In My Time - Dick Cheney [30]
We had more success with a program in Alaska that Rumsfeld and I inspected personally. We flew in a chartered Aero Commander, a twin-engine plane, to the village of Tanana, on the Yukon River, where native Alaskans had abundant salmon catches but no markets. With a grant from OEO, the fishermen of Tanana and several other villages were able to take advantage of a growing demand for salmon in Japan, delivering their catches to a factory ship, where the fish were quick-frozen and then shipped.
As our twin-engine plane took off from the gravel strip at Tanana, there was a loud bang, and we found ourselves without the engine on the left wing. Our pilot, a fellow in his twenties, didn’t want to try for Nome, where we were supposed to spend the night, but he was sure we could make it to Kotzebue, above the Arctic Circle. I’ve had many a hairy plane ride since, but our one-engine flight that day over miles of Alaskan wilderness still stands out in my memory.
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ONCE RUMSFELD LEFT OEO, we spent all day at the White House, where he was being tapped for domestic policy advice and used as a troubleshooter on specific projects. My life was somewhat more orderly, but I still missed dinner at home most nights, including on one particularly memorable evening, when Lynne had arranged a celebration for my thirtieth birthday. Although OEO was in the past, a crisis there on January 30, 1971, over the legal services program in California, drew me back in and delayed most of the guests whom Lynne had invited. People who were supposed to arrive at 7:00 p.m. began dribbling in around 10:30 p.m. Lynne responded to the mass tardiness by publicly declaring that her days as a Washington hostess were definitely over. It was a line that got a lot of laughs, since, as our friends knew well, she did not place hostessing high on her list of priorities.
Lynne had nearly finished her dissertation, an accomplishment that reflected her incredible drive and focus. Our family had grown. Mary Claire was born on March 14, 1969, and, like her sister, she was good-natured, beautiful, and smart. But now we had two young children and I was working long hours. Especially during these early years, I operated on the assumption that the more time you put in, the better you were doing in meeting your responsibilities and achieving your potential. I hadn’t figured out it was important to pace yourself and accept that sometimes less produces more.
My being gone so much wasn’t ideal, but as Lynne and I discussed our options, we both had the attitude “Who could walk away from something like this?” I was having a heck of a good time, and I did what I could to bring Lynne into the experience. Many nights when I got home late, we’d stay up for hours as I recounted my tales from the day.
I also tried to keep Sundays clear. I didn’t always succeed, but when I did I’d combine giving Lynne a break with spending time with my daughters. I’d take them for daylong outings, frequently to Civil War battlefields and once or twice to reenactments. We lived in an area rich with history, and we went to Antietam, Manassas, Gettysburg, Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg, and Harpers Ferry. After we’d been at this awhile, Liz and Mary started greeting Sundays by groaning, “Daddy, do we have to do another battlefield?” But the lesson stuck. Today they are both avid readers of history and have even been known to take their own children to visit the Civil War sites.
After Mary was born our Annandale apartment became too cramped, and we rented a town house nearby in Falls Church. One night, when I came home late after having been on a trip, I stumbled over something lying on the floor in the hall. It was a puppy that Lynne had acquired while I was gone, a long-nosed basset hound, whom she named Cyrano.
From that first encounter, when I woke him up by stepping on him, Cyrano and I became close friends. We have had several great dogs since, and as I