Lady Bird Departs

We lost a treasure last week, and Austin has been mourning. Lady Bird Johnson was one of those people whose contributions -- and character -- have been largely forgotten by the national media, but she has meant a lot to the locals in this area since the 50s.

Bill Moyers offered a beautiful euology at her memorial service. He told stories of times they spent together, reflected on the significant impact she had on the civil rights movement in the 60s, and the complicated and intimate life she and Lyndon shared. Here is a short clip from it -- but go read the whole thing. Moyers is part journalist, part preacher, part poet.

"Yes, she planted flowers, and wanted and worked for highways and parks and vistas that opened us to the Technicolor splendors of our world. Walk this weekend among the paths and trails and flowers and see the beauty she loved. But as you do, remember — she also loved democracy, and saw a beauty in it — rough though the ground may be, hard and stony, as tangled and as threatened with blight as nature itself. And remember that this shy little girl from Karnack, Texas — with eyes as wistful as cypress and manners as soft as the whispering pine — grew up to show us how to cultivate the beauty in democracy: The voice raised against the mob . . . the courage to overcome fear with convictions as true as steel. Claudia Alta Taylor — Lady Bird Johnson — served the beauty in nature and the beauty in us — and right down to the end of her long and bountiful life, she inspired us to serve them, too.

Find Moyer's entire eulogy here.

There's lots more in the Austin American Statesman Web site