MLK Commemoration

I went on a Martin Luther King commemoration run in the District this week so that I could stand in the presence of greatness, in the shadow of the towering, brooding Dr. King statue at the MLK Memorial on the Tidal Basin.  It's directly across the water from the Jefferson Memorial which is dedicated to our third president, a slaveowner who enslaved his own children that he had with his paramour, slave Sally Jennings.  (Far away, illuminated like two shining cities on the hills, The MLK Memorial on the left and the Washington Monument on the right.)

 
Enroute to the MLK site I ducked into the basement of the Jefferson Memorial to use its facilities (runners always know where there are bathrooms on their usual routes) and, strolling through the bookstore down there to catch another few minutes of warmth before I ventured back outside into the cold again, I noticed they sold little books of the US Constitution (it's not very long, even with all of the amendments included), and I asked the clerk how much the purchase of 53 copies would be so I could run across the Mall to the Capitol and deliver them to the Republican senators there currently railroading the rigged impeachment trial through the process in the hope that those 53 craven sycophants might read it for the first time.  The $20 bill I was carrying wouldn't cover the purchase so I couldn't save our country from sliding into a kleptocratic autocracy; always the wise guy!  (Reflections cast by the Father of our Country.)

I made it to the King Memorial a few minutes later, avoiding the ruined, silt-covered buckling footpath (the entire seawall is sinking and the footpath is often flooded in large stretches) by cutting through the FDR Memorial next door.  There I reflected for a few moments upon the King legacy, an uplifting bequeathal to us during my very lifetime time, and ruminated sadly upon how quickly and low we have sunk to as a result of a single foreign-assisted reckless presidential election cycle, an interference sure to be repeated later this year because the faux president and the Senate led by Moscow Mitch have, for whatever corrupt reasons compelling them, not taken a single step to assure that the chaos doesn't get even worse the next time.  (He had a Dream.)

Sad for my country, I finished my run albeit encouraged personally because although my pace was slow, the four miles went easily, my longest run in months since I cut back my mileage total way back in the fall due to a series of nagging leg problems.  Maybe, like my running health, my country will get better come November despite my anxieties.  (I have a dream that a better America is coming...)