It was near this statue, you see...

I told you we got lost almost every time we left the motel. I also told you we rented a fire engine red 1978 Mercury Cougar in which we got lost most every time we left the motel. I even told you we were there for a March on Washington during which we drove a fire engine red 1978 Mercury Cougar in which we got lost most every time we left the motel. What I haven't told you is that we were too sophisticated to notice he was naked when we were marching on Washington in a fire engine red Mercury Cougar in which we got lost most every time we left the motel.

So let me fill you in on the bits and pieces I may have left out. I was young and politically naive which made me marvelously certain of my position. I joined the National Organization for Women and I participated in marches and campaigns and consciousness raising groups. This particular march was to extend the deadline by which the Equal Rights Amendment must be ratified. 100,000 women, men, and children dressed in white with yellow banners in the heat of east coast July celebrating our right to assembly and freedom of expression. This is something everyone should experience at least once in his/her life. Years later, I knew a woman who resigned her post as a federal employee as a matter of conscience and traveled to Washington to march in protest. She returned home and took her job back. I asked why.

She explained she had gathered with a group of people determined to tell our government that they were wrong and it was the intent of these people to run them out of office if they didn't change what they were doing. And that government put members of the armed services along the path of their protest to protect the protesters from anyone who intended to interfere with their demonstration of free assembly and speech. She said she could disagree with that government and work to change its policy. But she had no problem being employed by a government who protected it citizens even as they declared how much they disagreed with it and intended to vote every member out of office if they could.

In short, I'm just saying you need to vote, but voting isn't always enough. But I digress.

HRH and I found a parking place that wasn't in Virginia and we hooked up with the Iowa contingency. It was a long hot day and seemed to take forever before we began to move. Frankly, since Iowa was the third state to ratify the amendment I was thinking we should have gotten to be closer to the front but those who had water shared it and we sang all the songs and chanted all the chants as we waited. Finally we began moving. The energy was almost enough to dispel the onset of heat exhaustion, but more about that later.

We waved our banners and chanted, "What do we want? ERA. When do we want it? Now!" down the Mall, swept along by youthful enthusiasm and the swell of humanity when HRH turned to me and said, "Do you remember where we left the car?"

Well, that puts a damper on a middle-aged woman's enthusiasm. However, a 20-year-old, not so much. "We'll worry about it after the March." I'm not really clear on what else happened after that. I remember finishing the March. Well at least we were near enough the end that I could hear the speeches. But HRH was leading me to a place to sit down where she could splash water on me. Ok, it was the Reflecting Pool. In any case, she found a place under a tree and a lemonade vendor and got me cooled, rested and hydrated before we thought about the car again.

We weren't really worried. I mean how hard is it to find a 1978 fire engine red Mercury Cougar? Even in 1978 I knew it was a big-assed car. Besides, we remembered a lot about where we parked it. First, you could see the Washington Monument from where we parked the car.
  And it was near a park. And there was a statue in the park. The statue was of a naked Man, a Woman, and a Boy Scout. So we hailed a cab and asked the driver to find our car with this description. We didn't mention the naked part because we wanted him to think we were too sophisticated to notice. This good man drove us around and around the Mall five times before one of us called out, "There it is."

DC Cabbies didn't use meters back then. You paid them by zones and he didn't leave the zone. But we didn't balk at the $10.00 fare and even tipped him a couple of bucks, even though we never heard of anyone who ever had a fare of TEN DOLLARS.  But it was worth it just for the fact he didn't laugh at us until he got home that night. 

It just goes to prove my old saying, there is nothing so bad that can't be made better by having a good story to tell afterwards.

We didn't get lost this time

So far this week, I created, delivered or prepared to deliver four presentations as well as directed my employees in three more. My guys are really coming along but I have been lazy each night I get home and haven't been blogging.

I promised you the story about not getting lost in DC. That memory stands out because it only happened the one time.

First, you have to remember this was pre-Oklahoma City, pre-911...heck this was even pre-John Hinkley. OK, Squeaky Fromme was in prison by this time but that was it. So when I tell you tooling around DC was not anything like you would experience today, you've got to believe me. We must have driven past the White House a dozen times without noticing it. It was just sitting there like any old house in the neighborhood. When we finally saw it, I swear Billy and his hound were hanging out on the portico with a tall cold one while Momma Carter hung out a load of delicates. But that was the last day of our trip, this day was the night before the march. And we had plans.

I told you that HRH was unaware of my spatial impairment and you should know, she was not terribly understanding about it. By the time she found that I not only didn't know north from south but also didn't know left from right, she told me to quit talking to her in the car. I think her actual words were "Quit finding me after I'm not lost any more." It isn't like we had Google Maps or a GPS device.

It was road maps and tourist pamphlets.  And even so, this night she drove straight to the Mall and even found a parking place right across from the Washington Monument. And just as we climbed the hill, HRH looked at me and said..."The camera!" Oh my goodness, we left the camera at the motel. She hadn't taken a single wrong turn to get to the monument and now we had to reverse direction and repeat the process before we could see DC by twilight on the only night we had left before the march.

HRH twisted a bit and turned slightly but she got us back and in line for our last night of sight-seeing and it was everything they promised. I have been back several times but nothing matched that night for the camaraderie and excitement. My strongest memory is of Kenneth. He was a 2-year old Korean toddling tourist. As we all sat around the benches at the base of the white obelisk Kenneth kept us all entertained.

In later years, the tour guides would tell us about what we could see as we peered out those angled windows. When CaDiva and I went back a few years ago, we even saw the eternal flame in the distant twilight. That night, HRH and I stood at one window and then another one and just let the view bedazzle us. I hopefully will be able to find those pictures and scan them for you. But I can tell you this, if they can repair it and you get a chance to go up to the top of the monument, go at twilight. There is no view like it in the world.

When the weekend gets quiet I'll tell you about losing the rental car.

Look, we can park over there ======>

I have known many a Marine in my life and one of the most often repeated statements (besides "There is no such thing as an Ex-Marine.) is "Marines don't get lost, Ma'am. I'm just temporarily disoriented." Well, HRH and I were disoriented several times on this trip.  One of my favorites was an attempt to go to the National Aerospace Museum. We had been driving around and around looking for parking.

Two things to remember, this was 1978 and there were actually places to park on the street in Washington, DC and we were from Des Moines, Ia...we didn't know there was any place but the Iowa State fairgrounds in August where you couldn't find parking.  So when I pointed to a street running very near the museum on which I saw no parked cars we whipped that big red Mercury Cougar on a two-wheeled right hand turn right onto I395.  Yeah, well I guess you don't see a lot of cars parked on the interstate. But I didn't know that then.

We drove on the Interstate until we crossed a body of water which turned out to be the Potomac and tried to find our way back from what turned out to be Virginia. Then I noticed a familiar sight - the Iwo Jima Memorial. I recognized it from inside our Family Bible. No, I don't know why we had bible with a picture of the flag raising. I'm certain there was a very sensible reason. But remember they also never told me the Priest was speaking a different language.

Well, HRH somehow managed to get us turned back and close enough to the park so that we could see the only image more iconic than the holographic picture of Jesus hanging over my Grandfather's chair. At least in my 20 years of experience. As I recall we parked in an apartment building parking lot and crossed something slightly busier than a side street, but I don't think it was the actual interstate.

I walked round and round the bronze edifice. It was not just impressive by size and familiarity...it was the hands. This was the first time I was moved by three dimensional art.Ok, so my experience at that time was the giant naked angel on a tricycle in Merle Hay Plaza. But still they touched me and I will always remember my reaction. I have been back several times but nothing will ever supplant that gut reaction.

Since we were in Arlington we went to see the National Cemetery. I saw the eternal flame, Robert Kennedy's simple wooden cross, Audie Murphy's grave and the changing of the guard. Unlike the Memorial, these scenes didn't move me as much then as they did in later years. The last time I was in Arlington I watched the changing of the guard (the infantry man actually admonished the viewers to observe silence as this was a cemetery) but my tears had stopped by that time.

I can't tell you when the tears started, but it was somewhere between the Crew of the Challenger and the Crew of Flight 93 when I joined the ranks of adults who can grieve for their nation openly and unashamed.

Yeah, I think I'll go back again.

Lemonade and Sight-seeing

Between the 67 inches of snow in January/February and Hurricane Amelia in late July/August of 78, Washington DC and the surrounding area was just plain HOT and HUMID. That is when it wasn't raining. HRH and I got there several days before the march so we could go sight seeing. Whenever we could find a parking space we got inside any museum we could for the cool air and sights we never imagined seeing.

I think my top five sights were:

5) The Hope Diamond - not only is it SOOO worth the risk, it ruined my ability to wear necklaces. I mean who could fall for that little tri-colored bunch of gold leaves on a tiny chain after you have seen the Hope Diamond.


4) The first ladies inauguration ball gowns. As I remember we walked into a large room and behind a glass wall there was one gown after another. Of course I adored Jackie Kennedy's just because of the age I was born into. But Mary Lincoln's was so tiny and yet full at the same time.

3) Any of the outdoor monuments. The Lincoln Memorial, Iwo Jima Monument (I'll tell you how we found that one) and the Washington Monument (and that one has a story too.) Hey, I know I said it was hot but come one...they are everywhere. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting some sort of memorial out there. And I have to say, if I had that kind of talent, I would built things that big and in bronze or stone or something  eternal too.

2) Seeing the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. It was so near the bicentennial, that may have had something to do with it. But, I mean, DANG...These two were how we got started. Way to go America.

1) The Senate. This may not be as major now as it was then, but when we toured the Capitol building you got to go either to the House or the Senate. Now everyone had seen the House during the state of the union addresses. But there were laws that prohibited photographs of the Senate. So the only way you could see it then was to tour it. And we got the Senate side. I was so impressed by that. 

The major find however, was outdoor vendors who sold pint containers of ice cold lemonade. We drank them at one whole entire dollar a piece - hey, this was 1978 after all. Gas was $0.59 a gallon. As hot and humid as it was, all we could do was find inside museums and drink, drink, drink. We were halfway back to Iowa before we needed to pee. We sweated out every ounce of that sweet-tart-sticky-nectar from yellow waxed paper pint containers. 

Besides cartons of lemonade was a phenomenal discovery. One, who ever thought of selling lemonade in anything other than a dixie cup? And nothing was sold in a pint. I mean now, sure your soft drinks and such come in up to 54 oz cups. But back in '78 you could get a glass bottle of Pepsi, Tab or RC in 16 ounce but you wouldn't want to walk around DC with a glass bottle of pop.

And this was a pint ... I mean a whole PINT. The only wax carton things you got back then was a 1/2 pint of school milk or a quart of milk if you didn't have it delivered at home. The concept of buying a pint carton of anything you could walk around drinking was just so way cool.

But again it is late and I have to get to bed. But I'll tell you more tomorrow. We'll flip a coin, visiting Iwo Jima only because we thought there was parking around that corner or finding our way to the Washington Monument without getting lost only to discover we left the camera at the hotel.

Good times.

Washington DC 1978

HRH and I didn't just turn around one day in our forties and say, "Why don't we go someplace?" We rode a train to Texas in 1965 and a bus back to Iowa in 1969. The return trip to Texas was via plane. But, we returned to Iowa in January 1971 in a Ford Maverick with the Mom, two brothers and a drugged cat named Florence.

After that, there was one drive up to Racine, Wisconsin to visit Grandpa's relatives but my strongest memory of that one was being offered a chamber pot in the event I needed a bathroom in the middle of the night. I only mention that because after a night in a tent, I think a lot about that chamber pot now.

But our first trip as "adults" was to March on Washington DC. Adults is used loosely here, in that I was 20 and HRH was almost 19 but we had no other grown-ups traveling. I talked her into coming with me to march in favor of extending the deadline to ratify the ERA. We stayed in a motel (Days Inn if I remember right), rented a fire engine red Mercury Cougar, dressed for dinner, discovered pint cartons of lemonade, and saw everything you could see in four days.

The adventures started with finding a way to rent a car in the name of one sister who had a credit card (me) and the other one had a driver's license (HRH). Then we had to find our way around Washington where there are four of every road; NW, SW, NE, and SE. Now this is important to remember because later I'll explain that I am spatially impaired. HRH was surprised I didn't know North from South but I also didn't know Left from Right. Apparently that is a fact you should share with the driver if you are going to be the navigator.

Over the next few days I will tell you about our favorite museums, getting lost and ending up at the Iwo Jima Monument, losing the aforementioned Mercury Cougar, and standing among 100,000 other people exercising their right of assembly and expression.

But now it is late and I have a killer day tomorrow.