D.C. for the 4th of July
Ah, 4th of July, the celebration of my nation's birth. My country tis of thee, sweet land of liberty.
For all that things aren't perfect, this is the lifeamgood and this year, we were able to take advantage of the excellent hospitality of Karen's uncle to stay North of Washington D.C. and see the sights over the holiday weekend.
It was wonderful and sweet and melancholy and grand. There were fireflies at night and we watched them twinkle as we drank wine and sat in the sultry evening.
 We went to a number of Smithsonians and knew once more that we have some really nice stuff. My favorite was the Native American museum, which was wonderfully done with well integrated native art and interative pieces with various tribes.
The Air and Space Museum was filled with the bright promise of the space race. Now looking rather sad and old as the technology is over 20 years old and the newest elements are from the Hubble, that due to lack of funding will fall from the sky. Not that I want a downer element here, but it did make me wonder when we'll be a nation of dreamers again. Yes, we're fighting terrorism, but we're at our best when we're reaching for some impossible star.
As witness to the monuments that we wandered. The bowl of the grand WW2 monument with stars for our thousands of dead and words of that great conflict. Set between the Lincoln and the Washington Monuments.
 More ghostly was the Korean memorial. That memorial from my father's forgotten war. The ghostly reflections of soldiers on the black reflective wall engraved with peering holgraphic faces and distant unnamed lands.
And then to the personal of the Vietnam memorial.
Trying to focus on a wall of names can be overwhelming.
Each representing as it does some potential lost.
All the more personal to look at a single slab near the beginning of the conflict. Looking for the name of Karen's uncle, a boy gone before she was born.
Well, what can I say, memorials are melacholy in that way.
From there it's a short turn, turn, turn to the Lincoln memorial.
Now, I suppose there, one could focus on the cold marble of the statue on it's throne.
Craning your neck as you look up and up at the sad tired face of a man who wanted freedom and unity. Who wasn't beautiful. Who worked for everything he had. Who wrote such beautiful ideas.
But really, the Lincoln memorial isn't about the statue or the well stocked bookshop in the corner.
The interesting thing is looking at the patchwork of colorful people visiting.
Craning thier necks up to look at the thoughts carved all round the memorial walls. Every age and walk and type milling around in that space.
And from there, we head on over to the other end of the Memorial strip.
To the new Roosevelt memorial, like some open slabbed home. The juxtaposition of the flowing water and the immobile stone representing so many aspects of that giant of the earliest 20th century. Represented in human sized bronze and rooms, which depict his presidency.
In many ways, it's a monument to an era.
The people who survived the dust bowl and soup lines.
Who went on to fight in that war so memorialized between Lincoln and Washington.
Who built public works projects, that built the roads that built the nation.
That went from the first half of the 20th century and into the second. Having been told that the only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.
We meandered past the whimsical little memorial to one Mr. Martin, whose Revolutionary writings influenced that of that other rather more well known gentleman of revolutionary fame.
I hadn't really thought about it before, but much of is made of the symbolism of the Washington Monument, Jefferson's dome isn't without it's own contrasting symbolism.
And under that round dome, once more we gathered to read words set in stone.
Ideas that set forth some new nation, founded in Liberty.
Holding in carved stone some self-evident truths, that all men are created equal, that we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
I wonder how distant a relative the Carroll of Carroltown is from myself. Probably seven degrees, since that is how we're all separated.
As the weekend wore on, we were lucky enough to be sit on the lawn and listen to the Navy band and watch the world go by. Watch the world and then the fireflies and then the fireworks exploding in the sky.
Rockets red glare and smily faces. Flowers and silver falling spangles. Drawing the eye back down to earth.
And yet, you crane your head the whole time. Monuments and White houses. Congress and that Just House up on their hill.
Really an excellent experience. Like some pilgrimidge of independence, I recommend every American try it at least once.
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