Find the Cost of Freedom

Hil and Pat were convinced I'd lost my mind. They looked at me like perhaps I needed a long bath and a chardonnay and some solitude. I kind of did, but that wasn't why I went berserk about the lifeguard.


Some jobs don't require much in the way of performance or productivity. For instance, you don't have to be especially gung-ho to be a toll taker on a bridge. The cars come through whether you are smiling like Pan Am stewardess or grousing like Scrooge. And the guy who pushes the buttons at the automatic car wash? He can pretty much get away with being asleep at the wheel for a decent portion of his shift. And while I am forever grateful for the school nurse, you have to admit it is a pretty cake job unless a brittle diabetic or severe asthmatic shows up on your watch. It's not like they sit there poised to respond to the next blunt force trauma. (Teachers aren't allowed to throw stuff anymore...)


But a lifeguard? I am sorry. This is not a job where you have the luxury of spacing out for a spell. There is a real possibility that someone will die. And be dead before you know it. While you are texting little emoticons like :/ to your friends to let them know your job sucks.


Hey, lunkhead! If you don't enjoy sitting in the big chair in your trunks twirling your whistle all day and earning a paycheck because you have a Red Cross card in your wallet and can swim, then go work at Abercrombie. Very few people run the risk of dying there!

OK, I will step down from my soapbox now.


Anyway, the next and last morning in DC, Hil and Pat and I pack our stuff to go and plan to spend a few hours doing a few things on the Mall.

After a few trips to the car, I check out of the hotel and give the GM a piece of my mind. And I let her know that I had booked and canceled another hotel for this trip, and spent much more because my kids enjoy the pool and I enjoy the convenience of the lounge and shuttle. I told her that the pool was a major stink fest with its disinterested and miserable guards. (She'd been made aware of the texting slacker...) And that the lounge being inexplicably closed was a major inconvenience, pointing out that they are not exactly at the epicenter of DC life. I couldn't just step out to another restaurant that easily. But that the one shining feature had been the shuttle and the driver, who were impeccable in every way. (I did not mention that he'd gone off the beaten path a few times to accommodate our plans...I am sure he'd get fired for coloring outside the lines like that.) She thanked me, but did nothing to reduce my bill.


Then Hil and Pat and I took to the shuttle to find the Aquarium. The National Aquarium is rumored to reside beneath the Commerce Building. How very Dan Brown. It was a glorious morning and we were very pleasantly surprised to find the rumors to be true. It is much smaller than the name "National Aquarium" would suggest, but we loved every tank and took loads of pictures. My favorite one is of Hil and Pat making fish lip faces.

Then we walked back toward the fountain section of the Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden. While seated on the benches there the prior afternoon, I'd noted the Archive Building. And while reading that night, I'd learned that that is where we'd find the Charters of Freedom. The Declaration. The Constitution. The Bill of Rights. How cool.

It is not a long tour. But it is powerful. And once you've recovered from seeing the Magna Carta and the Big Three, you see things like the letter offering the Statue of Liberty as a gift from France. The Executive Order designating Yellowstone as the first National Park. And you can learn about how things are selected for archiving and authenticated and preserved for all eternity. Wish we'd known about the damaging effects of the sun before we hung the Declaration in a window for a decade...

We cross the street and discuss lunch before heading for home. After being chased by an unrelenting rabid squirrel, we dine in the Hirshhorn Garden Cafe, a very French, very beautiful little slice of DC uniqueness.


And on the way home to greet my little Trinket and survey the lingering hurricane damage, I can't help but think what an amazing place the U.S. has been and has become, and how proud I am to instill the sense of pride in my children that every citizen should have when they are awestruck by its magnificence.

And I am shedding a tear, just one last time on this trip.