Coming from the land of country mice in York, Maine, we find the buzz of Washington, DC intoxicating. And the Metro here ties it all together. This ultra-clean subway whisks us wherever we want to go. Even on a rainy Saturday at 830A as we wait in the line to get into the US Capitol, people are talking and energized. On a normal weekend morning in York, I get the Boston Globe at an empty Mr. Mike’s Convenience Story on Route One and bs with the clerk for my morning jollies. Here in DC, it’s young and old out and about. Families, too. All the ethnics you could ever want. Hannah and I are jazzed to be revitalized by our immersion in city life.
Welcome to Washington, DC. It’s home to Barack and Michelle Obama, 100 disagreeing and often disagreeable Senators, and 435 contentious and often narrow minded House members who can represent their own interests (getting reelected) more than the American people. Do I hear an Amen? As a kid at Thomas Jefferson Junior High in Fair Lawn, NJ, our 8th grade teachers brought us 250 miles south to our nation’s capital. Bless their hearts! Can you imagine taking 13 and 14 year olds anywhere? What were our teachers thinking? Hoping for? Historical perspective? Maybe an understanding of how our government works? Show us that learning can take place out of the classroom? Truly, bless them. If those were their goals, they were totally wasted on me. I don’t know what the 8th grade girls were thinking about, but for guys like me, eighth grade was all about girls. Yet, I digress.
This day Hannah and I find ourselves in Washington, DC with our daughter Molly looking to be a part of the Washington vibe. Turned-down to visit the Obama White House, we looked for plan B. (To even be considered for to be a part of the free White House tour, we had to submit our birthdates, birthplaces, and Social Security numbers. We applied for tickets through our Maine Congresswoman Chellie Pingree six weeks in advance and two weeks before we were told No dice. No explanation, no reason was given why we were turned down – Dan’s little weekend stint in the Nashville, TN city jail for hitchhiking on the Interstate back in the 1970s couldn’t be the reason, could it?). Our consolation prize was that we were given tickets to the free tour of the US Capitol. You might be thinking, Big Whup! Dan and Hannah do not look gift horses in the mouth. We thought, what the hey.
Our tickets for the 930A US Capitol tour tell us to arrive 45 minutes early to check in. That’s totally unnecessary on this Saturday morning. Arriving with our reservation for tickets, within minutes we are given a spot in the 9A tour where our guide passes out headphones so we can hear him since ten other tours are going on at the same time. The headphones make all the difference in the world. Whisked into a large auditorium, we view the film E Pluribus Unum, Out of Many, One. The film narrator talks of the search for common ground that goes on in Congress. That’s no joke. He really said that. In this day and age, that seems so ludicrous. Maybe today’s Congress needs a history lesson?
The tour is an engaging enough fifty minute history lesson of the past two hundred years of the United States through the eyes of the American Congress.
We walk by offices as well as the Rotunda where presidents lie in state when they die.
The tour was fine. Would eighth graders like it? Not in this life time.
On this rainy day, we end up at a Cosi Restaurant in downtown Washington in the early afternoon. http://www.getcosi.com/ . Cosi’s are everywhere in the DC area; it’s got a Starbucks vibe since you can sit and hang out; use your computer without being hassled; or just to come in from the cold. It’s not expensive, sandwiches $6 -8. And get this, one of the choices for a side to my sandwich was baby carrots. How cool is that? Life should be delicious is their slogan. Life is delicious. Taste the world of Washington, DC the next chance you get.
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