George W. Bush on His and Tricia Nixon's Date Gone Wrong

President George W. Bush (left) and President George H. W. Bush

Bob Levey/Getty

By Allison Adato

@editgirlnyc

11/11/2014 AT 01:15 PM EST

A warm and respectful portrait of George H.W. Bush, 41: A Portrait of My Father by George W. Bush, doesn't contain major surprises.

But there are some revelations in this rare presidential biography by another former president, out Tuesday.

When the elder Bush was a Congressman, he set up George W. on a date with President Nixon's daughter Tricia. The younger Bush arrived at the White House to meet her, he writes, in "my parents' purple Gremlin, which was outfitted with Levi's jean seat covers." (He also admits to smoking and spilling wine during dinner, and that there wasn't a second date.)

While Bush sparred with Geraldine Ferraro during the 1984 vice presidential debates – and wife Barbara Bush memorably called her a "rhymes with rich" (and quickly apologized) – the two Veep candidates developed a fondness, his son writes. Before her death in 2011, Bush sent Ferraro an email saying, "I hope you know that I consider you a real friend. In fact, I hope it's okay if I say I love you."

The first President Bush liked a good joke (see his comments about naked ice swimming during a V.P. trip to Finland), but Barbara, whom W. calls the "poet laureate" of the family, gets a lot of the best lines. When Bush decides he will skydive again at age 90 and land near the Maine church where they were married, his wife jokes that if the jump did not succeed "at least we wouldn't have to travel far for the burial."