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236 As the 1990s drew to a close, Eagleton had begun to reduce his workload . He officially resigned from FANS Inc. as of January 29, 1996, ended his weekly columns in the Post-Dispatch by December 1997, and, with rare exception, curtailed speechmaking. Regarding the latter, he wrote that “when you turn 67, you will better comprehend why I’ve gone out of the speech business.”1 This, of course, did not include special occasions such as memorial services. He was particularly moving in eulogizing the loss of Governor Mel Carnahan, who died in an airplane crash in 2000 while running for the United States Senate. At the Missouri State Capital in Jefferson City, he compared Carnahan to Missouri’s patron saint, Harry Truman, whom Carnahan much admired. Both were frank, candid, straightforward, unencumbered by slick packaging or phony spin. Eagleton explained: “Like Harry Truman, Mel didn’t have to preach about family values. He lived those values and led by example.”2 By 2003, after previously reducing his teaching load, Eagleton taught his final course at Washington University. What remained was a twohour weekly seminar on the presidency and the Constitution that he team-taught with Joel Goldstein at the St. Louis University Law School in 2005 and 2006, aided by a court reporter who transposed student questions to a screen to overcome his hearing problem. The truth is that he no longer had as much energy, and he wanted more time to travel and read books and articles—most of them on history and current events. Reducing the workload also meant cutting back even more on what legal activities remained with Thompson and Colburn, as well as curtailing his considerable charity work with organizations such as Catholic Charities of St. Louis. In 1997 he had also sold the Missouri Pipe Fittings Company to longtime employee and friend William Roewe, partly to Chapter 11 The Final years 237 The Final years assist his children, especially Christy and her husband, who wanted to buy a new home.3 Advancing age also brought on various health problems. None was more problematic than a deteriorating hearing loss that left him deaf in his right ear and with a 60 percent loss in his other ear. That not only ended his teaching career at Washington University but also made it difficult for him to participate at social gatherings. This sometimes even intruded on Cardinal baseball games. Roewe recalled having to yell at Eagleton so much at one game that it caused a fan behind them to finally say, “Jeez, would you guys shut up. I can’t hear myself think.” That person turned out to be Bobby Knight, at that time Indiana University basketball coach.4 Usually resorting to humor in dealing with his affliction, Eagleton commented that “I have found out that missing conversations at various parties and events is not all that bad.”5 Yet it remained a frustration. Finding hearing aids of little or no use, he even tried a lip-reading course and ear surgery without any success. Ultimately, he withdrew from most social gatherings. His other health problems necessitated medication for hypertension , high cholesterol, a heart condition, and bipolar 2 disorder. That meant reducing alcoholic intake to wine at dinner and cutting out certain foods. In the mid-1990s he also had some eye problems and lung surgery for cancer, most likely caused from years of smoking. Still, aside from his hearing problems and “aging knees and aging memory” that prevented him from sometimes remembering names, Eagleton always responded that he was in excellent health. No matter how he might have felt on any given day, he always remained upbeat and never complained.6 He took great pleasure in reminiscing with old friends in handwritten notes that became progressively more difficult to read. As he got older the past held greater meaning to him. Nothing gave him greater satisfaction than locating from the Nixon library a presidential letter to his son, Terry, that accompanied an August 1972 photograph of President Nixon, Terry, and Eagleton at a White House bill signing. It portrayed Nixon leaning down to speak to the nine-year-old, whose arm was in a cast following a fall from a horse. That letter revealed Nixon at his best when he wrote: What matters is not that your father fought a terribly difficult battle and lost. What matters is that in fighting the battle he won the admiration of foes and friends alike because of the...

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