[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Page 18850]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       TRIBUTE TO STROM THURMOND

  Mr. GRAMM. Let me also say that I put a statement in the Record today 
about Strom Thurmond. I was busy trying to deal with homeland security 
when we had the time to speak on Strom Thurmond. But I do want to 
relate one story about Strom, which is in my statement in the Record. 
When I was elected, like many new Senators do, before we went into 
session I brought my two sons to the Senate. I guess one of them was 
about 8 and one of them was about 10--or maybe 10 and 12, I lose track.
  Anyway, we found my desk. So I said to my sons: Do you all want to 
sit in my chair? By this time they had looked around at all of the 
desks, and they decided they didn't want to sit in my chair. They 
wanted to sit in Barry Goldwater's chair and Strom Thurmond's chair.
  I guess at the time, my feelings were a little hurt. But looking 
back, when I am sitting on the front porch of a nursing home somewhere 
and nobody remembers who I am or what I ever did, I am going to be able 
to say to myself: I knew and I served with the great Strom Thurmond. An 
absolutely remarkable man, not because he is 100 years old, in the 
Senate, but because he is forever young--not in a physical sense. My 
God, his physical capacities are amazing.
  I remember one night, it was about 2 in the morning, we were in 
session. Senator Byrd was keeping us here to debate something. I was 
dog tired. I was talking to Strom, and he was lamenting that his 
brother had died because he hadn't taken care of himself and burned the 
candle at both ends.
  I said to Strom: How old was your brother? He was 89 years old. But 
to Strom, that was not taking care of yourself.
  The amazing thing about Strom Thurmond's eternal youth is not 
physical, it is mental. This is a man in his long career who could 
learn new lessons. This is a man who is not ashamed to say: I am not as 
ignorant as I used to be. This is a man who could admit to changing his 
mind.
  We are in the only profession where people look down on you if you 
learn something; that somehow you are inconsistent if you thought one 
way one day and you acquire more information and you change your mind.
  The most amazing thing about Strom Thurmond to me is that through all 
of his public service, from supreme court justice in South Carolina, 
from superintendent of schools, to general in the Army on D-Day--we all 
know the story about one of our colleagues going over with President 
Reagan and saying to Strom he should have been there at Normandy, and 
Strom said he was there. And he was there when it counted, on June 6, 
1944--is that eternal youth, that ability to learn something new, to 
have a new perspective and to change that makes Strom Thurmond the most 
remarkable person with whom I have served.

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