Amory Houghton: “Mr. Speaker, my friends, I would like to talk just a second about the bipartisan retreat. It was a wonderful experience.…”

“Mr. Speaker, my friends, I would like to talk just a second about the bipartisan retreat. It was a wonderful experience. I am not going to duplicate the comments that my bosses, the gentleman from Colorado [Mr. Skaggs], the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. LaHood] and the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Sawyer] have mentioned, but I would just like to add one or two comments to something which was really I think really a definitive moment in the history of this Congress. Here we were, 220 of us, approximately 550 people up there, talking as we should talk, talking to citizens, talking as concerned citizens. Maybe one of the most impressive things as far as I am concerned was the inclusion of the spouses. You know, many times life, whether it is in politics or business, whatever it is, it is sort of a solo act; but here we were as families talking and expressing ourselves and sharing ideas. It was enormously healing. You know bit by bit, whether it is again in a family or a business or something else, we sort of drift apart, and all of a sudden we realize that this thing has been apart and we are looking down into a chasm. We have got to pull it back together, and I think that is what happened: Very, very important.”