Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
eachcorner.Nowitisasifeverythinghasbeensortedoutbyafussyspinster,foldedneatly
and put in its proper place. You go to the Air and Space Museum and you see the Spirit of
St. Louis and the Wright brothers' plane and lots of other famous planes and rocket ships
and it's all highly impressive, but it is also clinical and uninspired. There is no sense of
discovery. If your brother came running up to you and said, “Hey, you'll never guess what
I found in this room over here!” you would in fact guess, more or less, because it would
have to be either an airplane or a rocket ship. At the old Smithsonian it could have been
absolutely anything-a petrified dog, Custer's scalp, human heads adrift in bottles. There's
no element of surprise anymore. So I spent the day trudging around the various museums
dutifully and respectfully, with interest but not excitement. Still, there was so much to see
that a whole day passed and I had seen only a part of it.
In the evening I came back to the Mall, and walked across it to the Jefferson Memorial. I
had hoped to see it at dusk, but I arrived late and the darkness fell like a blanket. Before I
was very far into the park it was pitch dark. I expected to be muggedindeed, I took it as my
due wandering into a city park like this on a dark night-but evidently the muggers couldn't
seeme.TheonlyphysicalriskIranwasbeingbowledoverbyoneofthemanyjoggerswho
sprinted invisibly along the dark paths. The Jefferson Memorial was beautiful. There's not
much to it, just a large marble rotunda in the shape of Monticello, with a gigantic statue of
Jefferson inside and his favorite sayings engraved on the walls (“Have a nice day,” “Keep
yourshirton,”“Youcouldhaveknockedmeoverwithafeather,”etc.),butwhenitislitup
at night it is entrancing, with the lights of the memorial smeared across the pool of water
called the Tidal Basin. I must have sat for an hour or more just listening to the rhythmic
swish of the distant traffic, the sirens and car horns, the distant sounds of people shouting,
people singing, people being shot.
Ilingered solongthatitwastoolate togototheLincoln Memorial andIhadtocomeback
in the morning. The Lincoln Memorial is exactly as you expect it to be. He sits there in
his big high chair looking grand and yet kindly. There was a pigeon on his head. There is
always a pigeon on his head. I wondered idly if the pigeon thought that all the people who
came every day were there to look at him. Afterwards, as I strolled across the Mall, I spied
yet more trestles and draped ropes, with security men hanging about. They had closed off
aroadacross theparkandhadbroughtintwohelicopters withthepresidential seal ontheir
sides and seven cannons and the Marine Corps Band. It was quite early in the morning and
there were no crowds, so I went and stood beside the roped enclosure, the only spectator,
and none of the security men bothered me or even seemed to notice me.
After a couple of minutes, a wailing of sirens filled the air and a cavalcade of limousines
and police motorcycles drew up. Out stepped Nakasone and some other Japanese men, all
