The Events of Friday, December 3, 2010

          “Abby, it’s time for you to get up to shower.” This phrase woke me up this morning. I flung off my covers and climbed down from the top bed. Caitlin groaned as the cold air of the RV met her body and woke her up. I slipped on my shoes, grabbed my bathroom bag and headed with Mom to the showers. We had a very nice shower and returned to find that the beds were made, and people were beginning to change and get ready for breakfast. Daddy called everyone to breakfast and we sat down and enjoyed a delicious breakfast of cereal and orange juice. We then finished our preparations for the day, and, donning coats, hats, and jackets, headed through the freezing cold to the office. In the nice heated office, we paid our shuttle fee and campground fee, met our very nice driver, Nick, and headed to the Metro Station.

          At the Metro Station, we dawdled around, getting tickets and looking at maps, until the extra rush hour fees ended, and then we boarded our train and headed into D.C. On the way, we worked on our Junior Ranger packets from the National Mall, and planned further for our day. When we arrived at our destination, we rode the escalators until street level, and then crossed the street to wait at Old Trolley Stop Number 3 ½. Soon our orange trolley arrived, and we rode until the Lincoln Memorial stop. At the Lincoln Memorial, we transferred to the trolley’s red line, which was a shuttle bus, and drove with our driver, H.W., which he said stands for “hard worker”, to Arlington National Cemetery.  Arlington National Cemetery is actually across the Potomac River in Virginia, so we visited Virginia today as well. Saying good-bye to H.W., we headed inside the visitor center for restrooms and some information.

          In the visitor center, we learned about our many options, and we decided on three of them, the Arlington House, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and John F. Kennedy’s gravesite. First we decided to visit the Arlington House, for we learned that there would be a ranger talk on the hour. Seeing that it was seven minutes to eleven, we hurried to the Arlington House. Mom saw the ranger’s hat and asked Ben to run ahead and ask the ranger to wait, but he refused, so I ran uphill, up practically a million steps, and arrived there quite out of breath. The ranger assured me that she would repeat whatever she said to my family, and I waited patiently for them to arrive. Soon enough, they arrived, huffing and puffing (they had just climbed the endless staircase as well), and we listened to the last part of her speech and then she repeated the first part for their benefit and for others that had arrived after us.

          We learned that Henry (Light Horse Harry) Lee was the father of Robert E. Lee and Robert E. Lee’s wife was a great granddaughter of George Washington. Her father, Washington’s grandson, had built the house in the center of his 116 acres. When the Civil War broke out, Robert E. Lee refused the job of U.S. General for the Union and took charge of the Confederate army, he moved to Richmond, Virginia, and the house was left empty. One of Lee’s old rivals at West Point ordered the dead Union soldiers to be buried on his land, as a way to take revenge and cause him never to want to come back to the house. Robert E. Lee never came back. After the Lee family evacuated and the war was over, the government confiscated the house, claiming that property taxes from during the war were still due. One of Lee’s sons sued the government and, in return, was given $150,000. By now, the grounds were covered with burial sites, even extending to the Lee’s rose garden. It was decided it was better to settle the issue financially than to move all these buried bodies. Also, the national cemetery in D.C. was full, so this was immediately made a national cemetery. Now, it is considered a great honor to be buried in the Arlington National Cemetery.

          It is also considered a great honor for any soldier to guard the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The shift for a guard, they call them Sentinels, lasts an hour at a time, but, over the course the course of the day, they guard the tomb at eight separate times. The guard is changed at the top of the hour, 24 hours a day, always with a special ceremony. The funny thing is that the time that the guards get off isn’t really free time. It takes eight hours to prepare the guard’s uniform for the next work day in addition to training time and frequent haircuts. To see this precision ceremony of the changing of the guard, we headed over to Tomb of the Unknown Soldier next. Arriving five minutes before the top of the hour, we watched for a while as a soldier paced back and forth, always doing the same motions. He always took 21 steps to get from side to side and it took exactly 21 seconds to turn around to pace back. The 21 steps or seconds represent the 21 gun salute, the highest honor a military person can receive.

          Soon another soldier and a sergeant arrived, and the ceremony of the changing of the guard began. It was very unique and interesting. It is sort of hard to explain, but I can just say that I could never do that or stay serious that long without smiling or laughing. Everything was done with perfect timing and precision and every time they snapped their heels together there was a clicking sound. We learned later that these soldiers have special metal on the sides of their shoes to produce this sound. After the ceremony, we went inside a tiny gallery displaying gifts of honor from other countries to the unknown soldiers from the Vietnam conflict, the Korean conflict, WW I, and WW II. The unknown soldiers represent all soldiers missing or unknown from those four wars. There was even a headdress and coup from the Native American chief, Chief Many Coups. Coups are long sticks used to hit people in war, not meant to kill, just to injure. Chief Many Coups was present at the burial of the first Unknown Soldier and temporarily placed his handmade headdress and coup in the coffin holding the remains as a sign of honor from the Indian Nation.

          We walked around a little more and then walked back to the visitor center. On the way we stopped by the graves of the Kennedys: Robert, Edward, John F., and Jacqueline. Included in John F. Kennedy’s and Jacqueline Kennedy’s grave is their stillborn daughter and their son, Patrick, born during Kennedy’s presidency who lived only two days in August, 1963. Burning above the first family’s gravesite is the Eternal Flame. On a nearby stone, portions of Kennedy speeches were inscribed, so we wandered around that area for a while as well. We finished our walk to the visitor center and boarded another shuttle bus to take us back to the Lincoln Memorial.

          However, this shuttle bus was not leaving for a while, so we began our picnic lunch on board the bus. Soon we left for the Lincoln Memorial and finished eating on the way there. Also at the Lincoln Memorial was the Korean War Memorial, so we headed over there while waiting for the trolley. At the memorial are 19 larger than life statues, representing a scout group hiking through a rice field. On one side of the statues is a reflecting wall which reflects nineteen images of the statue. Nineteen times two is 38, which is the line of parallel, or line of latitude, separating North and South Korea where the conflict began and ended.

          We stamped our papers with the Korean War Memorial stamp, and caught the trolley’s green line and headed out to northeast Washington D.C., unknown territory to us. We got off the trolley at the National Cathedral stop and walked inside. We found a lot of jolly ladies in purple gowns. We were told that the next tour included a large group of school children so we decided to explore the Cathedral’s tower first. There, after checking out the excellent view, we learned a bit about the architecture of the building and the long process of building it over 83 years. We also finally answered our question about why some church buildings are called cathedrals, and others, equally as grand are not. To be a cathedral you need to have a cathedra, a special ornate chair for the bishop. If there is a cathedra, then the building is a cathedral. Simple answer to a perplexing question.

          When we returned downstairs they told us that the last tour of the day was just starting, so we rushed inside the cathedral. When we arrived, a lady in a purple gown was telling the group about the space window, a cool stain glass window that actually has a moon rock in it. Then she talked about the large rose window in the back of the cathedral. She told us that, while he was designing it, the designer’s wife had died at 5:30 p.m. To remember her, he placed a prism in his window down near the 5:30 point of the circle. So, at 5:30 exactly, when the setting sun strikes that stain glass window, a rainbow of color walks up the center aisle of the cathedral.

          As we walked to the next spot, she told us a little about herself. She had taught nearby in the cathedral’s girl’s school for 44 years. The tuition for girl’s school, (or the boy’s school) is $32,000 a year. At the next stop, she talked about the masons that built the cathedral. There were eight architects, all from Greece and Italy. They set up their tents in the front yard of the cathedral and the teacher could hear them laughing and working all day. These stone workers all had an extreme sense of humor and knew every kid by name. They were simply told to design aspects for the cathedral but they weren’t given any specific guidelines or anything. Often they would show up at our guide’s classroom needing a model for an angel. They would pull a girl from the class for a few hours to use as their model. They also incorporated their sense of humor into their work. Our guide had a large hound dog with long, long ears. After meeting this dog at dinner with our guide, they asked for a picture. Now the hound dog has been incorporated into a gargoyle on the cathedral, and, when it rains, the water drips down his long ears into a small drain and then a larger drain. To commemorate that the Cathedral’s Christmas services were on national TV, a grotesque with a video camera is on the cathedral. Their work is beautiful, and it makes you laugh too.

          As our guide led us through the cathedral, she showed us a variety of things, but our favorite was a room filled with nativity scenes from around the world. The nativity scenes were made from a variety of materials, from rice and straw to steel and wood. Our favorite was one made from clay from Argentina. However each was unique and beautiful and it was a wonderful way to see Christ’s birth celebrated in so many ways.

          Next, our guide took us to a chapel deep in the basement of the cathedral. There she recounted her experience of 9/11. Her class was in the cathedral that day and having a private service for the girls’ school. They saw the explosion at the Pentagon, and as smoke filled the air, automatically expected that they would be next. The cathedral is the tallest point in Washington, and there are crosses all over the place. In order to not be wiped out all at the same time, they divided into school into classroom groups and spread out throughout the cathedral and school. She took her class to this basement chapel. Here she knew they would have access to food, water and toilets and would that it was the most protected area of the building as it is where all the main supports for the structures are buried deep in the ground. Then she waited there with her class for 5 hours until all the parents could fight through the traffic to pick up their kids.

          Although it was supposed to only last 30 minutes, our tour lasted an hour and a half, so we were very late. We are supposed to be on the Metro, headed home, by 5pm so we can catch the shuttle back to camp. Worried that we would be stranded at the Metro station, we called the shuttle van driver Nick, who told us not to worry. He’d be there whenever we arrived. So we finished up the trolley’s green line loop through rush hour traffic to get back to the Metro blue line. This part of the tour included going down Embassy drive. Our driver warned us that it was going to be like watching a tennis match, and it was. She’d say the Belgium embassy on the right, Mexico’s on the left, Japan’s Embassy is on the right, and so on and so on. Finally we reached the Metro and our shuttle to the campsite that took us home. Nick, our shuttle driver, was very forgiving, even though he waited for an extra hour and a half. Mom fixed us a yummy dinner, and, sleepily, we packed for tomorrow and headed to bed.