booth gardner - Washington Secretary of State

Anybody who stood in his way turned into an enemy, and you just can’t do that without
repercussions.”
Is it only fair to attribute some of his father’s failings to his own fractured childhood?
“Oh, absolutely,” says Doug. “It had to be hard.” But instead of turning to God for help,
“I think he just said, ‘Nope. It’s all about me.’ To me, it all boils down to life with God or
without God. I can’t believe Dad doesn’t see that in me. People don’t even recognize me
now, I’ve been so transformed. … But Dad was working all over the place and coaching. He
was just too busy for family. Family is a lot of work.”
They talk more often now and can laugh together. The tension is beginning to
dissipate, but the wick of Doug’s disappointment over his father’s failure to see the light
keeps flickering.
Booth loves his son and believes “he’ll come around.” He once gave him a
homemade coupon “good for one free lunch a month with your old man.” He says he
understands Doug’s disappointment. He regrets not being the kind of father and husband
he “really wanted to be” but says he was dealing with a lot of curve balls.
His daughter Gail, a chipper, confident woman with the Booth clan’s striking eyes,
stayed out of the Death With Dignity debate. She wouldn’t talk to reporters, even if they
were from The New York Times. For the record, she says her mother was “the solid one,”
but she loves her father, warts and all. She’s now his personal assistant, a job she handles
with efficiency and aplomb. She banters with him, but never humors him.
* * *
Sitting at the dining room table in his condo, which is comfortable but nothing
showy, he takes a bite of his Frisko Freeze burger, sips the last ounce of his Coke and looks
out over Tacoma’s great gray Commencement Bay.
How does he want to be remembered? He thinks about that for several minutes.
“I tried to help people,” he says finally. “I got out of the office and talked with real people,
and I think I made a difference.” He believes his legacy is one that his eight grandchildren
can be proud of. His friends and admirers, including Chris Gregoire, Denny Heck, Laird
Harris and many others who were inspired by his example to pursue public service, say he
was an innovative and intelligent leader – a man who cared passionately about education,
from early childhood to the university campus, and ended his career in public life the way
it began – fully engaged. To them, that’s the “real” Booth Gardner. Cynthia Perkins says
her former husband “is a person with a huge heart, a person with incredible tolerance and
compassion for everyone.”
“He’s extremely bright and complex, but also kind and generous,” says Joan
Blethen, the stepsister whose first impression all those years ago was that he was a brat
who wouldn’t eat his peas. “People have no idea how many people he has helped. He
could have become a reclusive nut.” He saw human weakness up close, she adds, survived
it and resolved to be “someone better.”
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