The prompt this month at the church’s writing group was, “Vacations”. You know, “What did you do on your summer vacation?”. Since most of the group is made up of seniors (one 102 years old and me the youngster at 66) when had several decades of vacations to choose from. He is what I read for the group (the poem at the end I’ve posted here a few times before):
My 1982 Winter Vacation in DC
It was just a convergence of events. It wasn’t that I consciously decided I wanted to take a vacation. Sure my mother had taken my brothers and me on many summer vacations when we were children but now I was 22, working and could plan my own trips. The events that got me to Washington DC started when I went to work for a subsidiary of DHL, the international shipping company. I was building one of the first word processing computers for them in a little shop in Campbell CA. DHL had a strange employee benefit — free airline travel. What DHL did was what they called “courier flights”. DHL would send overnight letters and packages on regularly scheduled passenger flights, but in order to do that they needed to have a human fly on the flight so they could use the baggage allowance. That turned out to be a great deal for DHL employees because as employee you could sign up to be a courier and fly somewhere for free.
The next thing that happened was that I saw an ad in a science fiction magazine about the newly formed Planetary Society and a conference they were having in Washington DC in December. The main speakers were to be Carl Sagan and Issac Asimov. By 22 I’d read a lot of Asimov’s books and had seen every episode of Sagan’s TV series, Cosmos. I was a serious SciFi fan in those days. I wanted to go. I really wanted to hear Asimov as I heard he was a great speaker but due to his fear of flying he’d likely never appear on the west coast as he lived in New York and only traveled by car or train.
I went to the HR department and got a copy of the courier flight schedule book. In it I found a flight from San Francisco to New York and filled out an request for flights on the dates that would get me to the east coast for the conference. I was happy that my request was approved and I went to a local travel agent and got tickets for a commuter flight from JKF to DC. I also sent in my registration for the conference (it was open to the general public) and booked a hotel within walking distance of the Smithsonian where the conference was held. Because of the time of my flight, I ended up having an extra day in DC so I figured I’d do a little sightseeing — after all how often do you get to the capital?
The conference was in early December and the flight to New York landed in a major snow storm. I was delayed into DC by nearly six hours and the first thing I did at the hotel was to send the suit I was wearing to the cleaners as it was a mess. On the courier flight you could only bring carry on luggage so everything I had for winter in DC I was wearing along with carrying a small case.
I wish I could tell you about the conference, but honestly I don’t remember much about it. I did borrow a friends 35 mm camera and took lots of pictures. I don’t remember what happened to those. Asimov’s speech was good, but Sagan’s was a rehash of his TV show. Over the years I’ve lost my taste for SciFi and space technology.
What I do remember, is on my conference day off wandering around the Smithsonian and finding a stop for the Tour-mobile that takes you around the city. I bought a ticket and got on. It was a weekday in December in DC and I was the only one on a bus. I wonder what the driver and tour guide thought of a young man in a suit with a big camera getting on the bus. The bus took me around and I didn’t get off until the Tomb Of The Unknown in Arlington. I got there just before the ceremony started and took out my camera. I was the only person in the viewing area — just me and the guards.
A guard came out and started his well rehearsed speech asking us — me — to stand. Something changed in my mind on that cold day, with a light snow coming down and I put my camera away stood in my best boy scout parade rest stance as I watched the changing of the guard in silence.
Afterwards I got back on the bus and got off at the Lincoln Memorial. Across the road was the newly built Vietnam Veterans memorial wall. Words fail to describe the power I felt looking at that. The snow as gently falling and there was no one there but me. I visited years later and found the site overrun with tourists and families and friends looking for the names of lost loved ones. The wall covered with flowers and notes, but in December 82 it was just the names of the dead and me trying to understand how those names arrived in this place.
Decades after that trip I wrote a poem about the experience. It’s the only memento of that trip I still value.
Twenty-one Guns
The tour bus rumbles past
the quiet monuments to the fallen.
Shutters click as the tour guide
speaks the litany of the shrine,
that once was the Lee estate.
Now it is that hallowed ground
where solders come for that long rest.
The Quick rumble past the carved stones
of the Dead, that once placed
boots of war on their feet.
Their soles now silent.
Now day-trippers take aim and fire.
Cameras, not rifles.
Pictures, not prisoners taken.
The bus stops. The microphone is silent.
To the left a horse pulls a caisson carrying a flag-draped box
That contains a name who once walked.
The warrior sent at our command.
The sightseer sees and falls silent
And hears the echo of guns.
Three volleys and then the mournful notes.
Boys became men
And men became names
And names became graves
Gone is the sun,
Day is done.
God is Nigh.
Andrew's View of the Week 