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Former Illinois governor Walker retired, writing books in Escondido
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Candidate
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| Contributor | COSDem |
| Last Edited | COSDem Aug 06, 2005 04:36pm |
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| Category | General |
| News Date | Saturday, February 26, 2005 10:35:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | He still gets recognized every once in a while, 2,000 miles and several decades away from the public spotlight.
"Aren't you Dan Walker?" a stranger might say. "The governor of Illinois?"
The former governor, 82, lives with his third wife, Lillian, in an Escondido mobile home, keeping busy writing books and occasionally speaking at Kiwanis meetings and other events.
"I'm one of those guys who just has to have a project," said Walker, whose six books are on topics such as the first 100 years of Christianity, picnicking in San Diego, the history of area military bases and his latest, "Thirst for Independence, the San Diego Water Story" ($16.95, Sunbelt Publications).
Had fate taken another turn, Walker might be working on his presidential memoirs while a Secret Service agent guarded his mansion. Instead, his legacy is fading into a footnote, the sweeping changes he made to government reversed by succeeding administrations, his man-of-the-people image obscured by a later playboy lifestyle and a scandal that led to prison.
But the spark, the intellect, the wit and the arrogance are still there, as are his trademark mane, albeit white these days, and the bearlike handshake forged as a farmboy in San Diego and a sailor in World War II.
"My road of life, rarely level, has mostly been a series of lows and highs," Walker writes in the opening chapter of his as-yet unpublished autobiography, "Man. vs. Machine, Memoirs of a Roller Coaster Life."
The title refers to Walker's battles with Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and what was called the Daley Machine, a tightly run network that called the shots in Illinois during Daley's five terms, beginning in 1955. |
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