DC Reflections

President's Day Parade: Americans all in Alexandria

[Ed. Note: All photos by James Navarro.]

Danny McCullough sat on a curb near King Street in Old Town Alexandria today ready to celebrate two things: his country and his family.

"This is a celebration of America," the 21-year military veteran said as the annual parade to honor George Washington began. "People forget about the good things sometimes. And Washington was one of the Founding Fathers, the first general, the first president. It's appropriate to honor him."

Sitting next to wife Maria and surrounded by some of their children, the Washington Redskins fan had something else on his mind.

"My daughter is in the parade," he beamed. "She's with the Twirl Factory of Virginia. This is an opportunity for our family to be together, to enjoy doing something together."

Unfortunately for him, his 7-year-old was scheduled to be among the last to march -- meaning the black clouds rolling in would, well, rain on his parade.

A few feet away, a man named Louie watched as the parade kicked in to the next gear. The City of Alexandria Pipes and Drums strolled by, the bagpipes and booming beat bringing people to their feet. A local fire truck let its siren rip.

"This reminds me of growing up in Boston," he reminisced. "We had all these parades ... it was very patriotic there. This gives me that same feeling."

It was exactly the kind of sentiment that brought me there. I wanted to take advantage of another  opportunity to experience and celebrate the bonds that hold the red, white and blue together. It's often hard to feel a sense of community and country in the rush of daily life. Parades take us back in time, and closer to each other.

The people lining the streets all felt it. Adults and children alike waved American flags and cheered every group that walked by. African-Americans, Caucasians, Hispanics, and Asian-Americans spoke to each other without the slightest barrier between us. Biracial couples and their children bore testament to the slow but steady progress we're making toward an America in which color genuinely does not matter.

The canine-Americans in attendance might have a head start on their upright walking companions, though. Black Labs, white bulldogs, Golden Retrievers, German Shepherds, big 'ol Newfoundland mixes, itty bitty Beagles ... all took in the parade without so much as a growl.

Maybe they sensed their owners' reverence for more of the parade's participants. A group of people representing the Military Order of the Purple Heart went by -- all but one of our gray-haired heroes riding in shiny new cars. One man wanted to show his heart was still strong, however. The crowd applauded ever more loudly with every gimpy step he made.

We gave it up for the T.C. Williams High School Marching Band, American Red Cross, U.S. Postal Service, Freemasons, Sons of the American Revolution, National Park Service and more. Shriners in midget cars raced by. A gaggle of clowns hit the streets making kids and the young at heart laugh out loud. One raced up to a man with a home video camera and stuck his big red nose right into his lens.

"Is that TV?," he asked. "I'm so excited. I'm going to be on TV! I'm going to be on TV!" The man's grandchildren couldn't get enough.

The next group in the procession was the one I most wanted to see: Revolutionary War re-enactors marched in perfect cadence. Their sharp blue coats and crisp white pants, though, gave them away a bit. So did the fact that they all had shoes. Many of Washington's men weren't so lucky. The soldiers who gave us the nation we have today were often tattered twigs that walked barefoot. They ate tree bark to fool their stomachs into keeping them alive for one more day.

An 18-month-old named Page stared at the modern-day version's shiny buttons with parents Lori and  Chris.

"This is about American history," Lori said. "Children need to start becoming aware of history. The George Washington parade is educational but fun. And Page, she just likes waving flags."

 

A beautiful woman's stop on the blue line

I hopped on the blue line to make my way back from a President's Day parade in Alexandria. A beautiful woman with long, dark hair and dark eyes had her arms wrapped around her children: The black-eyed boy was about five, the brown-eyed girl about three. 

The woman wasn't wearing a wedding ring, nor did her finger show the tanless indention indicating one had been there recently. I smiled. She smiled back. I made small talk for a second about her kids, who had tired of sitting and -- despite their mom's wishes -- were exploring the Metro train. We traded smiles again when she blew bangs away from her eyes and pulled the kids back to her.

The woman was so gentle with her energetic children. So loving. She wrapped her daughter's blond hair into a ponytail -- something the girl was quite fond of. She tucked in her boy's shirt. She explained with each passing station that no, it wasn't their stop. It was still time to sit there with her.

I was, to be honest, transfixed. Enamored.

The train chugged along for a few stops and I got lost in my people-watching ruminations. I wondered what might have caused her apparent divorce. I wondered where she was going. I was looking a little disheveled after traipsing around Alexandria but I wondered if I should strike up a conversation. Perhaps we'll get off at the same stop, I hoped.

The train came to a grinding halt at the next stop. The beautiful woman took a deep breath, grabbed her children by their hands, and was gone from my view and my life in a flash.

I looked up, saw where we were, and wretched.

Then the blue line pulled away from Arlington National Cemetery.

Library of Congress: America's past, my future

Turning a page of the writings of George Washington at the Library of Congress this Saturday morning, I caught my reflection in the glass covering the brown reading desks. My face was enveloped by the image of the Jefferson reading room dome also bouncing off the glass. I noticed the sunlight pouring in through one of the stained glass windows.

Though I'm not one to long pause in front of a mirror, something about my auto-view held my attention. Perhaps it was the tranquility of the moment ... knowing that I was yet again hanging out in my favorite place in the District, a town where I have for the past eight months been living the life of my dreams. I am doing work in the nonprofit sector that means something to me, making new friends, collecting new experiences, and challenging my mind -- many new assertions unsettling what I thought I once knew.

I looked into the Library of Congress desk and wondered if I would be measuring my age by that very view in the years to come. I can not imagine ever leaving this city; I am perhaps more so than I have ever been, home.

Then I turned my eyes back to George Washington and the stark thoughts that were on his mind in 1776.

From a letter written on May 1 to Major General Charles Lee:

"... I thank you for your good wishes in our future operations, and hope that every diabolical attempt to deprive mankind of their inherent rights and privileges, whether made in the East, West, North or South, will be attended with disappointment and disgrace, and that the authors in the end will be brought to such punishment, as an injured people have a right to inflict."

Orders given to his troops in New York on July 2, while Congress was giving its initial approval to the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia, moved me even more:

"... The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them.

"The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army -- Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; this is all we can expect -- We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die: Our own Country's Honor, all call upon us for a vigorous and manly exertion, and if we now shamefully fail, we shall become infamous to the whole world.

"Let us therefore rely upon the goodness of the Cause, and the aid of the supreme Being, and whose hands Victory is, and we shall have their blessings and praises, if happily we encourage each other, and shew the whole world, that a Freeman contending for LIBERTY on his own ground is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth."

Putty in his paws

I walked into the Gwinnett County (Georgia) Animal Shelter 11 years ago on Feb. 6 to finish researching a newspaper story I was writing. Every dog in the place knew I wasn't going to be able to stop myself from taking home a little something to remember the story by.

I had interviewed too many people and heard too many horror stories about what those dogs' previous owners had done to them. I had to do my part.

A scrawny little black and white Siberian husky with ribs protruding from his sides took my breath away at first sight. Accounts conflict as to exactly how we chose each other. Depends on who is more reliable, the Chris Lancette writing an article the week I adopted him -- or the memory I've had all these years. Mostly likely, both are accurate.

My first memory of him was looking into his sad blue eyes as he lay in his pen. His owner had starved him, beat him in the head, and fed him beer. What was supposed to be a 60-pound dog couldn't have been near that. While all the other dogs tried to get my attention and begged for salvation, the three-year-old husky didn't move. He just looked up at me and used his eyes to say, "Don't pick me. I'm about to die anyway. Pick one of these other dogs who will be with you for a long time."

My own blue eyes watered up and I mumbled to the staff to unlock the cage: that was the dog who was going home with me, and I would call him Orion -- naming him after the constellation I've long admired in the night sky.

I remember that moment vividly.

Maybe that's what happened the first time we saw each other. Perhaps the written record of the time refers to me coming back after finishing the paper work.

"My husky -- I felt a bond the moment I saw him -- called me from run 64," I wrote in the Gwinnett Loaf, a paper that no longer exists. "When that 60 pounds of grace and beauty had my attention, he twirled around and jerked his head, as if asking me to come nearer. I obeyed, and stuck my fingers through the chain links. Once I was by his side, he rubbed his thick black coat and snow white legs through my fingers.

"'Come on, man," his glance seemed to say. 'Let's go home.'"

Though I have no memory of that moment, that twirl and head jerk, enhanced with a little husky yelp, would be one of his endearing mannerisms that would make me laugh for nearly a decade. Orion knew he could get anything he wanted from me with the twirl and yelp. Dinner. Snacks. Walks. A ride in the car. I was always putty in his paws.

I quickly learned Orion had a lot of problems. Epilepsy topped the list, and he had it bad. I was horrified the first time I saw him have a massive seizure -- collapsing to the ground like he was being electrocuted, foaming at the mouth, eyes rolling back in his head, his bowels emptying themselves. He would have consecutive seizures like that for 24 hours at a time at first. Attack after attack with little rest in between.

The wonderful veterinarians at Beaver Crossing Animal Clinic worked with me to treat his condition, but there would be some grueling nights before we found the right dosage of meds. One bitterly cold, rainy night, when I was too broke to afford to take him to an emergency medical clinic and get him a shot that would help him go to sleep and ease the seizure activity, I had to tackle him and pin him to the cement carport.

The vets told me if I could keep him still and relaxed, it could help break the cycle. I remember finding blankets for him and holding him until he fell asleep ... while the cold and cement sent pains shooting through my own limbs until sunrise. I remember thinking that was the first time I had truly understood what it meant to put another being's needs before my own ... to be committed to the happiness and well-being of another. I hoped I'd be able to carry the lesson over to my romantic life some day.

Orion made it through that night. Next up was getting him back to his natural weight. That took six months or more as he just didn't want to eat much. I also tried to help him realize he didn't need to flinch in fear every time someone moved too quickly near his head.

I spoiled Orion rotten for the next 10 years, as I would his adopted half-husky sister Alexis who's   staring at me as I write. She understands her walk can wait until I'm through writing about Orion. And man did we know how to celebrate the anniversary of his "Gotch'ya Day" that I considered his birthday. The best bonfire party I ever threw was in his honor. Huge party. Birthday cake. House full of my friends. Flames soaring so high that I'm sure we scared the hell out of the neighbors.

Orion returned that love to me just as powerfully. Jobs would come and go and he'd be there. Girls would come and go (some we wanted gone; others broke our hearts) and Orion would help me recover. He knew when my heart hurt the most.

He also touched the lives of a great many people over the years. Encountering a wheel-chair bound young man with an enormous, hideously deformed head shaped like a triangle, Orion knew what to do. When the man grunted a request to get closer to the dog, I tried to wipe the look of shock off my face and let Orion do his thing. The man tried to move his fingers to pet him but he just couldn't get his hands to work.

No problem.

Orion, who used to get a great big grin on his face when he'd stand in front of me refusing my request to move out of my way, eased his head under the man's hand -- then moved his head back and forth to give him the sensation he was petting my pup. The man's elephantesque face lit up: for if just a moment, someone was treating him like a person and not a freak. I looked away only to see the woman pushing the young man had tears in her eyes, too.

Orion did that kind of stuff all the time. Without a minute of training, he walked into an assisted living center, roamed the halls with me, and made friends. People would touch him and start telling stories of their fondest childhood memories. He'd lean up and give his famed ear lick to residents whose minds were mostly gone already and, if just for a second, they would become lucid. Alive.

He had the same effect on children, especially when serving as the mascot of the travel baseball team I named after him and Alexis, the Huskies. The image of his face was sewn into our caps. The laughter we all shared doing the Husky fighting gesture -- lifting up our legs and pretending to pee on the ground -- still cracks me up.

Orion died on Jan. 29, 2007, exactly one week before what would have been our 10th Gotch'ya Day together. I came home from work and he was dead on the living room floor. In absolute shock, I raced him to the vet; I didn't know where else to go. Beaver Crossing had taken care of us for a decade. The vet said he looked as if he simply had a brain hemorrhage and died in an instant. No pain. No suffering. Even I had noticed the look frozen on his face, a look of complete peace as if he saw where he was headed next -- and that it was a beautiful place.

The closer the anniversary of his death came, the worse I felt. I still miss him and know part of me always will. He was a huge part of my life. As I look toward Feb. 6, however, I'm thinking it's time for me to focus less on the pain of his loss -- and more on celebrating his life and the meaning he brought to mine.

Maybe it's time for me to gather my new friends together here and throw my first D.C. bonfire bash. I can see Orion twirling around and yelping now: He knows there will be cake.

Trying to warm up to Al Gore

Taking a break from some house cleaning on Saturday, I sat down for lunch, flipped on the tube, and surfed around a bit. Several excellent movies I had been meaning to see were on. So was Al Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth".

Urrr, I groaned -- opting to skip the entertainment and go for the heavy brain lift. "Take your medicine, boy," I told myself. "Not fair for you to keep criticizing the man when you haven't seen the film."

To be perfectly clear, I have been very slow to embrace the global warming movement and am exceptionally skeptical of many ideas promoted by die-hard Democrats and Republicans alike. I figured the idea of global warming and the need for American and global response were just more big-government blather because of the spokesman for the cause.

As the past few years have gone by, though, my brain and my conscience have been poking me. They keep making me go back to an issue that is big, complicated, scientific, and detail-oriented. In other words: boring. Talk to me about defeating racism, educating children about history, saving wolves or getting government off our backs and I'm all ears. But big, boring science stuff that doesn't boil down to a soundbite -- by God, it's my duty as an American to try to ignore it or oppose it.

Then there's Old Al and my cognitive dissonance.

On the one hand, I certainly wouldn't treat my body, house or neighborhood the way my apathy condones the way we treat the whole planet. I'm green friendly. I care about public lands, wildlife, clean drinking water, and fresh air. Conserving our natural resources just seems like the right thing to do. Global warming or no global warming, I do what I can to reduce my energy use, recycle, etc. And yes, it irks me every time I see someone driving a gas guzzling SUV in city traffic. Like the driver at any second is going to need to hop the curb, enter an invisible jungle and deliver a vaccine to a dying child.

On the other hand: Al Gore. Tax-and-spend, government-is-the-answer-to-everything Al Gore.

But take your medicine, boy, I think. It will be good for you.

So I try to read at least some of the articles in the press. I try to really listen when my ultra-green friends get into the minutiae of the science of global warming. Further to my credit, I even went to listen to Gore speak on Earth Day at the National Museum of the American Indian. There I was, having come a long way from nay-sayer to listener, someone on the verge of starting to genuinely care about the issue. But Gore just didn't deliver the goods in Washington. Bless his heart, as we say back home -- often before delivering a genteel insult -- I saw first-hand the charisma challenge that has plagued his career. Maybe my expectations were too high. Maybe I was expecting the "I have a dream" of global warming speeches.

I left the event still not grasping the facts and importance of the issue. I was disappointed, actually. Intuitively, I keep thinking global warming should be something that matters to me. Yet I rolled my eyes when Gore later won the Nobel Peace Prize, my gut reaction telling me political correctness has gone wrong again.

Still, I didn't give up trying to wrap my brain around the potential merit of his mission. I continued to read and listen, to watch documentaries by journalists instead of politicians. I continued to consider the overwhelming documentation by the world's scientific community that global warming is real and that it is made worse by human beings. I've even quizzed my own friends who happen to be scientists.

Then I catch "An Inconvenient Truth" today while scarfing down leftover Chinese food and a Coke. "This is your last chance," I told TV screen Al. "You don't further my interest here, I'll never come around."

I watched every one of the 100 minutes in the film, forcing myself to sit there without distraction. I quickly realized that the film praisers who have used phrases like "intellectually exhilarating" were  smoking something I don't have access to. Fortunately, I had the caffeine. But Al and his barnstorming global warming slide show methodically made the points that held my attention.

I began to gain a significantly better understanding of what contributes to global warming, including humanity's role in it. The film walked this journalism major through the science I hadn't been able to follow before. It showed before and after pictures of glaciers that are disappearing in a hurry and a ton of other eye-popping graphics.

More importantly, "An Inconvenient Truth" connected many of the dots I had not been able to put together. I now see how global warming makes hurricanes worse. I see the link between polar bears drowning in the sea because they have no ice to inhabit and water supply for humans. I'm starting to grasp the extraordinary range of dire consequences we face by not doing more to overcome the bad habits and outdated technology that have turned up the heat on the planet. Global warming is not a phase; it is a fact.

I'm starting to get why we need to act, and that the situation is not yet hopeless. We can, all of us, make a difference.

Here's the thing: we can't worry about what the other 6,648,239,520 people on the planet are doing, or even the other 301,139,947 Americans. One of the great episodes of the TV show "M*A*S*H" that changed my life perspective was a story about Hawkeye putting a stop to one bad guy -- a man who scoffed at the surgeon and told him he would never be able to change the world. Hawkeye agreed but said he took satisfaction from doing his part to change his small corner of it. I never forgot that lesson.

That's all most of us can do. It's not going to be easy to fully grasp and embrace global warming. You've got to really want to get your mind around it because it's not something you can accomplish between commercials of "Lost".

I know I owe it to myself and the natural world I care about to keep studying global warming and to  consider the host of steps we can take to make a difference. I already know my next step, though: TV screen Al gave me a lot more information than I could absorb the first time. I'm going to go back and watch "An Inconvenient Truth" again. There's plenty of Coke left in the fridge.