Day 30

K had a new helper working in the 'office' (our living room) this morning so I got up early and was out of the house before 10:00. Before leaving we had reserved tickets to fly to Nashville the end of October for nephew Aaron's wedding and to Indianapolis a week later for 'niece' Leah's Bat Mitzvah. And I had hoped being retired would keep me off of planes.

This was another day with rain (thunderstorms actually) in the forecast but no evidence in the sky. I walked down to Bartholdi Park at the foot of Capitol Hill on Independence Avenue. This triangular park has a large, ornate Victorian fountain that is currently closed off with a construction fence for renovation but the gardens are still well maintained and lovely. I took a bench in a cul-de-sac of riotous tall plants and read a chapter of Catton. Reading about biological overshoot and die-off in such a lush environment seems odd but it does lend a very real sense of what Catton means by biotic exuberance. To keep from being sprayed by the automatic watering system I grabbed my backpack and headed further down Independence. At 17th St I turned left by the Holocaust Museum and walked down passed the Bureau of Printing and Engraving to the Tidal Basin.

The most impressive site on the Tidal Basin is the Jefferson Memorial, with its dome echoing Monticello's style. I have always found the huge statue of Jefferson a bit jarring and I suspect he would be embarrassed by it - not that he had no ego but I think he had more subtle taste than this. This is never as crowded as most of the monuments, I assume because it is harder to get to, but it's a delightful space.

William Catton, in the book I am reading about Overshoot, views Jefferson as something of a hero because he feels that Jefferson really understood that the promises made in the Declarartion of Independence were only possible in a land that provided many options - a land that was not overpopulated and one that provided many rich opportunities for realizing one's dreams. Thus the Louisiana Purchase managed to double the new world's possibilities in ways most people at the time could not appreciate. Now, when there is not a huge virgin territory to acquire in order to expand the country's options, we can see what a major stroke of genius it was to pay the trivial price paid for such a bounty.


Continuing around the Tidal Basin beyond the Jefferson I encountered a little memorial I had never seen before, a garden, fountain and statue in honor of George Mason. The garden and fountain are a century old but the statue was installed this past decade. Living here for fifteen years I have never seen this before.

Continuing further takes you to the FDR memorial, a seven acre series of open 'rooms' dedicated to the four terms of Roosevelt's presidency. Dominated by waterfalls and oppressive dark masonry, I have never really liked it in daylight, but it is quite interesting at night. It's unique as a presidential monument in many ways, but one that is significant is that it is the only one with a statue of the first lady.

A half mile further takes one to the Korean War memorial. Unlike the Vietnam Memorial which is very stylized, the Korean is a series of over sized statues of soldiers alongside a wall of etched stone portraits of actual service men and women.
This is a very interesting space in the rain or early morning fog.

I walked passed the memorial and down the reflecting pool to the WWII Memorial on 17th ST, over the grounds of the Washington Monument and crossed over to the National Mall where I sat and read for another hour before heading home on the Metro.