For Laura Bush, the world changed while her husband George W. Bush served as President.
The former First Lady spoke Wednesday night in the University at Buffalo's distinguished speakers series.
She told an appreciative audience her husband has to pick up his own wet towels at their new home in Dallas because there is no longer the White House staff. There are also no longer tales about her family reported in supermarket tabloids.
Instead, both have been working on writing books and helping plan the presidential library which will be built at Southern Methodist University.
Bush says the presidential administration began as a push into areas from the 2000 presidential campaign.
"Though there were serious and persistent problems like achieving peace between Israel and Palestine, Global Terrorism had yet to emerge as a threat to our national survival," Laura Bush recalled. "George's focus was on the issues he had campaigned on: education reform, tax cuts, Medicare and prescription drugs."
Bush says she pushed books and literacy with a major book fair in front of the Library of Congress the weekend before 9/11 when everything changed.
