi combined. On those occasions when they did find out, I never even tried to blame the teacher for being too harsh or perhaps mistaking me for the real offender in the cla.s.s. I was guilty, the teacher was right, and I would go right back to school and apologize. Then they would speak the words I hated most: ”You better not let me hear about this again.” Of course, I had no intention of my parents' ever hearing about it again, though that wasn't to say I wasn't going to do the same thing again. I was prepared to keep secrets better than d.i.c.k Cheney and would have rather been waterboarded by the CIA than face my parents' wrath for acting up at school.
You might think that since I became a pastor, I grew up in a really religious household, but my dad never went to church. Ever. He didn't want to talk about it, either. He didn't mind that my mother would take my sister and me to Sunday school, as long as we didn't bug him about going. He was not antire ligion and didn't speak disparagingly of ”church people,” but we knew not to bring up the subject. I was a teenager before I found out that the reason my dad was averse to all things church was because once, when he had attended some years earlier, someone had made fun of him for not having the ”right clothes.” It hurt him deeply, and instead of just ignoring the utterly insensitive and unchristian att.i.tude of the idiot who said it, he allowed that incident to drive him into a deep sh.e.l.l when it came to anything spiritual. I never knew who the wonderful ”Christian” was who had uttered such an intemperate remark, but because of that haunting knowledge, I have forever been mindful of how hurtful or how helpful words can be.
My mother was forced to be the spiritual leader of the family, and she was somewhat timid in faith, largely due to the lack of support she got from my dad in all religious matters. For the most part, we went to Sunday school and that was it. ”Big church,” as we called it, was the morning wors.h.i.+p service, and we would go occasionally, but I found it very intimidating because the preacher screamed and scared the daylights out of me. Plus, the music didn't exactly make my motor turn, since it was old-fas.h.i.+oned, piano-banging Southern gospel, and I was really getting into the Beatles. Bob Harrington, a famous evangelist prominent in the sixties, said it best: ”More people are following the Beatles than the Baptists, because the Beatles look like they are going somewhere and the Baptists look like they are sorry they've been!”
I did go to the things that were targeted more toward kids, like vacation Bible school in the summers, church camp, and the children's programs for Christmas. In fact, it was at vacation Bible school when I was ten years old that I became a believer. My sister had attended on Monday, but I had refused, saying that it was for girls and sissies. (Like father, like son!) My sister, always the great actor, said that at vacation Bible school, I could get all the cookies I could eat and all the Kool-Aid I could drink and the guys played baseball during the recess. Based on that description, I decided I would go the next day and quickly discovered my sister's big lie. They didn't let me eat more than two cookies or drink more than one small paper cup full of Kool-Aid. But that didn't matter, because something else did happen that day that changed my life.
It was August 24, 1965, my tenth birthday. So far my birthday and VBS had been very disappointing, and I wasn't prepared for them to get any better. The pastor of the church, Clyde Johnson, came to our cla.s.s and talked to us about ”knowing Jesus.” I couldn't really figure out what all that meant, but as he talked, I was so concentrated on what he was saying that I felt as if everyone else in the room had been dismissed and I was there alone. He told us that G.o.d knew everything there was to know about each of us. That both scared and excited me. It scared me to think that G.o.d knew not just my public words and actions but also my private thoughts. But it excited me to contemplate the idea that the Creator of the universe was actually aware of my existence and, more important, cared about me. I knew that most people in my little hometown didn't know who I was, but the fact that G.o.d did was rather overwhelming. Pastor Johnson asked us to raise our hands if we wanted to pray and ask Jesus to come into our hearts. I felt certain that if I lifted my hand, he would call me out and I would be put on the spot and likely humiliated. So I didn't raise my hand, but I snuck in by keeping my hand down but my heart up and prayed the prayer anyway. And though no one else heard me, G.o.d did, and I was overwhelmed with a sense of His presence. It wasn't just my physical birthday that day, but my spiritual one as well. In many ways, it was like Christmas, because I received the ultimate gift from G.o.d, and I learned that Christmas was all about G.o.d's coming to us-not our coming to Him.
The church I attended during my childhood was the Garrett Memorial Baptist Church in Hope, Arkansas. It was a small Missionary Baptist church, which is different from Southern Baptist mainly in denominational structure and the fact that Missionary Baptists tend to be stricter and frown upon everything from dancing to ”mixed bathing” (this meant boys and girls couldn't swim together or shower in the same stall, which really would have been scandalous) to ”modern music.” They lightened up somewhat on the music in later years, but their basic formula was ”Get saved, go to church while you live, and go to heaven when you die.” There wasn't much discussion about my faith transforming my daily life in terms of my actions or att.i.tudes toward things except for the external activities like going to church, giving t.i.thes, and singing hymns.
During my early teen years, the church hired a youth director who was supposed to create programs that catered to the youth and kept us interested in church. We actually got to play guitars, sing music that sounded closer to what we listened to on the radio, and talk about things that actually mattered to us, like dating, war, drugs, and career choices. This made me willing to go to ”big church,” so I started going to the Sunday night services because that's when the youth activities were held.
When I was fifteen, I was selected to represent Arkansas at the Hugh O'Brian Youth Foundation s.p.a.ce Seminar at Cape Kennedy, Florida. One student from each of the fifty states and ten from foreign countries were invited to spend a little over a week at no expense at Cape Kennedy to train with astronauts, learn about the s.p.a.ce program, and become ”s.p.a.ce Amba.s.sadors.” While there, I was stunned to find out that most of the other students lacked even a basic belief in G.o.d and that most of them were at the top of their cla.s.s and among the brightest in their state. I came back from that event with a new awareness of what a small world I had lived in and within a week had dedicated my life to Christian service.
I told my parents about my decision, and the next week, none other than my own father came to church for the first time I could ever remember. He said, ”If my son is going to do church work, I guess I had better at least go myself.” And with that began a new chapter for him and for the rest of the family.
Whatever had kept him out of church before was forgotten, and now nothing could keep him away. He had a hard time understanding the King James Version of the Bible, but my sister, mother, and I bought him a Living Bible, which is a modern-language version that reads more like a daily newspaper in simple, easy-to-understand language.
For the first time in my life, my parents sat together in church, and soon church became the center of their social lives as well as their spiritual lives. It was so strange to see my father going to church that on Sunday mornings I sometimes wondered, ”Who is this guy hurrying around the house telling us to get ready so we won't be late to church?”
Over the next few years, I saw my father's spiritual life grow. Slowly but steadily, he came to learn what it means to ”follow Jesus,” and while those of his generation were generally not overly vocal about such personal things as faith, he became very expressive about his faith. He didn't talk about it too much or b.u.t.tonhole people on the street, but his actions changed and truly reflected service and sacrifice. Without grudging, he gave with increasing generosity to the church and to special needs he knew about. He was the first to volunteer to mow the lawn of a family whose head of household was ill or to help someone who had to move furniture or to sit with a sick person at the hospital to relieve an exhausted family member.
As my sister and I graduated from high school, moved on to college, and married and started our own families, my father continued to be increasingly active and involved, which proved that he wasn't simply ”doing the church thing” for our benefit but was doing it because something genuine had happened to him that had changed his life.
As my sister and I were growing up, my dad really wasn't able to teach us much about faith, trust in G.o.d, or preparing for eternity. That all changed at Christmas of 1995.
In 1983, my dad had suffered a heart attack and had had to undergo heart bypa.s.s surgery. That was a real turning point in his life as he faced his own mortality in a profound way. From that point forward, he truly felt that every day was a ”borrowed day,” and he seemed to have a renewed sense of how temporary life is and a determination to make the most of it. One by-product of the experience was that he truly believed that every Christmas was his last one, and each year from 1983 forward, we had to listen to his annual declaration that ”this is probably my last Christmas with you guys, so I want to make the most of it.” He was so convinced that each Christmas was the last one that we joked among ourselves that this Christmas was the tenth annual ”last Christmas” for Dorsey Huckabee.
In 1995, we finally had reason to believe him. He had called us just two days before Christmas and calmly and soberly told us that he had been to the doctor and been told that a melanoma that he had had removed thirteen years earlier had returned and that it was already spreading. There was no crying or whining or complaining on his part. In fact, he was rather matter-of-fact about the news and just wanted us to know that there really wasn't much to be done about it and that he probably only had months left to live.
After all the years of his announcing to us that this was his ”last Christmas,” this time, we knew it probably really was.
I think there is, for most of us, a sense that Christmas makes us think about our own mortality. If a loved one has died during the year, we can't help but think of the empty chair at the dinner table or the familiar greeting, perennial gift, or other tradition that is missing. We ponder to ourselves what impact our absence would have on the family if we weren't there next year. Because Christmas is the one day of the year that we typically share with our extended families, the loss of a member creates a verydefinite void and a painfuland poignant reminder of the changes that will be permanent.
After all those years of joking about my father's perennial ”last Christmas,” there was nothing to laugh about this year. The only member of the family who seemed to be handling it with complete equilibrium was my dad. It was almost as if he were relieved that after years of wrongly predicting his demise, the odds of his. .h.i.tting it right this time were pretty good. My mother had been in very poor health since January of 1992, when she suffered a brain aneurysm and subsequent stroke. She had slowly regained many of her functions and facilities but was never the same. With this news, it was apparent that they would need to move into an a.s.sisted-living facility, as she needed daily care that he could no longer provide.
The fact that he was losing his health, his home, and his life seemed not to have an effect on his demeanor, other than to give him more of a reason to try to keep the rest of us cheered up and optimistic. He reminded us in every conversation that he had lived a good and blessed life and was so very grateful for the years he had had and the joy he had received from seeing his kids grow up, get through college, and have families of their own. We all wanted to comfort him, but he would have none of it-he wanted no sympathy and refused to let us get all weepy and sentimental. He was determined to face this demon head-on and beat it not by outliving it, but by not letting it ruin the time he had left.
Janet and I had gone through her cancer, but it was obvious from the beginning that this was an untamable monster that would take out my father's body, but he was determined that it wouldn't take out his soul. For the next three months, as his body weakened, his faith strengthened. I found myself amazed that this same man who wouldn't even set foot in church for the first fifteen years of my life, and who even as an adult had been somewhat guarded and timid in his outward expression of faith, was now abounding in encouragement as he truly exhibited what it was to ”walk through the valley of the shadow of death” and ”fear no evil.”
With each phone call or visit with my father, I could tell he was physically declining but advancing in his hope and optimism. He had no illusions of getting well. This was not the kind of man to cling to an unrealistic hope, and he openly told us that he knew he would die soon. His only concerns were for my mother, my sister, and me. He reminded us daily that things were fine with him and that he only regretted that he didn't get to live long enough to see his grandkids grow up and get married.
I was lieutenant governor of Arkansas at the time, having been elected in a special election in July 1993 and then reelected in 1994. In 1996, I had announced my candidacy for the United States Senate for an open seat vacated by Senator David Pryor, and I was leading in all polls and seemingly on my way to victory. The governor, Jim Guy Tucker, had been indicted and was awaiting trial on felony charges related to the Whitewater investigations led by Kenneth Starr. I was confident that no Arkansas jury would ever convict a sitting Democratic governor of anything, especially if the person who would take the office was a Republican. That's why I proceeded with the Senate campaign.
My dad told me, ”Son, I wish I were going to live long enough to see you become governor.” I told him that he would have to live a very long time, since that didn't appear to be in the works, and I explained to him that even though Governor Tucker was facing trial, it didn't seem likely that he would be convicted, and even if he were, he'd probably refuse to resign until he had exhausted his appeals. In a rare moment for my dad, who seldom tried to instruct me in the nature of politics, he smiled and said, ”You will be governor. I just won't be here to see it.”
He was right about both.
He died on the last day of March of 1996. He had requested that I speak at his funeral service, which I did. I was reluctant to do so because I knew that it was going to be hard to control my own emotions, but it was the last thing he had asked me to do for him and it was the last time I would be able to honor one of his requests.
On July 15, 1996, I was sworn in as the forty-fourth governor of Arkansas. Jim Guy Tucker had been convicted in late May and announced that he would resign on July 15. I decided that it was my duty and responsibility to fill the remaining two and a half years in the governor's office rather than continue the pursuit of the Senate seat, and so I withdrew from the race in order to devote myself to the job of governor. The state needed stability and continuity in that office; otherwise we would have had four different people hold the office within a four-year period.
I often wished so very deeply that my dad could have lived another one hundred days to see me become governor. He had taken me to hear a speech by then-Governor Orval Faubus when I was eight years old and Faubus was making a rare appearance in our part of the state. I never forgot what he told me. ”Son, I'm going to take you to hear a talk by the governor. You might live your whole life and never get to meet a governor in person.” Little did he know I would become one.
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