Day 31

I headed out today around 10:20 and decided to see how far I could walk in an hour nonstop. At exactly 11:20 I was in front of a bench beneath the steps of the Lincoln Memorial (3.2 miles from home) so my average walking speed is somewhat slower than it once was. I used to be able to do a 12.5 to 15 minute mile walking. Now it is closer to 18 to 20 minutes per. Still, I can walk for hours without totally giving out so that is something - and it's still a pleasure.

After commenting on Jefferson's huge statue yesterday I thought I should pay homage to Lincoln's. His has more dignity - I suppose because he is seated - but it's still a tribute that the living person would probably have been very uncomfortable with.

While sitting in the vicinity of the monument I finished Wright's book (_A Short History of Progress_). Two quotes will remain in my mind for some time from the last chapter of this book - a piece of old graffiti, "Whenever history repeats itself the price goes up" and one of my favorite quotes from Kafka, "There is hope; though not for us." Perhaps not uplifting but probably true.

I then headed on around the Vietnam Memorial to the lake and sat facing the Constitution Avenue side of the park and read another chapter in Tainter's book _The Collapse of Complex Societies_. After dealing with a very aggressive squirrel that tried to get into my backpack after my lunch,


I walked back to the Mall and sat in the patio of the Hirshorn Museum to read the last chapter of Catton's _Overshoot: the Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change_. For whatever reason the last chapter is the weakest. Too bad, the rest of the book is dynamite. I have read it numerous times and it always shakes me up.

Walking back home I called my mother and was talking with her when I stumbled onto a garden I had read about but never seen, The National Garden just west of the National Botanical Garden. This is a walled in garden of native American plants, very well landscaped and with a meandering path plotted through it. Because it is walled off I had not seen it from the street and forgotten that it was here. This would be a great place to come and read - attractive, quiet, not much tourist traffic. Just the kind of place the reader in me is excited to find.