Tuesday was a much nicer day. Not exactly balmy, but much lessing chilling to the bone. The winds were a bit less and there wasn't much in the way of precipitation. We checked out of the hotel and headed again to Washington at about 9 AM, with only a general plan. We knew we had to get to the Vietnam War Memorial but everything else was sort of up in the air. We would try to do as much as we could without stressing ourselves before we had to depart for Massachusetts and a very long drive.
We decided to immediately try to get a ticket to see the Capitol. We were really lucky and got a timed entry pass for 2:45. That started to frame our day's plans. We had some time on the parking meter and decided to see what we could get to in the remaining 1-1/2 hours. We wanted to see the National Archives, but it was far across the Mall, and as we later realized, it was a good thing we didn't dare it. Instead we stumbled on an interesting little exhibit, the Voice of Ameria studio tour. We figured it would be fun to see what the propagandists of the government would present to us. We still had a little time to spare before THAT tour, so we crossed the street to the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian and spent 1/2 an hour browsing through the Our Peoples gallery. We saw the portraits of Geronimo and Sitting Bull that were used in the original off-Broadway production of Hair (with portraits of Ragni and Rado in Indian garb dropped in). We also got to peruse a little of the native American history, and it is definitely a sad story of struggles over land, culture and identity. It saddens to realize we, as a people, haven't changed all that much in over 200 years.
We went back to VOA, and it turned out that we were the only tourists on the tour (there was a very nice lady from Camroon who was interning at VOA who also went with us, but she was VOA "family" ;-) Apparently not many tourists want to be "propagandized" by the government.
In fact, it was an interesting tour. We got to see the state-of-the-art studios where VOA puts out news to most of the rest of the world. It is obviously flavored government thinking, but it isn't necessarily as right-wing as might be expected (and remember, that VOA represents the government in power so it spoke for the Clinton administration in 1992-2000). They claim to provide balance, although it is clearly "lukewarm" balance, middle-of-the-road balance, not exactly alternative radio/TV.
Interestingly, they are forbidden by law to broadcast to America. Ostensibly this is because the commercial broadcasters feared the competition from the government. However, it is just as likely that it helps preclude Americans from finding out what VOA is saying to the rest of the world. Now, with the Internet (and VOA actively uses the Internet), it is much easier for Americans to find out, because VOA can't stop Americans from accessing their website on the Internet (at least not yet! ;-) We should all be interested in this, because we should want to know what our government is telling the rest of the world.
Our tour guide was a nice fellow, who seemed to be trying to provide a somewhat objective view of his own service. For amusement, though, we were also accompanied by a silent, somewhat dour-faced lady who never said a word, and followed along on the whole tour listening and not commenting. She looked like she might belong to the CIA, and who knew? ;-) Both Barb and I, while not saying a thing during the tour to each other about it, afterwards had the same funny thought. What in the world was she doing? Watching us? Making sure that our guide didn't say the wrong thing? LOL. That is probably all just paranoid delusions we fantasized...
Or was it? ;-)
We got back to the car and headed for the Vietnam War Memorial. With our upcoming production of HAiR, we felt obliged to visit the Memorial and touch some of the names. We also had another project with our cameras but we can't go into it in detail now because it is something planned for the show. You will all just have to wait ;-)
One thing we noted at the Memorial is the number of young people (preteens, teens) who were asking questions that we of the age 40+ seem to assume everyone understands. That was a little shocking and confirmed what Nina Dayton had said to me. The key to HAiR is getting the tribe, who will mostly be 20-somethings, to "get it". Having lived through it, it is difficult to comprehend that others might not. Yet the questions we heard children asked their parents: "What was the draft?" "Why did all these people die?" bore witness to the lack of understanding. We will need to work with our tribe to make sure this is clear. It also showed how important HAiR still is today. As with the Holocaust, "We Must Always Remember".
Finally, we headed for the Capitol and got to take the grand tour. If you have never seen it, make sure you do when you go to Washington. The architectural feats are astounding (it never ceases to amaze me how all of this was done 150 years ago, long before Autocad and modern machinery, etc.!) The rotunda and its amazing art is a beauty to behold, and the Hall of Statues is quite remarkable. We also got to see the original Supreme Court (very small but stately!) where good (Marbury vs. Madison) and not so good (Dred Scott) decisions were handed down in the early 1800s.
After a few pics from the stairs of the Capitol looking out over the Mall and the Washington Monument (where I had participated in the March on Washington in 1969 and gotten arrested!) we finally made our way back to the car and started the long drive to Massachusetts. We ate dinner on City Island and the Seafood House (once again, we got an unbelievable meal of shrimp, lobster and scallops in New York at 10 PM on Tuesday night, something that is unfathomable in California!) , and finally rolled into Hatfield, Massachusetts at 1:30 AM.
The Old Mill Bed and Breakfast seemed deserted. The door was wide open, but no one answered the bell. Ted, the proprietor, had told me the door would be open but that he would come down when we rang. After trying a few times, we decided he must have fallen asleep, and we went in. All the rooms seemed available, so we just chose number 5 (a very nice cozy room) and fell into bed.
Not exactly your normal arrival at a hotel, but this has not exactly been a normal trip either ;-)
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