Column: Trip to nation’s capital quickly becomes a puzzling voyage
Published 12:00 am Wednesday, October 2, 2002
I went on a trip to Washington, D.C. recently. It was a kind of a delayed high school class trip for me. We are told to get to the airport two hours early and once we get there and have passed through security, we really have nothing to do but eat. So even though the number of travelers using Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport is down, the food sales at the airport are up considerably.
My lovely bride had helped with my packing.
That meant there would be luxuries like a toothbrush and underwear, but no necessities like tea and pistachios in my luggage. I was a little worried about the work I was leaving behind &045; after all, I had a tray of ice cubes in the freezer.
Whenever I am traveling on a sunny morning, I like to have the windows down, the wind blowing through my hair and the stereo blasting. But the flight attendant said, &uot;No!&uot;
I was wedged into an airplane seat between two guys headed to the National Sumo Wrestlers Convention. One more pound on either of them and they would be named new planets. The pilot informed us that Washington, D.C. would have some broken clouds, but he was sure they would have them fixed by the time we got there. That was good news.
We landed at Ronald Reagan National Airport. I sometimes wonder why if flying is so safe, why do they call an airport the terminal? I checked into a hotel and discovered that it offered a liter of Evian water for only $6. That’s why Evian is naive spelled backwards.
There were no cherry blossoms to see as they bloom in late March and early April. There were a lot of homeless folks. I hadn’t seen so many homeless men since the day after John Mickelson’s bachelor party. I also came across a man selling Rolex watches for only $65 &045; a cherished American tradition. All his other watches, Cartier, Seiko, Swiss Army, Movado, etc. were offered for $12.
Washington, D.C. is a planned city.
Maryland and Virginia gave land to be the capital of the United States in 1790. The government moved to Washington in 1800. It consists of 68 square miles &045; much of it is reclaimed swampland.
I stopped at a couple of the Smithsonian museums. I saw a lot of stuffed birds, dead insects and a rock that looked like Richard M. Nixon. I looked at the Hope Diamond. As I moved to one side of it, I realized that I was just beyond Hope. I left a bid of $49.95 for the big jewel with the nearest security guard. I said that I might be willing to go a little higher, but I’d have to talk with my banker first.The guard said he would be sure to let me know if the Hope Diamond was mine. I looked at a Ming vase. It didn’t really look much better than the WyoMing vase we have at home that we got on a visit to Laramie.
There is a lot of traffic in Washington. No streets and highways have been added to the city since 1965, even though the population of the city has doubled since then. The more time I spent in Washington, the happier I became that I was a pedestrian from Pedestria, Minnesota. I quickly learned that the &uot;walk&uot; and &uot;don’t walk&uot; signs do not mean a thing. They are merely suggestions. The secret is to let someone else walk first. Then while the ambulance is there dealing with his injuries, it blocks the traffic just long enough to allow you to cross the street. Everyone was in a hurry and I can’t prove it, but I think it was due to a bathroom shortage. This causes road rage and gridlock. I can see why members of Congress sometimes have difficulty getting things done. It takes them at least 20 years in office just to find their way around.
Tip O’Neill said that all politics is local.
After visiting Washington, D.C. I think perhaps all politics are loco. Federal government is getting bigger and it is doing so by taxing innocent people. The mystery of government is not always how it works. Sometimes the mystery is how to make it stop.
There are dark suits everywhere in Washington. You cannot avoid them no matter how hard you try. I met just enough mucky-mucks in Washington, D.C. to be offered a job by one of them. I would like to announce here that I have taken the job offered to me. I have been named the United States Ambassador to North Dakota.
Hartland resident Al Batt writes columns for the Wednesday and Sunday editions of the Tribune.