AUSTIN, Texas — Attention George W. Bush: Please call the Texas State Cemetery. You have qualified for an upgrade on the burial sites you reserved for yourself and wife Laura.
There's nothing wrong with the selected plots on the cemetery's western boundary near Navasota and East Eighth streets. They're under a shady oak and near some famous folks. But if Bush is buried there, it could be among the least impressive final resting places for a U.S. president.
And that — along with Bush's posthumous potential as a tourist attraction — is why Texas State Cemetery Committee Chairman Scott Sayers of Austin wants to talk to the ex-president about upgrading to elsewhere in the East Austin cemetery.
Bush, who picked the plots while governor, long has said he wants a Texas State Cemetery burial, according to Sayers.
"And we have no reason to believe otherwise," he told me, "other than a lot of presidents are buried at their libraries. I don't know if that will change once he gets the library finished in Dallas."
Library/museum burial has become the trend. Presidents Reagan, Nixon and Ford — the most recent to die — are buried at their libraries.
Bush's Dallas office offers "no comment" when asked about a final decision about a final resting place.
For the record, I'm not trying to rush anything. As far as I know, Bush remains as healthy, vibrant, fit and alive as he was the last time I spoke with him — in the Oval Office last December.
I join all caring Americans in hoping we all are living in peace long before Bush rests in it.
OK, that disclaimer aside, Sayers says it's time to revisit Bush's burial plans with an eye toward something "more appropriate" for an ex-president. Sayers has some state cemetery spots in mind with "a little bit better access and a larger area."
"I would hope now that he is out of office and settled in his house, he and Laura might make a visit to Austin at some point. I hope they stop by," he said.
As golfer Ben Crenshaw's longtime agent, Sayers knows something about grassy fields and holes in the ground.
The Bushes' current reservations would put them in an area with some interesting neighbors. Gov. Rick Perry and wife Anita have reservations right next to the Bushes.
Former Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock, former Govs. John Connally and Preston Smith, former U.S. Rep. Barbara Jordan of Houston, and former U.S. Rep Jake Pickle of Austin are among the notables buried in the Republic Hill section.
Stephen F. Austin is not far away. So is the cemetery's tallest monument — 31 feet and honoring Edmund Davis, one of the state's most despised governors.
Davis served from 1870-73 after serving as a brigadier general on the Union side.
A few spots over from Bush's is Rufus Easton Campbell, who, according to the bio on the cemetery's Web site, was "part of the party that captured Mexican President Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. In fact, lore has it that Rufus made the shackles that held Santa Anna."
Way to go, Rufus.
Campbell also was productive after the war, fathering 17 kids.
Way to go, Rufus.
Robert Potter (1799-1842) is buried a few paces from Bush's reserved spot. Potter, a North Carolina native, found his way to Texas after some difficulties at home.
"He resigned (from the North Carolina legislature) after an incident that occurred on August 28, 1831, in which Potter, in a jealous rage, maimed his wife's cousin and another man," says the cemetery bio.
His wife divorced him in 1834, and with his checkered past, Potter had only one future: Texas.
Here, he started the Texas Navy and did other civic-minded stuff.
The maiming was behind him, but scandal was not.
"In September 1836 he entered into a marriage of dubious legality with Harriet A. M. Ames," says the bio.
Potter wound up embroiled in the Regulator-Moderator War, an East Texas land feud between the, you guessed it, Regulators and Moderators.
Potter was a leader on the Moderator side. This was not a good career move.
"A Regulator band surrounded his home and killed him on March 2, 1842, as he attempted to escape," the bio notes.
otter was buried near his East Texas home. In October 1928, he was moved to Republic Hill, where he could wind up as an ex-president's neighbor. Is this a great country or what?
Ken Herman is a columnist for the Austin American-Statesman. E-mail: kherman(at)statesman.com.