Washington, DC (or, Apocalypse Wow!)

I confess that Mt. Vernon, home of George Washington, is one of my very favorite DC area sites.  If you ever get the chance, GO!!!  It is a beautiful house with extensive grounds just perfect for a nice stroll.  At one point I got tired and was very upset that Ken wouldn’t carry me.  Ken and I rented a car and drove down from DC.  I’ll let Ken tell the story of us trying to return the car.  Let’s just say that I missed the exit once or twice...or more.
	Monticello, home of Thomas Jefferson, is just outside Charlottesville, VA, one of this nation’s great cities.  While not as extensive as Mt. Vernon, Monticello also has beautiful grounds.  But the best thing is the house.  It really gives you a picture of the Enlightenment, scientific man that was Thomas Jefferson.  I suspect there are few homes that give such insight into the character of the resident.  I mean, the dumbwaiter itself is worth the price of admission.  I am tempted to tell a dumbwaiter joke, but they are all too obvious.
I am in awe of Arlington National Cemetery.  I also put it on my “must see” list for the DC area.  The house you see on the hill is the Lee-Custis house, home of Robert E. Lee.  And yes, Lee’s wife was a direct descendent of the family of Martha Custis Washington.  As some may know, one of the prices extracted from the South at the end of the Civil War is that the Union built a cemetery on Lee’s property.  The flags here were at half-staff.  I imagine it is because we had not yet reached the one-year anniversary of 9-11.  If you look in the bottom left hand corner you’ll see a guy falsely indicating that the Redskins had just scored a touchdown.
	This is the view of the Lee-Custis house from the burial site of John Kennedy, who was president before his party abandoned good Catholic boys like me.  Ken wanted to light a cigar on the Eternal Flame on Kennedy’s grave, but I convinced him he’d just singe off his beard.  Here’s a Kennedy statement from his inaugural which is enshrined in marble at the burial site and serves as a lesson for today’s fight against terrorism: Now the trumpet summons us again—not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a call to battle, though embattled we are—but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, "rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation"—a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself.
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  I did not know until recently reading John Keegan’s history of World War One that “unknown soldier” tombs were quite common in Europe after that war.  That fact alone tells you something of the horror of that war.  WWI is an example, along with the Civil War, of tactics not keeping up with technology.
	This is the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  It really is awe inspiring.  This day it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 1000º F.  Those who have been  to DC in August know what I am talking about.  Someday, years from now, a bunch of Marines will be sitting at the VFW shooting the bull.  One guy will say, “I was in Vietnam.”  Another guy will say, “I was in Iraq, twice.”  But these guys can say, “Oh yeah, I walked the Tomb in August, 2002.”  He’ll be your tough guy winner.  Semper Fie.
This is shot from the Washington Monument, I believe, down the Mall to the Capitol.  As if we needed more reason to hate Osama Bin Ladin, thanks to the 9-11 attack it is quite difficult to get into the Capitol building, and of course next to impossible to get into the White House.  You get an idea from the haze of this picture how sweltering hot it was.  This heat meant that Ken and I were absolutely forced to drink a lot of beer.  Mmmmm, beer.  Nothing is better when you’re dehydrated than a nice cold brew.  If you look closely on the bottom right I believe you can see J-Lo.
	Here is someone who has been protesting at the White House since 1981.  That probably accounted for the smell.  One of the stickers on the poster says, “If you want peace, work for justice,” which comes from Pope Paul VI.  I agree with that sentiment, although when it comes to fighting genocidal weapons I prefer, “If you want justice, carry a piece.”
This is the Three Soldiers sculpture by Fredric Hart.  Tom Wolfe has a fantastic essay on Hart in his book Hooking Up.
	This is one of my favorite pictures I have ever taken.  This sculpture of  Washington is at the Museum of American History.  This shows what a trend setter Washington was.  He’s dressed for a toga party way before Animal House, and apparently he is trying out a disco move 200 years before Saturday Night Fever. And this dude must have really worked out.  He’s ripped!
The very famous USMC memorial located just off the grounds of Arlington Cemetery.  One of the best things about this site is that the opposite (roughly East) side of this statue allows you to see out on all of downtown DC.  I highly recommend the Johnny Cash tune, Ira Hayes, about one of the men who lifted the flag on Iwo Jima in 1945.  I’d talk about how this statue makes me feel, but I’d break into that Lee Greenwood Proud to be an American song and we don’t need that.
	This is one of the odd sites in the DC area. On your way from Arlington Cemetery to the Iwo Jima Statue you pass this strange bell tower given to the US by the good people of the Netherlands.  The only explanation I can come up with is that the Dutch had just visited one of the hashish cafes and decided a real monstrosity of a bell tower was the best way to thank the US for its efforts in the Second World War.
“Ok, it’s a piano,” you’re saying to yourself.  But this is not just any piano.  When Kenny Boy and I were in DC the Library of Congress had its exhibit celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of George Gershwin.  I have a great love of Gershwin’s music (and Ira’s lyrics) so indulge me as I present to you a picture of George Gershwin’s piano!  How embarrassing when Ken sat down and played “Chopsticks” on this valuable piece of Americana.  After a severe beating about the head and chestal region by security officers Ken subsisted.  He was annoyed at me for screaming, “Hit him harder!”
	How excited Ken and I were to find our colleague Ric Dias at the national zoo.
Perhaps in town to testify before Congress were a couple members of the Florida Supreme Court.
	Here’s a slightly out of focus picture that Ken took of a great man.  No, not me.  Abraham Lincoln, silly.  One of us (me) accidentally deleted all of his digital pics that he took this day, which is also why you don’t see pics from the Jefferson Memorial or FDR Memorial.  As I wrote a whole gosh darned dissertation on Lincoln, you won’t be surprised that this also makes my list of favorite sites in DC.  Every now and then I re-read the Gettysburg Address just to renew my faith in humanity.  Speaking of the FDR Memorial, by the way, mark it down as a must miss.  What a disaster.  My favorite is how they try to portray him as anti-war.  Umm, World War Two?  Hello?  The real memorial to FDR in DC is the Holocaust Museum, which is a must see.  They don’t really allow photography inside, so I have no decent pictures (ok, I did sneak a pic or two while there).  Although they take FDR (and others) to task for not responding fast enough to the Holocaust, the Museum shows the horrors of totalitarianism very well and one can only thank the US and FDR for the lead they took in liberating Europe.  Now if only he hadn’t given Eastern Europe to the Communists!

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