in early September 1998, i came home from a week long bicycle ride in upper WA state. i had a pretty good (and beautiful ride). when i came back to work, my Supervisor asked me did i want to go to Washington, D.C., for five weeks? i would have to be ready to leave in approximately a week and a half. WOW! i was excited. i DID want to go but i was needing to plan so much in between when she informed me about the trip and when i would leave.
i had to buy some clothes for the trip. i wanted to ship my bicycle out there but didn’t know where to ship it to. my co-worker at the time, Margaret B, went to the city library for me, went and looked up a Washington, DC bicycle shop in the area that i would be living in — (i told her where i would be living– in an apartment in Alexandria, VA area). she found a shop called Spokes, Etc. i called them and talked to them and asked them re: my shipping my bicycle to them, them putting it together for me, etc.
thank goodness for Margaret B., my co-worker, who has, sadly, passed away since then.
finally i got everything together and got to my leaving day. i had taken my bicycle to UPS and shipped off to Alexandria, VA. and i was packed and ready to go.
i just know i had to fly through Chicago in late September. when i got to Chicago, my flight was delayed or late or something was wrong. i had to get another flight, a much later flight. i did not have a cell-phone at the time and had to find a bank of actual pay phones and call my work at home in the Central Valley and tell them what was going on and call Washington, DC and tell them what was going on. it was hectic, to say the least.
i did not fly into Washington, DC, until about 10 p.m. when i flew in, it was dark and i could see some of the monuments lit up. D.C. was, (for me), a place where history had been made. i didn’t care about Bill Clinton, the President at the time, i cared about George Washington, Thomas Jefferson — the people that had created history. people who had begun our country. signed the Declaration of Independence. that loved God and country. that’s what was going through my mind as we were flying over D.C. for the first time.
from Ronald Reagan Airport, i took a taxi to Parc Vista Apartments at Pentagon City. I had a 2 bed room apartment (i think they ran out of rooms elsewhere) on the ground floor. which was nice for rolling in my bicycle later on. that night i stayed up for quite some time settling in, unpacking, etc.
i had been told by the Supervisor in New Carrollton that i did not have to get to work on time in the morning. i could come in a couple hours late, if i wished (since my flight was coming in so late). i had subway directions and they figured i could make it to New Carrollton on my own. Ha, Ha.
i did get up one hour late. the subway entrance was about 2 minutes walk from our apartment (maybe less?). the paper with subway directions said to take the yellow line to L’Enfant Plaza and then to take the orange line all the way to New Carrollton.
first i had to buy a metro rail fare card. of course that was paid for by my work. i just bought a one way ticket because i didn’t know what i was doing so that got me to New Carrollton for that one day. i don’t remember what i did later. i was to be in D.C. and Alexandria (where the apartment was) for 5 weeks. so, purchasing a longer fare care would be reasonable.
the station’s name where i left from, near the apartment, was Pentagon City. there was a mall nearby. i took the escalator down & i found the yellow metro line fine that would lead to L’Enfant Plaza (where i was supposed to get off) & that was where i had to catch the orange line.
at L’Enfant Plaza i went across the tracks & looked for the orange line and didn’t find any metro line that was orange. i finally asked someone and they said, “do you see those people going up the stairs, across the tracks & going downstairs? that is where you need to go.” oh! so, i went across up the stairs, across the tracks & downstairs. i didn’t know they had a downstairs. that was where i found an orange metro line. when the metro came in, it was going to New Carrollton! Thank Goodness. on the directions i was told to settle in and sit on this car for the next 30 or so minutes and it would take me to New Carrollton.
finally, i got to the building i was supposed to be at, got inside, got my stuff checked, went upstairs to where the two women were that had left earlier and found they were only on their first break.
they hadn’t covered much so i was fortunate. we would be testing the computer system (that we work on at our work) for bugs for year 2000 problems (Y2k problems). they gave us ‘dummy’ work and we input it with inflated dates and the Supervisors wanted to see how it would ‘post’.
at first we were in an office space with other people. what was strange was that at different times of the day someone would come in and vacuum and that would make noise. what i wondered is would happen if someone was on the phone? wouldn’t the noise of the vacuum disturb the phone user?
finally our Supervisor put us in a cold, temperature-wise, computer room. it was nearly empty (except for the three of us). there was the girl from UT — who was there for 3 wks (i don’t remember her name)–, a woman from MD (Elaine S)–who was there for 5 wks, (like me) and i. you needed a security card to swipe the door to enter to room (like at a hotel).
the entire building in which we worked was a semi-circular or half-moon shaped kind of building that was three stories high. i kept getting turned around in the elevators if i was going elsewhere. especially if i was going upstairs to see some of the computer people or higher-up’s.
the first evening was sort of muggy but even so, i was bound and determined to see ” Mr Lincoln”, The Lincoln Memorial. when i got to L’Enfant Plaza, i got off the orange line metro and got on the blue line metro and continued on to Smithsonian metro. i paid for a ‘guide’ from a person that was handing them out when i came upstairs from below the metro. i didn’t know but you can get the guides for free anywhere.
i walked my way to Mr Lincoln and he was my ‘heart throb’ that evening. i was duly impressed by all the writing on each wall. the 36 columns of the memorial represent (i didn’t know this at the time) the states of the Union at the time of Lincoln’s death. the words of the Gettysburg address and the Second Inaugural Address are on both walls. (i DO remember reading some of the Gettysburg address.)
i don’t remember how i metro’d home that evening. i made it back to the apartments somehow. at Pentagon City is a Fashion Centre and in that centre was a mall. a LOT of restaurants and hole-in-the wall restaurants and shops (the number of stores/services in the centre is 170!). i remember one in particular hole-in-the wall restaurant called “Au Bon Pain”. (it might have been named after a French cafe?). they had breads and soups — among other things. it’s like Panera Bread. it was VERY good. i liked going to Au Bon Pain.
the first morning that i went to work with both women, we met downstairs at about 5:25am, i think, and we were on the metro by 530a so to be at work as soon as possible. as long as we put in 8 hours, we could get off when we wanted in the afternoon so we wanted to get to work as early as possible. i believe we all agreed to get to work about 7a.m. so we could get off early in the afternoon and do touristy things.
it took approximately 45 minutes for the entire metro ride. what was nice was that just as we were about to go under the Potomac River i could see the back of Jefferson Monument. at that time in the morning, it was still lit up. it was beautiful and i loved looking at it; i felt i was looking at or feeling a part of history.
the trip to New Carrollton was always quite boring. sometimes i can still hear some of the ‘stops’ being called in my head, “Cheverly” — that’s one of the ones i remember hearing for some reason. one morning, i napped and when i got up i could hardly walk, my legs were numb from being in the same position (?) and it took my walking into the building at work (a walk of about 4-5 minutes) before i had some feeling in my legs — that was strange and scared me for a bit.
the first weekend i was at the apartment, i decided to pick up my bicycle. i called Spokes, Etc and my bicycle was ready. i called a taxi and took it to Spokes, Etc. at the bike shop, i bought a map of D.C. cycling paths and a water bottle. i told them where my apartment was and they gave me directions from where they were to where the apartment was. i thanked them for their services & cycled off. from their shop, it was a pleasant short ride both on nice bike trails and streets to the apartment where i was staying.
one day, i cycled along the Potomac on the George Washington Memorial Parkway for some time until i came to the Keystone Bridge. i crossed that and found my way to the paved Crescent Trail which begins on the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park. I cycled on part of the C & O Canal trail but it was made up dirt & rocks and was very, very bumpy and even though i had a city bicycle with wider tires, it was still too bumpy for me. so i turned around and went on the paved Crescent Trail for a few miles. i didn’t know when it would end so i ended up turning around and coming back to the apartment.
i went to a LOT of monuments with people and alone on my bicycle and on metros but alas i don’t always remember what dates i went. i have a lot of hand-outs from all the places i went but i did not, in my resourcefulness at the time, write the dates that i was there. nor, did i journal while i was in D.C., like i usually do when i’m on a trip or vacation. . . don’t know why.
one week end, on October 12–Labor Day– (i have a ticket for that), i bicycled to Mt. Vernon. my apartment was quite near to the George Washington Memorial Parkway. i bicycled toward the Potomac River and picked the parkway up and headed south towards Mt. Vernon. it is, Mt Vernon, approximately 8 miles from Alexandria (so my odometer read). it was a beautiful 8 miles as well. the trees had begun to change, i had brought my camera and i used it quite a bit. i also wondered how long, in time, it took George Washington to ride a horse or take a buggy from Mt Vernon to Washington D.C..
Mt Vernon, itself, is a beautiful setting. especially from the front of the house (back of the house?) looking out to the Potomac River. there are chairs upon chairs set next to one another and i wondered if, in history, George & Martha sat and looked at the river talking to one another or something. it was interesting to see the inside of the home as well. where they walked, studied, farmed. the tomb of Washington is there as well. inside the house, i liked George Washington’s study the best. he had a lot of books.
one weekend, Oct 10 (i have a ticket for that) i went to Arlington Cemetery with my co-worker from MA, Elaine S. she and i took a metro stop line one morning and took a bus tour of the cemetery. of course we stopped by JFK’s grave and the eternal flame. i think i was almost a little more impressed with Robert F Kennedy’s little cross that was situated off to the side of JFK’s grave than JFK’s eternal flame?
we also saw the changing of the guard which happens behind the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. the guard marches 21 steps down the mat, pauses 21 seconds & returns 21 steps. twenty-one was chosen because it symbolizes the highest honor a 21-gun salute.
then the tour also visited the Arlington House (Robert E Lee Memorial — an impressive looking home outside & inside) and saw some good views of DC from up on top of the hill where Arlington House is. Robert E Lee & his family were living in the home but in 1861 when he heard that Virginia had adopted an Ordinance of Secession. He resigned his commission in the Army and left Arlington for Richmond. he never returned to Arlington House.
one day i intentionally went to see Ford’s Theatre. Ford’s Theatre had a very interesting museum downstairs. encased in glass was a ‘dummy’ that looked like Lincoln clothed in his black frockcoat, waistcoat, trousers, tie & boots. ‘barely visible, on the black frock coat, and knees of the trousers were stains of blood from the assassination’. (per fordstheatre.org). downstairs, also, is John Wilkes Booth’s deringer. it is not a very big gun. it was a single shot .44 caliber gun. and the the ball of lead was less than 1/2 inch in diameter. SAD, to me.
across the street from the Ford Theatre is the house where Lincoln died, the house was small. the bed was very small as well.
one afternoon, probably after work, i went to the National Air & Space Museum. i went October 27 . while at the Natn’l Air & Space Museum i saw a LOT of planes hanging from the ceiling and i believe i also saw John Glenn’s Friendship 7 capsule that was launched on February 20 1962 on which he orbited earth three times in 4 hrs & 58 minutes. i was quite impressed with everything that i saw in the museum.
and, one afternoon i went to the National Archives of the United States. there was a line to get in, of course, because it was the building where the Constitution, Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights (of course, if you’ve seen “National Treasure” then you know about the “Declaration of Independence”) are stored.
after i’d seen the very important three i also saw the Magna Carta (first English charter to directly challenge monarchy’s authority with a declaration of human rights), pictures of different historical events — a picture of President Lincoln standing outside a tent with Union troops at Antietam —1862, a Japanese surrender document that was signed on September 2, 1945. i thought the building a very worthwhile and interesting experience. i was very interested in the extra pictures and documents of the different historical events as well as the historical documents that had been signed by our country’s historical leaders.
one weekend, i remember it was raining, i went to the National Postal Museum. it was divided into galleries that explore America’s postal history from colonial times to the present. it was an interesting way to see how mail used to be delivered by pony express.
postage rates used to based on the number of sheets in a letter and that changed. by 1851, Americans could send ‘ounce’ letters across the country for as little as three cents. early envelopes were made by hand, 25 at a time, by stationery store clerks.
what most interested me is the history of moving the mail in rural areas. one way the mail gets through that may seem strange is by a “Star Route”. some mail delivery had been contracted out to private carriers. on lakes, in secluded areas (ex: out in Alaska, down in the Grand Canyon), Star Route service began in places too sparsely populated to warrant an official route. the postal service granted contracted to deliver mail with “certainty & security & speed”. how the contractors did that is “up to them”. today over 10,000 Star Route contractors help network a nation.
one weekend i bicycled to Hains Point on the very east side of the Potomac River to see “The Awakening”. it is a 70-foot statue of a giant embedded in the earth struggling to free himself. the statue consisted of five separate aluminum pieces buried in the ground giving the impression of a giant attempting to free himself from the ground. “The Awakening” was created by J Seward Johnson, Jr in 1980. it was installed in 1987.
i found out about this statue from a postcard in one of the stores i was frequenting in a mall. i was interested the minute i saw it and realized i could go see it with my bicycle on the bike path. i heard it was quite a dangerous place at night, though. “The Awakening” had been moved from Hains Point since then, though, to an art display at the National Harbor in D.C.
one day, a Saturday, i believe, i finally went to the National Museum of American History — the Smithsonian Institution. still on display is the “Star Spangled Banner”, the original flag that flew over Ft. McHenry in 1814 — the flag that inspired the National Anthem.
there were a LOT of collections of different things — quilts, sewing machines, calculators & some interesting objects from the Titanic
i know in the area of transportation there were ship models & even the heads & some of the limbs of crash test dummies. i was interested in the subject of transportation because of the Bicycle Collection with it’s vintage bicycles shown all over one specific area. types that were the tall big-wheeled– called ‘penny farthings. it was interesting to get ‘up-close’ to those big-wheeled penny-farthings. i always did wonder how people got up onto the seats. on the lower part of the “backbone” (the part of the frame that goes down to the small wheel) there is a small ‘step’. anyway, that small step helped a person get up and onto the seat once they got the ‘penny farthing’ rolling.
the National Museum of American History was very, very full of interesting artifacts. i even saw the red shoes that were worn by Judy Garland (Dorothy) in the Wizard of Oz. those are at the Smithsonian. a little bit of everything is there at the Institution!
three, or so weeks, into my being at Washington D.C., my cousin Arlene (who worked in D.C.–i think) said she would take me to Pennsylvania. she lived near Gettysburg and she told me she would drop me off there one day. Arlene picked me up one day at New Carrollton metro station and we drove a couple hours to Pennsylvania, just outside of Hagerstown, MD. don’t know exactly where we stayed the night with her sister-in-law and brother, Bobby.
the next day we ran a few errands and then Arlene dropped me off at Gettysburg near a place where i could get a sandwich and also near a “Gettysburg Tour Center” where i could book a bus tour. i believe i came in October. i took a Battlefield Bus Tour. they played a CD or cassette and Raymond Massey (voice of Lincoln) & a set of Hollywood actors and special music re-created the Battle of Gettysburg as we drove along the 23 miles. i was awe-struck. seeing the fields, that must have been covered in blood and littered with dying men. how sad the Civil war must have been.
i guess i thought the split rail fences with the rock piled at the bottom were defenses or barricades of some kind and, i think in a way they were when it came down to it. but, the fences were there because the owners of the land had put them there to divide the land and manage the livestock even before the war started. during the Civil War they were also used to mark positions on battlefields. also, during the war, the fences were used as a source for firewood.
what was also interesting to me were all the statutes of the Generals, Major Generals, etc. If the horse they were on had one leg up, it signified that that person had been wounded. if both horses legs were up, that signified that whomever was on the horse had been killed. and, if all for legs of the horse were down that person had been unharmed.
after the bus tour was over, i walked around town using my camera. i also walked through the Cemetery where Lincoln had made his speech. i don’t know if i stood at the grave where Mr Lincoln gave the speech or not, but, i was equally impressed by being in Gettysburg, all the same, knowing Abraham Lincoln had walked those streets, as i did. what he said “the world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here” (italics mine). i had to shake my head in sadness at the loss of such a good man. he seemed very, very decent.
Arlene, my cousin, didn’t pick me up until that evening so i meandered around the shops until the time she did pick me up. she had just bought a new home and i had found a small rug for it in the shops. that next day i went with her, her friend Tom and daughter Justina, to clean up the house. it was a nice looking place. t wasn’t that far away from Gettysburg, but i don’t remember the name of the city.
that day was a busy one and we all ended it with a dinner at a restaurant nearby. very good food. we went back to Bobby’s that night and the next a.m., very, early before anyone else got up (like at 4:30am?), Arlene and i got up and were on the road back to Washington, DC. it took us a couple hrs and we were back to New Carrollton and i was back to work.
one day i bicycled to Theodore Roosevelt Island. i took the Mt Vernon Trail. i made it to the parking lot o.k. and locked up my bicycle. bikes are not allowed on the island. it is an 88.5 acre island. the island had various trails and a memorial plaza that featured a statue of Roosevelt. the trails seemed muddy that day. there was very little paved, except in the area where the statue was located. the trails were made of dirt/rock. i read a book in later years about his trip up “The River of Doubt” and coming to the Amazon. it really changed him. it was an impressive book. he was really an adventurer!
one wkend/wkday, i went to the United States Capitol with, i believe, Elaine S, my co-worker for five weeks. we did a self-guided tour. we somehow got to visit the House Chamber or Senate Chamber–i don’t seem to remember which. someone was talking about something and what seemed rude to me was that others (that were on that floor) were just roaming around (and even leaving the room) not seeming to listen to what this guy had to say. it reminded me of Jimmy Stewart in “Mr Smith Goes to Washington” movie. that was my impression of the “Chambers”.
the rotunda paintings were beautiful. the rotunda was a large, domed, circular room 96 feet in diameter & 180 feet in height. the rotunda was used for important ceremonial events. eight framed niches hold large historical paintings. the statutes and busts in the Capitol Rotunda are primarily of presidents. most notable statues were of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, James Garfield, Abraham Lincoln Ulysses S Grant and Alexander Hamilton.
Elaine and i also went into the Old Senate Chamber. Again, i was thinking of “Mr Smith Goes to Washington” movie as the desks in this chamber are from the period of 1810 to 1859. we saw the desk of Daniel Webster (who has “Liberty and Union, Now and Forever, One and Inseparable” written on his tombstone) & Jefferson Davis (president of Confederate States during the Civil War).
we also went through the Statuary Hall in the Capitol. it is a sort of half-moon shaped room full of statues of men that have shaped history. some of the names of the people, i did not know (i.e. William Allen, Ohio). but others i had heard of but didn’t know their entire history (Ethan Allen, Vermont; Stephen Austin, Texas) and then there were others i knew well (Dwight D Eisenhower, Kansas; Gerald R Ford, Michigan; Barry Goldwater, Arizona). it was interesting to walk through this room and look at these statues, look at them and think of their lives and how they each touched history just a little or a lot.
as Elaine and i came outside down the U.S. Capitol steps, we saw Teddy Kennedy speaking with some people. that is the only ‘famous’ person i saw (or rather, famous person i recognized).
one day i had heard about the Netherlands Carillon. i lived in the Netherlands from August ’82 to August ’83 and consider myself “Dutch” at heart just a bit. so, i read Netherlands and i wanted to see this ‘thing’ (i didn’t know what a Carillon was) that the Netherlands had sent to the United States.
the Carillon was sent because of aid received from Americans during and after WWII. Queen Juliana visited the United States in 1952 presented a bell to President Truman of the carillon to come (it hadn’t yet been completed).
“To achieve real harmony, justice should be done also to the small and tiny voices, which are not supported by the might of their weight. Mankind should learn from this. So many voices in our troubled world are still unheard. Let that be an incentive for all of us when we hear the bells ringing”. (Queen Juliana, 1952).
when i got there, i climbed the stairs to the top of the playing cabin of the Carillon — 83 ft high (the tower is 127 feet high) but there was no one was there that day to play it. there was a posted schedule on the locked door of the Carillon cabin. i don’t remember when the Carillon was going to be played but i do remember this! i could see the U S Marine Corps War Memorial from the Carillon and i hadn’t known it was there.
well, when i came down from the Carillon, i immediately walked over to the Marine Corps War Memorial.. i had wanted to take some photos of it and did take several views. the memorial is based on the second flag-raising on the island of Iwo Jima during World War II. while the statue depicts one specific incident in WWII, the memorial was dedicated to all Marines who have given their lives in the defense of the U.S. since 1775.
one Saturday i went to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. the museum was a living memorial to the Holocaust inspiring citizens and leaders worldwide to confront hatred and prevent genocide. i spent almost the whole day there. it was exhausting (emotionally) for me. a self-guided permanent exhibition of the museum is “The Holocaust”.
as i entered, it was optional to take a ‘passport’ of a Jewish citizen that was alive before the Holocaust began. i took one and as i moved through the museum, i found out how that person was dealing with daily events. the museum/took on a whole new meaning. i felt like i was living (in a way) through this person in the passport.
the exhibition began on the 4th floor. the years that are represented are 1933-1939 and talk about the Nazi Assault. the exhibition began with images of concentration camps that were taken by Army soldiers in 1945. this showed the horrors of Nazism and the enormity of the Holocaust.
the middle floor, the 3rd floor, speaks of “The Final Solution” — 1940 to 1945, examined the Nazi policy, during war, towards the Jews, from persecution to mass murder. when WWII ended in 1945, the Nazis and their collaborators had killed some six million Jews in Europe, representing two-thirds of the Jewish population in prewar Europe. the main focus on this floor was the world of the concentration camp. there was a sign “Arbeit Macht Frei” (“Work Makes you Free”).
a major focus on the floor was the world of the concentration camp. the Nazis established thousands of camps holding hundreds of thousands of inmates — Jews, Soviet prisoners of war, Poles, political prisoners, Jevovah’s Witnesses, Roma (Gypsies), homosexuals & others who were subject to forced labor and death.
the last floor, covered the liberation of the Nazi camps and the Allied victory over Nazi Germany in 1945, rescue & resistance efforts and the aftermath of the Holocaust. also the postwar quest to render justice to those who carried out the murder of millions of innocent civilians was covered.
at one point in my viewing, i got hot, temperature wise and overwhelmed with what i was viewing. i took a break and went to the restaurant and had a small lunch. then i resumed my viewing after i felt a little better. the museum was well worth the visit but emotionally draining/tiring.
one Saturday or Sunday, i spent the day with Elaine and we spent the time seeing the Thomas Jefferson Memorial (which has a 19ft tall bronze statue of him inside. the building was modeled after the Pantheon in Rome (i didn’t know that). on the panel inside the building are excerpts from the Declaration of Independence.
near to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial is West Potomac Park. there was the Franklin D Roosevelt Memorial. i was quite impressed with that. it was an outdoor memorial spread over 7.5 acres and traces 12 yrs of U.S. history through four outdoor ‘rooms’. there were sculptures that depict the depression and also FDR himself with his dog Fala,
i was most impressed with an inscription on a wall that begins with “I HAVE SEEN WAR . . .and ends with I HATE WAR”
in that area i also saw the Korean War Veterans Memorial. there were 19 statutes each with full combat gear on. each carrying a gun. “the figures represented a squad on patrol, drawn from each branch of the armed forces; fourteen of the figures were from the U.S. Army, three from the Marine Corps, one was a Navy Corpsman and one was a Air Force Forward Air Observer” (from Wikpedia). their faces looked gaunt to me.
Elaine S and i also saw the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall (which is in Constitution Gardens) honored U.S. service members of the armed forces who fought in the Vietnam War, service members who died in service in Vietnam/South East Asia, and those service members who were unaccounted for (Missing in Action) during the War. nearby is also Three Servicemen Memorial and the Vietnam Women’s Memorial Statue.
afterwards, Elaine and i walked through Constitution Gardens itself and the trees were changing colors. it was beautiful. i used my camera here a lot.. you could see the Lincoln Memorial in the background and Elaine got a photo of me by the pond in the Gardens.
one day i found myself cycling to Rock Creek Park. i finally found it — i don’t know how. i just know what i saw a sign for it and it was below me and i had to find a way down to it — and i did. the main part of the park comprises 1754 acres. i just cycled through a few miles. the fall colors were beautiful as i went through. i had gone for several miles before i turned around. i do know i went past the entrance to the D.C. Zoo. when i cycled back, i came through D.C. streets by the Potomac River and cycled past both the Watergate Complex and the JFK Center for Performing Arts. as i passed the latter, people dressed very nicely were going into the Center. i felt very grungy in my cycling clothes.
one of the museums i went to was the Renwick Gallery. the gallery is on the back-side of the White House. inside, i was most impressed with a “mixed media” that looked like a spearfish. it was called “Game Fish“. the size of it was 51 1/2 in x 112 1/2 in x 10 3/4 in. it was made out of wood, plastic, beads, buttons, poker chips, badminton birdies, ping pong balls, rhinestones, coins, dice, plastic figurines, combs, miniature pinball games, dominoes, chess pieces, small pool balls and other found objects. i was amazed at the detail of the conglomeration of it all. i could have stood and stared at it for longer than i did. i wanted to buy a miniature sized game-fish but they weren’t selling one in the gift-shop. they had postcards but that didn’t show the detail of what it had.
at work, after 3 weeks were over and the one woman from UT left (i don’t remember her name), another woman from UT came and was going to stay 5 weeks. her name was Kay J. she was very nice. unfortunately, she passed away a few yrs ago, and i was lucky enough to call her my friend. she gave me a recipe for “Mormon Muffins”. she also knit a lot and knit me a hot pad with Christmas colors in it. i still use it!
one day we were working in that cold temperature environment in the computer room and it seemed boring. Elaine, Kay and i were working and Kay said, first one to go to go get “________’s (i don’t remember our Supervisor’s name, it was a guy) radio, get’s to choose the station.” Kay and i were up and at it for a race to the door. i made it to the door first and was out and running down the hall until i remembered that you don’t run in the building. then i walked. but i walked fast.
to get into the computer room, you had to push a ‘security’ card into the door in order for it to unlock. when i had gotten the radio and come back to the computer room, i tried my security card in the door and the door would not open. i tried the card again and the door would not open. the light on the door was showing green so that was showing things were fine. i thought something was wrong with the door. well, i waited a moment and tried a third time. finally, the door opened and i walked in. Kay was behind the door (i didn’t know this) and yelled at me and i screamed! she laughed. thankfully there were no other people in the computer room at the time. she wanted to get back at me for beating her to the door!.
i chose ‘soft rock’ but rock music nevertheless to listen to. she would have chosen country music so that’s why i wanted to beat her to the door. i really disliked country music back in 1998.
i had one flat on my bicycle while i was in D.C. i had to find a bicycle shop, other than Spokes, Etc (i guess they didn’t have a long bicycle pump that i needed) in D.C. and i took a few metros to where i needed to go and when i came to the street side realized i was in a part of town that i felt i didn’t belong in. i tell you what, i walked as if i could take care of myself until i found the bicycle shop. when i had bought my bicycle pump (which was a good 20 some inches) i took it out of it’s package, and held it by my side and acted as it i could use it to hit someone with it until i got back to the metro station. then i put it back in it’s package or in the bag i had gotten with it. i was glad to get back on that metro. it was all a good scare for me.
when 5 weeks was up, i had already taken my bicycle the previous week end to Spokes, Etc. and asked them to ship it back to CA for me. the night before i was to fly out, a few people from where i was working in New Carrollton, Elaine S, Kay and i and a few others, went to eat out at Ruby Tuesday’s, which happened to be in the mall near to our apartment in Pentagon City. it was a good evening of fun, food and communication. Elaine S was leaving the next day too but she was flying out later than i the next day.
of course, sleep didn’t come easy that night as i had to fly out relatively early. it was hard leaving a city i had come to like a lot since i’d bicycled through a lot of it. i would miss the cycling trails, and the monuments. especially the history of the good men that fought and died for our country. the men that believed in God and country. that is such a rarity now.
i loved the quotes of men on the sides of buildings (such as the Capitol)
“Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as publick Liberty, without Freedom of Speech” –Benjamin Franklin (don’t you like his spelling — thoughts mine)
in the Senate Chamber over South Entrance
“In God We Trust”
over East Doorway
“Annuit coeptuis” (God has favored our undertakings)
there are so many more quotes on the walls in D.C. it’s quite evident that God was very important to our forefathers. sad to say it doesn’t seem that way anymore anywhere. not in the schools. not in our government. we need God back in our land desperately.
taynabay 