Category Archive
The following is a list of all entries from the black history category.
D.C. days
Try to remember when you first visited Washington, D.C.
For me, as a child.
Tall, white buildings.
Giant animals frozen in time.
Glittering Hope Diamond. And rubies. And emeralds.
The actual monster space travelers from NASA. (see the re-entry scars!) These were in OUTER SPACE!
Fountains.
Big carved rocks of men on horses at every traffic circle.
I also remember touring The White House with my family in the 1960s. This was before the days of
heritage tourism. There were no rest room facilities for the public. But a member of our party needed one.
So this person received an unusual private tour to a lovely room reserved for VIP guests. And the sneak peeks
down halls & opening & closing doors as staff performed their duties, was the top topic the rest of the day.
I visit D.C. as often as I can, which is made sweet by having a longtime college pal who
is generous in sharing her townhouse with friends. And another pal who also shares. Thank you folks!
Recently the trip turned judicial, because my public interest lawyer husband was involved in an important juvenile justice case at the Supreme Court. First visit to that august body. And naturally there wasn’t time enough to learn enough. A return visit expected. Let me just say: Go Justice Sonia, Go!
WALKING D.C.
The connected folks at Cultural Tourism D.C.
sent me & my walking boots to their site, to explore with my eyes before I arrived.
I settled on a tour of The Mall.
Our leader with the blue umbrella, Tim Stewart, a retired h.s. guidance counselor, knew the hills & vales to lead us to,
the front porch & back porch gossip, & the best place to adjust soggy situations. (I used the automatic hand dryer in a women’s restroom to remove puddles that my boots soaked up.) For nearly 2 hours – and I’m sure he could have brought us to more sites – he regaled us with his love of our Mall. We were of U.S., Paraguay & Asian heritage. Ask for Tim when you make your plans.
Although I have to say that my trip with my husband to gaze with love at our Nation’s Sacred Documents of Freedom & one of the the Brit’s original Magna Cartas (1297!!!) at the National Archives sits at the top of the list on this visit, Walking the Mall with our Guide is a close 2nd.
This was on Memorial Day, folks, we were in the midst of poignant moments, floral tributes, military honor guard at the Vietnam Memorial (s). And it was funeral, the gray sky, the chizzle (chill drizzle). My heart leapt. My father, the American Legion Commander of his post in Our Hunterdon County, N.J. town, honored his Memorial Days. I placed my hand over my
heart, for our troops’ brave service. Then I hummed as a prayer, brilliant John Lennon’s words, war is over … So be it.
World War II Memorial
Washington, D.C. Nov. 11, 2009
trees
In parts of the world, but not where I live in North Florida, plants are stretching tall in springtime.
We always appreciate trees when the leaves are new. But I think in the fall & winter, when the full show of their
green is absent, this is a time to consider what our every day world would be like, if we lived in a land where the trees as we understood them to grow naturally, in woods, & in clumps at seepages of water, down hillsides and circling fileds, were only planted in rows. Or if the trees weren’t there at all. Maybe you have lived without the cloaks of trees. But I have not. I grew up by a woods. My mother recited the line, “Woodman! spare that tree,” to me about the youth who was sheltered by a tree & could therefore not cut it, when he was older.
When I read children’s books about the tree woman of Kenya, Wangari Maathai, I felt that she must have loved being a little girl, & that in that time of her life, she must have loved trees. The shade of them, the fruit of them, the branches of them.
There are several good children’s books about her. The one I currently have is from author/artist Claire A. Nivola.
Like all good books, it made me want to know more about what happened to Kenya’s trees. And about how Ms. Maathai brought them back.
So my bedside reading right now is Unbowed: a memoir by Wangari Maathai.
