We all woke up Saturday morning to the news that President George H. W. Bush had died, the man many of us called “Papa Bush” to differentiate him from his son. And whereas the son is now, with the gentling buffer of time, becoming less polarizing and more relatable at a personal level, the father has always been a character of human dimension.

Politics might have divided us, and partisans might have criticized his policies and legacy, but virtually no one hated George Herbert Walker ...