Parliament Square, Trafalgar Square and Fala

Happy Presidents Day.  The greatness of Abraham Lincoln is even recognized in London, as he holds down a section of Parliament Square opposite Disraeli

The British also recognize the greatness of the Father of Our Country.  A statue of George Washington is in Trafalgar Square, outside of their National Gallery, which also houses a Stuart Gilbert portrait of Washington.

FDR has a corner of the Tidal Basin all to himself, tucked away between the Jefferson Memorial and the MLK Memorial.  He shares its expanse with Fala, Eleanor, a barefoot person huddled around a radio set listening to one of his uplifting weekly addresses that is addressed to all Americans and not just his base, and Hooverville people lined up on a food line.

After those towering Great Presidents (one gave us our country, one saved our country and one saved the world), I'd say the slightly lesser pantheon of great presidents starts with Teddy Roosevelt, the Trust Buster who addressed to some degree the obscene wealth inequality that had crept into our capitalistic society during the Robber Baron era, and that has regrettably insinuated itself back into our current society even worse, especially after the democracy-wrecking Citizens United supreme court decision.  I think I'll go get a pizza for lunch on this holiday and ponder our fork-in-the road future, with portentous November coming up.

"Now He Belongs to the Ages"

Abraham Lincoln died on this date in 1865 at the Petersen House in DC, after having been shot the night before across the street at Ford's Theatre.  He was attended at death by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, who said famously as the greatest US president in history passed from this world, perhaps one of the ten or twenty greatest persons in world history, "Now he belongs to the ages."

Worst to First

DC has plenty of free expansive memorials like the Washington Monument, dedicated walkways like the Tidal Basin and museums like the Smithsonian Portrait Gallery.  It has a permanent presidential portrait gallery with one or more painted picture of every past president except Obama (it's coming), so to get an image of the current and worst president by far already, you have to go to the Smithsonian gift shop and buy a postcard.

But on the west end of the third floor of the old converted Patent Office building, you can see plenty of images of the best president, Lincoln, including busts, a life mask and a cast of his hands.  In contrast to the current era of divisiveness fostered by the current White House occupant, Lincoln kept our nation together, ended the intractable problem of slavery, reinvented American liberty with his Gettysburg Address and showed a way to the future with his astonishing 2d Inaugural Address.

You can find a portrait of the worst president, until Trump, Dubya; his "W" moniker stood for Worst.  He had all the worst impulses of a miscreant schoolboy, flippant ("Bring 'em on!"), irreverent (Doin' a heckuva job, Brownie"), intellectually lazy (he depended on Cheney's viewpoint of the world) and totally unprepared, in his own way, for the demands of the office ("Mission accomplished!"), his unfunded tax cuts and endless wars has impoverished the country but in contrast to the abysmal "presidential" performance we've seen this year, Bush the Second now seems positively presidential in comparison.

But then you can pause in the marble hallways to linger over several likenesses of the Father of our Country.  Washington won a guerrilla war against the greatest power on Earth, gave up the mantle of military power voluntarily, took on the country's first presidency under its new constitution and established many important protocols for the office and then retired after two terms, setting yet another lasting standard for the peaceful transfer of power.

Happy Presidents Day

I remember as a school boy in New York, we used to get Lincoln's Birthday off as well as Washington's Birthday, both in February.  Down south they celebrated Washington's Birthday but not Lincoln's, marking a holiday a month earlier as Lee-Jackson Day instead, as in Bobby and Stonewall.

This all got sorted out by marking the greatness of Martin Luther King, Jr. with a holiday on or near his birthday, substituting it for the south's worship of their revered CSA heroes and Lincoln's exaltation in the north and renaming Washington's Birthday as Presidents Day.  Today is that very holiday and at noon, as is my custom on holidays, I'll be dining at the local gourmet pizzeria.

Two of my sons have birthdays this month also, and I'll be at the Lost Dog Cafe at noon on those days too.  Perhaps one or more of them will come dine with me any of these days, my treat; I hope so because I miss them and love them as any father would love his sons.

Jimmy I last saw or heard from over a decade ago.  Danny I haven't seen nor heard from in about a decade.

Dusk Run on the Mall

It had been years since I ran after work on the Mall, the last time I had done so was years ago when I ran the bridges one day at dusk, 13 miles over the Key Bridge, back to the District on the Roosevelt Bridge, out again on the Memorial Bridge and the final return to work over the 14th Street Bridge.  Yesterday evening I ran with H from the office who wanted to get in a long run while she ramps up to get ready for a 10-Miler trail run next month and rain and a busy schedule had prevented a run earlier in the day.

We took off from our office near Union Station at 6:30 pm and ran east and south to get onto the Mall, and immediately I regretted not wearing a bill cap as the setting sun was blindingly in our eyes.  The weather was good though, dry, cool, a little windy.

We ran over the little man-made hill in front of the Department of Labor leading up to its steps as we achieved the Mall and ran due east.  Talking easily, we loped past the Carousel, the Washington Monument, World War II, World War I and the Lincoln Memorial, icons all, and started back.

H is interesting to talk with, she's smart, considerate and works hard to keep up.  We pounded over the little Labor Hill a second time and then ran up Capital Hill at the end to complete our idyllic run (all those monuments in the deepening twilight!), about six miles in about an hour, a perfect end to a busy workday.

Runnin' Some

I have been running a little since I got back from the Grand Canyon. On the weekend of the Fourth, I had a RBF hookup with David on the Mall. Those are always fun. We went about ten miles in about 1:40, from Iwo Jima (pictured) to RFK and back. We started at 9:30s but wore down in the heat a little to over 10s. I took David by every war memorial that I could think of, Korea, Vietnam, WWI, WW2, the Civil War (Grant statue), the Revolutionary War (Washington Monument), and the War of 1812 (the White House, which was burned during it). We even went up the stairs into Lincoln and read the two famous speeches inscribed there, the Gettysburg Address and Lincoln’s Second Inauguration Speech. There’s always plenty to do on a Sunday morning in DC if you run.

We are free at last.

Monday was a federal holiday, Martin Luther King Day. Dr. King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 for his work in promoting racial equality through non-violent means. On August 28, 1963, Dr. King cried out these words from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC to a gathering of a quarter million onlookers and supporters.

We have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Today in honor of Dr. King, the weekly running group I lead at noon from my agency ran down to the spot on the Tidal Basin where the future Martin Luther King Memorial will be constructed, next to the FDR Memorial. It will have a full view of the Jefferson Memorial across the water and be within sight of the Washington Monument through the trees.

In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

From a moment’s reflection at this quiet spot, we ran on down the Mall to the Lincoln Memorial, from which steps Dr. King spoke his famous words on that portentous day.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope.

The group climbed the high steps of this temple of freedom and looked out over the hallowed plain of equality containing its oases of sacrifice manifested by the Vietnam Wall, the Korean War Memorial, the WWI Memorial, the WW2 Memorial and in the far away distance, the Civil War Memorial shimmering in front of the Capitol. Then we ran back along the Reflecting Pool to work, having travelled four miles immersing ourselves in history and having spent forty minutes basking in greatness.

So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"