People: Bush returns home from hospital stay
Former first lady Barbara Bush praised the staff of a Texas hospital where she spent nearly a week being treated for pneumonia before going home Saturday.
Jim McGrath, a spokesman for President George H.W. Bush and his wife, said doctors at Houston Methodist Hospital decided Saturday morning to allow Barbara Bush to go home. The 88-year-old Bush family matriarch had been hospitalized since Monday.
“I cannot thank the doctors and nurses at Houston Methodist enough for making sure I got the best treatment and got back to George and our dogs as quickly as possible,” Bush said. The Bushes are well-known dog lovers and live in Houston.
McGrath had no immediate information on future treatment for Bush.
“She’s great. She’s had a couple of great days. She’s responded well to the medication,” McGrath said.
The nation’s longest-married presidential first couple will celebrate their 69th wedding anniversary Monday.
Barbara Bush had heart surgery in March 2009 for a severe narrowing of the main heart valve. She also was hospitalized in November 2008, when she underwent surgery for a perforated ulcer. In 2010, she was admitted to the hospital after having a mild relapse of Graves disease, a thyroid condition for which she was treated in 1989.
Barbara Bush’s 89-year-old husband spent nearly two months in the same hospital and was discharged in January 2013 after treatment for a bronchitis-related cough and other health issues.
Their son, George W. Bush, served as the 43rd U.S. president.
Don says he sensed Phil’s goodbye
The infighting and hard feelings between the Everly Brothers were well-known, but surviving brother Don felt he had a special moment with his brother Phil before Phil’s passing Friday, even if the two weren’t together at the time.
“I was listening to one of my favorite songs that Phil wrote and had an extreme emotional moment just before I got the news of his passing,” Don Everly wrote Saturday morning. “I took that as a special spiritual message from Phil saying goodbye. Our love was and will always be deeper than any earthly differences we might have had.”
Phil Everly died Friday in California from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He was 74.
The Everly Brothers were arguably the most influential vocal duo in music history. They brought their love of country music to rock ’n’ roll in the 1950s and 1960s, transforming the pop charts of the day and inspiring legions of young proto rockers like the Beatles, Bob Dylan and the Byrds, who would go on to change popular culture.
The two broke up amid quarrelling in 1973 after 16 years of hits, then reunited in 1983, “sealing it with a hug,” Phil Everly said.
The birthday bunch
Actor Robert Duvall is 83. Talk show host Charlie Rose is 72. Actress-director Diane Keaton is 68. Rock musician Chris Stein (Blondie) is 64. Actress Pamela Sue Martin is 61. Rock singer Marilyn Manson is 45. Actor Bradley Cooper is 39. Actress January Jones is 36.