Last Week in the Nation's Capital

October 24-27: We spent three days last week in Washing- ton, DC with 13 of my students on the college newspaper. The occasion was the national college media convention, and there were over 400 interesting sessions to choose from in the 2-1/2 days we were there.

But a convention has to include some play! On Friday afternoon, Norm and I set off in the rain on a sightseeing junket. Our hotel was on Connecticut Ave., a few blocks from Dupont Circle. We headed for the Dupont Circle Metro station on the Red Line and our adventure in the Nation's Capital. This was my 4th or 5th visit to DC and Norm's first.


The inscription over this wide mouth of a metro station entrance was simply the name of the station, although something from Dante came to mind as we got on an escalator taking us two stories down into the earth.

When we came up for air, we were at the Smithsonian station on the Blue/Orange Line. The exposure- lightening features of iPhoto make this view of the Washington Monument look much brighter than the actual gloom and fog of the day. It's as I wish it had looked! The rain fell steadily as we walked toward the Lincoln Memorial and other memorials on the Mall.
We had recently watched the full series of Ken Burns' The War on PBS, so the World War II memorial held a special interest. The fountains filled the space with roaring white noise that in some ways simulated the experience of battle.

My father was drafted in 1943 but didn't see combat in North Africa, as the rest of his outfit did. A medical discharge ended his war career early. One of his brothers, Uncle George, joined the Navy shortly after Pearl Harbor and survived having two ships sink underneath him in the Atlantic theater. Another uncle served in the Sea Bees in the Azores. This sculpture of eagles lifting a wreath is very moving. I would have taken more angles, but the rain kept getting in my eyes.

As historians will remind us, more than 400,000 American service personnel died in World War II and civilian casualties and the wounded were many hundreds of thousands more. These 400 Gold Stars on this wall represent their sacrifice: "Here we mark the price of freedom" says the inscription.

We found ourselves too soaked and tired to walk all the way to Lincoln's memorial; that will have to wait until another trip. As we came back around the Washington Monument, we came upon this huge, sprawling, many-trunked tree. Its leaves resembled mulberry. I would love to know its story. It was the only tree on the grounds. Somehow it made me think of the Survivor Tree in Oklahoma City after the Murrah Building bombing in 1995.

We got back on the Metro for the trip back to our hotel. This is the upper level of the Metro Center station, where the red line and the orange/blue lines cross, one floor above another. The ceiling with its striking architectural finish makes the place feel beautiful as well as utilitarian.

The escalator ride up out of the Dupont Circle station is every bit as dramatic as the ride down. Although the day was still gray and foggy, there truly was light at the end of the tunnel...and a quote from Walt Whitman that I neglected to write down. But such public art and literary connections can be found all over DC.

And yes, I really was out in the rain for three hours, and Norm was with me (he took this picture as we were about to start back from the WWII memorial.) These are not postcards! One regret I have is not getting to the Vietnam memorial. That's because my cousin Jerry, who was stationed at the Pentagon for the Air Force during that conflict, died unexpectedly of a heart attack in DC at the age of 34, in November of 1970. The last time I saw Jerry, he and his wife Pat took me around DC when I stopped there in 1967 on my way to a study trip to England. So although we grew up in Oklahoma, I somehow feel closer to Jerry in Washington than at home.

All of my students seemed to thrive on the Convention and they had adventures of their own. By Saturday night we were back in St. Louis and on Sunday they put out the 11th issue of the semester. All routines back to normal, now. It hardly seems real that we were in Washington at all.