By the end of 1972, Bush's father was mulling over a new job offer from Nixon – to be chairman of the Republican National Committee. With his parents back in Washington, Bush went to stay with them for the holidays and was involved in one of the most notorious incidents of his "nomadic" years. He took his 16-year-old brother Marvin out drinking, ran over a neighbor's garbage cans on the way home, and when his father confronted him, challenged him to go "mano a mano" outside.
There was no fight, and Bush was apparently able to mollify his father with the news that he had been accepted for the following fall at Harvard Business School.
But with nothing to do until then, his father decided it was time to give this restless young man some broader exposure to real life.Shortly after Christmas, Bush began working as a counselor with black youngsters in Houston's Third Ward in a program called PULL (Professionals United for Leadership) for Youth. The brainchild of the late John L. White, a former professional football player and civic leader, it was set up for kids up to 17 in a warehouse on McGowen Street and it offered sports, crafts, field trips and big-name mentors from the athletic, entertainment and business worlds.
Bush and his brother Marvin, who tagged along
for the summer weeks, were the only whites in the place. "They stood out like a sore thumb," said Muriel Simmons Henderson, who was one of PULL's senior counselors. "John White was a good friend of their father. He told us that the father wanted George W. to see the other side of life. He asked John if he would put him in there."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/campaigns/wh2000/stories/bush072899.htm