It’s not that I’m weak on American history, no, that’s not it, I just never mapped some of it out. Apparently, Washington D.C. and its immediate environs are awash in that stuff. Battlegrounds, war sites, the invasion by the British, and so forth.
In my world, I’ll see a truck toting farm equipment or earth moving gear, maybe brush tools. Along the DC highway? Too bad I couldn’t get a picture, but it looked like a six-pounder cannon. Real artillery. Re-enactment? Seems to be a big deal.
Hey, whatever gets them interested in history, works for me.
So we all got on bicycles, and Ryan (Scorpio), toured a group around. This is THE way to see the area, comfortable, easy, painless.
Sweated like a pig as it was just like Houston, humid, wet, hot. Front lawn of the White House, the Executive Branch, the Lincoln, Jefferson, etc, Korean War memorial and the controversial Vietnam War memorial, then Full Moon, reflecting pool, and the FDR monument.
That one touched me the most. In part, because my father had polio and was at Warm
Springs with FDR.
Probably our last king, and maybe that’s a good thing. Still, it helped when things were bad.
Wobbling around the sidewalks, ricocheting off pedestrians and walls, like a pinball in a machine? Getting an abbreviated verbal snapshot of the history and trivia of each of the monuments? Excellent three hours. Best way to see DC in hurry, and yet effortlessly.
If there was a problem, despite an advanced degree, the tour guide missed some subtleties about history and politics. As a Pennsylvania-Dutch Anglophile, though, he was remarkably well-informed.
We tipped well, and I was surprised, he didn’t know the capital building in Texas, our pink dome? It’s seven feet taller than the one in Washington.
I am of the opinion that a deep source of difficulty we have with cooperating with other nations on international affairs is that we whipsaw back and forth, depending on our current leader; who holds office changes every 4 or 8 years.
One of the reasons for the stability of the social network we currently have is that FDR was around long enough to see it well rooted and growing. What Obama is trying to do now (with health care for example, but also in international relations) is so fragile, so nascent, that it would easily be killed off if he loses in November by saber rattling throwbacks.
You mean the jack boot thugs don’t have our best interest at heart?