Hello, Lucille
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The first time I saw B.B. King was in 1964 at the freshman mixer at Harvard College. What I recall about the occasion was standing next to my friend and classmate, James Rosenstein, who, when we were in high school, had taught me how to play the guitar. I remember turning to Jim — as we both stood there in amazement at the way Mr. King clamped his entire hand around the neck of the guitar and just seemed to be part of it — and saying, “wouldn’t it be something to be able to actually meet him?”
Well, 42 years later, it happened — in the state dining room of the White House on Friday after President Bush personally draped the Medal of Freedom around the neck of Riley “B.B.” King and presented America’s highest civilian honor to eight others and the brother of a ninth. The honorees included two of the greatest journalists of our era, William Safire of the New York Times and Paul Johnson (father of our contributing editor Daniel), and one of democracy’s greatest heroes, Natan Sharansky.
What struck me about the occasion — which took place in the East Room of the White House and spilled over to the various public rooms for much of the morning — was its only-in-America quality. This starts with the idealistic name of the medal, which is given in a relatively low key, straightforward ceremony. As friends and family and the honorees gathered, Mr. Bush bounded on to the slightly elevated platform and greeted Mr. Sharansky with a tap on the stomach.
This is one of the things one hears about Mr. Bush — that he’s much more relaxed and playful than he comes across as being on television. He clearly enjoyed this occasion, starting with the former transportation secretary, Norman Mineta, whom he praised for leading the efforts to land thousands of aircraft on September 11. He spoke of how Mr. Mineta’s “whole life has been an extraordinary journey” that found him at age 10 in an internment camp for Japanese-Americans and led to the heights of American politics. Mr. Bush spoke of how another honoree, Buck O’Neill, the first African-American coach in major league baseball, took a turn at bat at the age of 94 — “they wisely pitched around him,” the president said.
The president spoke of how one day in 1961 Ruth Colvin discovered that 11,000 people in her hometown couldn’t read and decided on the spot to do something about it, eventually building Literacy Volunteers of America, which over the years has helped hundreds of thousands to learn to read. He introduced the former head of the United Negro College Fund, Norman Francis, who also is the longest serving university president in America. And he also presented the molecular biologist who had won the Nobel Prize at the age of 33, Joshua Lederberg.
It may be that Mr. Bush’s enthusiasm for two of the honorees, David McCullough and Paul Johnson, stems from the fact that the president turns out to be a reader. One of the guests Friday, Myron Magnet, the editor who built City Journal, told me of how his friendship with Mr. Bush began when he received, out of the blue, an invitation to lunch at the governor’s mansion in Texas. When he arrived, he discovered more than a dozen of the governor’s aides gathered in a conference room, each with a copy of Mr. Magnet’s book on the legacy of the 1960s, “The Dream and the Nightmare,” eager for a seminar.
Mr. Bush spoke of the breadth of Paul Johnson’s oeuvre, which includes not only “Modern Times” but also “The History of the Jews,” “The History of Christianity,” “The Quest for God,”and “The Birth of the Modern.” The president got a laugh when he said, “Obviously, the man is not afraid to take on big subjects.” Mr. Bush quoted from Mr. Johnson’s “A History of the American People,” where Mr. Johnson called Americans “the most remarkable people the world has ever seen” and said, “I love them and I salute them.” It obviously affected Mr. Bush, who declared that “America returns the feeling.”
Mr. Bush spoke of how the Soviet authorities “may have hoped the world would forget the name of Sharansky” after they threw him into the Gulag for applying to emigrate to Israel. Instead, Mr. Bush told of how President Reagan and Ambassador Kirkpatrick spoke often about his persecution “and the case of Natan Sharansky became a symbol of the moral emptiness of imperial communism.”Today, the president said, “the world still knows the name Sharansky,” and he spoke of how “Natan reminds us that every soul carries the desire to live in freedom, and that freedom has a unique power to lift up nations, transform regions, and secure a future for peace.”
Introducing B.B. King, Mr. Bush spoke of how the blues are one of America’s unique gifts to the world and of how, in that music, two names are paramount. One is B.B. King and the other — the president had the audience here — Lucille. That was a reference to Mr. King’s guitar. He spoke of the trajectory of Mr. King’s life, which began in the cotton fields. As the reception moved into the state dining room, clutches of guests formed around the various honorees. They included powerful figures in the government, journalists asking for autographs, and parents leaning over to explain to their children what it was all about and how the idea of America’s freedom had inspired these individuals to climb to glory.