When I was a junior in high school, my parents gave me a generous gift in sending me to Washington, D.C. with my high school. It was a grand adventure & I am afraid that I probably didn’t appreciate exactly what it took for me to be there at that time. I had fun but I think I thought more about socializing than monuments.
A few memories stand out:
- We happened to run into Senator Kennedy behind the Capitol building. We said hello and smiled, and he proceeded to ignore us. I know he was busy & sick of the limelight but he seemed to me to be a snob.
- We were able to tour the inside of the Capital rotunda and the artwork & architecture was stunning.
- One evening we went to the mall to see the Vietnam Memorial. It was brand new, maybe not even officially open, and there were protestors. I didn’t really understand what the protests were about but I remember that they were there.
- The program that we went with decided that visiting Arlington National Cemetery wasn’t a required thing for a student trip to Washington. What??? Our eleventh-grade social studies teacher helped us climb over the fence and we walked through the cemetery at about 7 a.m. It was a sobering sight – rows upon rows of white crosses in perfect lines. It was the most sacred, meaningful time of the whole trip.
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