Good Morning All, This weekday feature is for Juicers who are are on the road, traveling, or just want to share a little bit of their world via stories and pictures. So many of us rise each morning, eager for something beautiful, inspiring, amazing, subtle, of note, and our community delivers – a view into …
On the Road and In Your BackyardPost + Comments (15)
Today, pictures from valued commenter marv.
Sending in these four photos from the March in DC because I didn’t see any posted by Juicers when I returned. Another reason is I think Cole’s near-legendary analogy about the futility of modern political “dialogue” between the right and left – one side proposing Italian for dinner, the other tire rims and anthrax – is why this movement of young people exploded on the scene. After 20 years of idiocy, which inevitably drew us in as well as the other side, it took the children who felt it to wake people up.
The main reason I drove 700 miles to be there is simply I was a public school teacher for 20 years. It’s a humble position, but I’m pretty sure there are teachers in the background for these kids. I just wanted to show up.
The most moving part of the whole thing for me was it became increasingly clear, speaker after speaker, that it was just going to be young people talking. I hadn’t really expected anything about that one way or another, but just being there I became really grateful that no politician, no adult, strode out to proclaim unity, co-opt, congratulate, etc.
Photo No. 1: The crowd. Exactly to my left is the “J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building”. It was strange looking at his name on the front of it, which I did often. It was a comfort to think a person he tried so hard to destroy (MLK) now has an astonishing, powerful memorial just a few blocks away. Hoover’s name is still on FBI headquarters, but aside from that I think he has largely, and justly, been consigned to the dustbin of history. Maybe the moral arc really does…
Maybe I’ve been living in the country too long, but it was some kind of overload to be in the nation’s capital with hundreds of thousands of others on an historic day and then on the way out see this notice of an upcoming Cezanne exhibit.
I was surprised how moving it was for me to be back in DC, partly I’m sure because it was an historic day. But also because the last time I was there was over 50 years ago with my mother, a high school American history teacher, shortly before her untimely death. So I liked seeing the Washington Monument in the background as we left. My mom and I walked to the top of it back in the day
Enough said. As I grew up in DC, I spent a lot of time around the monuments (for example, the morning of my last high school exam, I took a long bike ride, past the White House, Capitol, the mall and its assorted monuments, etc). The good friend of our middle school art teacher sculpted the Vietnam Vet statue, so I’ve always felt a personal connection to the memorial. Whenever friends or family came to town, I would always take them for a walk along the wall. It still makes tears well up in my eyes, remembering the thousands of vets I’ve seen there at all times of the day and night, in any weather, crying, never forgetting, reaching out to a brother.
Thank you so much marv, do send us more when you can.
Travel safely everybody, and do share some stories in the comments, even if you’re joining the conversation late. Many folks confide that they go back and read old threads, one reason these are available on the Quick Links menu.
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