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Word: midlands (lookup in dictionary) (lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
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Usage:

...Arbusto had oil prospects; Spectrum had a network of investors. The merger doubled the size of Bush's operation, and the Spectrum people wanted to upgrade his image with fancy furniture and a company car, but Bush wouldn't hear of it. "Those were the doodah days in Midland," says O'Neill's wife Jan, "and a lot of people couldn't resist--jets, boats, cars. George didn't go for that." He liked the image...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: How George Got His Groove | 6/21/1999 | See Source »

...optimistic, but a sign that high hopes weren't warranted had come in late 1983, when the First National Bank of Midland collapsed under the weight of bad loans. "We had a saying that year," says oilman Don Evans, now national finance chairman for Bush's exploratory committee: "'Stay alive till '85.'" But '85 was worse. Oil prices sagged, and investments dried up. By December, rumor had it that oil prices were about to plunge, and it happened right on schedule in January 1986. As prices cratered, those who had been using their oil reserves as collateral defaulted...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: How George Got His Groove | 6/21/1999 | See Source »

...friends say the media have made too much of his drinking, that the W didn't stand for Wild, that the rumors are overblown. (Bush now jokes about the stories: "I bought cocaine at my dad's Inauguration," he facetiously told a writer for Texas Monthly.) Among Bush's Midland crowd, the favorite mind-altering substances were beer and whiskey. And most people say Bush's consumption was not especially gaudy...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: How George Got His Groove | 6/21/1999 | See Source »

...also experiencing a religious awakening, one that began with his now famous 1985 encounter with evangelist Billy Graham, at the Bush-family compound in Kennebunkport, Me. After praying privately with Graham--"It was a real personal religious visit," he says--he joined a men's Bible-study group in Midland, "taking inventory of himself," his friend Donald Ensenat says. As the economic crisis deepened, so did his faith. "The words took on a new meaning," he told TIME. "It's not simple, and each person's walk is different. I have sought redemption, and I believe I have received...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: How George Got His Groove | 6/21/1999 | See Source »

...when he was able to stop, that gave him a lot of confidence and made him feel better about himself." While Bush was working on these issues, in the summer of 1986, something else happened that would also have a profound impact on him, allowing him to leave Midland with his head up. A corporate savior appeared...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: How George Got His Groove | 6/21/1999 | See Source »

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