We left Colonial Beach bound for our nation's capitol, a mere 62 miles further up the Potomac River. We have both been to Washington DC before, but it had been many years ago. So many things will not have changed; the perspectives from which we were to see our nation's capitol, however, have vastly changed.
On the way up, we passed George Washington's house at Mt. Vernon. The river winds and turns in this upper section and is lined with many trees. There are even signs of hills and valleys.
Fort Washington stands majestically guarding the Potomac River as it makes the final turn towards the Capitol.
Finally, as you come out of the final turn and go under the Hoover Bridge, the City begins to unveil. It's quite a site to see the Washington Monument and the Capitol Building in the same vista.
Washington DC can be seen from any number of perspectives. It is rather difficult to describe in any sort of a succinct way. It is a place that was planned and created as the seat of government in a way that evokes strength. It is the treasury of our nation’s heritage. At the same time it is home to hundreds of thousands of people.
The Mall’s formals structures, ceremonial spaces, and carefully planned vistas were designed after earlier European cities designed to showcase autocratic regimes. However, here, these same places are where people come to play on weekends, to attend cultural events, or to petition the government. In a single day, the Mall is where it is easy to see both Frisbees and footballs, picnic baskets and bicycles, protest signs and groups of people chanting statements of change.
In Washington DC, you can see the magnificent buildings that house the three branches of government. It is also where the nation celebrates and commemorates the wars the country has fought and the men and women who served and gave their lives. The nation’s great presidents - those to whom the nation is in debt for their leadership during the time the nation was formed, or those for whom the nation is grateful for their leadership during times of crisis are honored here: Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Kennedy and Roosevelt. Other of the nation’s greatest leaders deserving of national historic sites are also commemorated.
Washington DC is also the home to the National Archives, the Smithsonian Institution and other repositories of the things the nation holds significant. Architecturally, the buildings and monuments of Washington can be powerful, often handsome, and sometimes controversial. However, they are most important in what they say about us as a people. It has been said that we read in each the changing concerns, attitudes and tastes of the culture that built them. As such, way beyond the events and people they commemorate, exist the truths they embody: justice, equality, courage, honor - the tools of a free society. Washington is way more than simply a capitol city. This is a city that gives shape to our common heritage and to the diversity that is the source of its constant renewal. It should be a place that defines us as a people.
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The tradition of the “conference handshake” began with Chief justice Melville W. Fuller in the late 1800s. Before they take their seats at the bench, each justice shakes hands with the others. Chief justice Fuller cited the practice as a way to remind justices that, although they may have differences of opinion, they share a common purpose. |
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| Of course, Brenda found her hero at the Library of Congress. |
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A feeble executive implies a feeble execution of the government. A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution; and a government ill executed, whatever may be its theory, must be, in practice, a bad government. Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 70, 1788 |
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"When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government." Declaration of Independence |
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"A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." The Second Amendment |
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"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." The 4th Amendment |
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"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. " The First Amendment |
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"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth." Excerpt of the Gettysburg Address. |
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| I watched the flag pass by one day. It fluttered in the breeze A young Marine saluted it, and then He stood at ease. I looked at him in uniform So young, so tall, so proud With hair cut square and eyes alert He'd stand out in any crowd. I thought, how many men like him Had fallen through the years? How many died on foreign soil? How many mothers' tears? How many Pilots' planes shot down? How many foxholes were soldiers' graves? No, Freedom is not free. Excerpt of the poem "Freedom is not Free" by Kelly Strong |
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| The nite was cold, I was ten years old When the Chaplain made his call. The news was bad, my mother was sad When she heard of my fathers fall. An ambush he said, they all were dead The words were shocking and cold. Eight other men died, eight other wives cried For young men who would never grow old. The years quickly passed, they seemed so fast With no father to show me the way. Yet I knew from the start, deep down in my heart We'd be together, forever, one day. Excerpt from "The Wall" by Kelly Strong |
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| A monument to the women who served in Viet Nam. |
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The Sequoia Presidential Yacht is a fully restored, 104-foot, 1925 Trumpy-designed yacht that has served more than nine Presidents. It has been designated by Congress as a National Historic Landmark. The Sequoia was the scene of some of America's most historic events: It was used during the Harding administration to enforce Prohibition; Herbert Hoover promoted his use of the Sequoia during the Depression in a misguided effort to elevate the spirit of a starving public; FDR and Eisenhower planned D-day; Truman decided to drop the bomb on Hiroshima and later conducted the world's first nuclear arms control summit; Eisenhower entertained Korean War veterans; Kennedy celebrated his last (46th) birthday party; LBJ lobbied for civil rights legislation, and planned Vietnam War strategy; Nixon negotiated the first arms control treaty with the Soviet Union, and later decided to resign; Gerald Ford conducted cabinet meetings on board; President Ronald Reagan met all of the nation's 50 Governors at the Sequoia's gangplank in Richmond, Virginia. Many distinguished foreign visitors have been entertained by Presidents, or conducted serious business with Presidents, on the Sequoia. During World War II, President Roosevelt and General Eisenhower planned European war strategy with Winston Churchill and Field Marshall Montgomery, respectively. Churchill also enjoyed relaxing on deck while FDR fished in the Potomac River. A year after Truman decided, on the Sequoia, to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Truman hosted the first the nuclear arms control treaty conference with Clement Attlee, the British Prime Minister, and Mackenzie King, the Canadian Prime Minister. Eisenhower allowed Britain's Queen Elizabeth to use the Sequoia during her visit. The Sequoia may have been America's first handicapped-accessible boat. During the early 1930's, FDR was frustrated that he needed the crews' assistance to move him from the Main Salon to the upper deck of the Sequoia. The public was unaware of his frustration since numerous photos were released to the public showing FDR standing on the Sequoia (with hands on the railing). FDR instructed that an elevator be installed between the upper and lower decks. This allowed FDR to travel between the Presidential Stateroom and the Main Salon without assistance. Lyndon B. Johnson watched movies on the top deck by using the smokestack as a screen. LBJ complained both that the doorknob was too small in the Presidential Stateroom and the shower was too small for his 6'3" body. So the small doorknob was replaced with a large, Texas-style knob and the shower floor was lowered three inches. When LBJ used the Sequoia, he was inconvenienced by the lack of a bar at which to mix his favorite drink, a Scotch on the rocks. LBJ instructed that FDR's elevator in the main salon be replaced with a bar. Perhaps the crew's favorite President was John F. Kennedy. He was a young Navy veteran who loved the sea, and he was not too much older than some Navy crew members. Unfortunately, in 1977, Jimmy Carter sold the Sequoia — "the yacht was a bit too imperial for his down-home presidency," Stamberg reports. In 1999, a collector of presidential memorabilia bought the Sequoia for almost $2 million, restored it, and rents it out now — for $10,000 a night. |
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| The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are. The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission. John F. Kennedy |
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| TOMB OF THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER "HERE RESTS IN HONORED GLORY AN AMERICAN SOLDIER KNOWN ONLY TO GOD" |
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"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general wefare,and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." Preamble to the Constitution |
Riding down the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue; Finding a DC burgee; the National BBQ Festival; Chinatown; Magna Charta; Declaration of Independence; Bill of Rights; Constitution; Sports Bars; Gem Stones; National Archives; Brenda’s Birthday; Barry’s Birthday; Riding through sprinklers; Fish Market; Big Union Houses; FBI, FDA, FAA, FCA, EPA, USDA, DOL, HUD, ETC.; Helicopters, Steve the Club Manager; Capitol Yacht Club; Anchorage; Sequoia; Snap On Tools; Asian Fusion; Safeway/CVS; Borgers; Washington Monument; Vietnam Women’s Memorial; Korean Veterans; Jefferson; Natural History Museum; Air & Space Museum; Library of Congress; Elvis; Supreme Court; White House; Congress and the Capitol; swimming in the Potomac; Quantico; Mt. Vernon; Fort Washington; floating fish; Arlington; Gettysburg Address; Preamble; rain; Police; bridges.
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