fandomhigh | These United States [Wednesday, May 7, 2014]

Some people might view taking kids from a school in Maryland to the National Mall on the first day of a class about the United States a giant cop-out.

Josh prefered to think of it as "playing to his strengths."

"Hey guys," he said, adjusting his sunglasses. "Welcome to Washington, DC. This is the capital--with an 'a'--of the United States of America. The Capital--capital C, spelled with an 'o'--is that big domey thing down at the end of this, the National Mall. If you were expecting a shopping center, well, tough. We could easily spend seven weeks just exploring the buildings along this stretch of grass, but that would be super dull, even on Segways."

Which he'd totally provided from them. They were going to cover a lot of ground in the next class period.

"We're going to start here at the Lincoln Memorial," he said, "and do a ride by of everything. I encourage you to come back some time this summer to go into some of the museums: they could take an entire day by themselves and I just want to give you a flavor of the city."

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"This is the Lincoln Memorial (http://www.nps.gov/linc/index.htm), of course," Josh began, pointing at the giant memorial behind them. "It's the building pictured on pennies and five-dollar bills. Inside sits a larger-than-life sculpture by Daniel Chester French of the Great Emancipator, staring pensively toward the Capitol, probably wondering what the hell happened to the Republican Party. Built in 1922, the monument's 36 Doric columns represent the states in the Union at the time of Lincoln's death. Many demonstrators have spoken out from these steps, literally 'backed' by Lincoln as they faced enormous crowds gathered around the long Reflecting Pool below. In 1963 Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his 'I have a dream...' speech here. If you aren't familiar with it, see me after the tour and I'll hook you up."

He glanced at his watch. "You guys have fifteen minutes to go inside and look around. If you stroll around to the Potomac side of the monument, you'll see it faces Memorial Bridge with a long view up to Arlington House, once Robert E. Lee's home. The view is intentional, a symbolic reuniting of North and South. Lee's home is in the center of Arlington National Cemetery and the first graves were put right in his garden, which was less symbolic and more people at the time being really, really angry about the Civil War."

Poke around! Ask questions! Sneak off to see the Vietnam (http://www.nps.gov/vive/index.htm) and/or Korean (http://www.nps.gov/kowa/index.htm) War Memorials, which are really close.

Amazingly enough, Will had never visited Washington DC despite his parents constantly moving them around. He'd only seen pictures in textbooks and through movies but seeing the real thing was entirely different.

Will spent about ten minutes just staring up at the sculpture and marveling at it.

Kathy had her camera ready and was so taking pictures. Finally! A class she could talk to her parents about without lying repeatedly through her teeth. And the next time they complained about her tuition, she could point out that this was the kind of school that took them for tours around the capital .

And remind them that prestigious schools loved this kind of thing.

While she did take a few pictures of the Korean War Memorial, she also paused for a moment of contemplation. She wouldn't have family on this Memorial; her parents had moved to the States when they were in their twenties. But she wondered if there was another memorial In Seoul or somewhere that had her family's names on it.

Yeul's eyes as they stared at the Lincoln Memorial were thoughtful. She did not know the history behind it, aside from what the teacher had said, but it was undeniable that the history of this place had weight to it.

After a few moments, she slowly began wandering around the monument, to see the view.

Yeah, don't mind Soren, he was just gonna elbow Vider and mouth "Washington?" because none of this made any sense.

Vider shrugged at him and muttered, softly enough it shouldn't carry to the teacher, "I was hoping this would be more explanatory about these United States." As opposed to theirs, which made sense.

Edited 2014-05-07 18:05 (UTC)

"Like explaining why Washington is on the wrong side of the continent?" Soren whispered back ~~because I'm assuming a world where the Capitol is in Philadelphia would not have a Washington DC~~.

Edited 2014-05-07 18:08 (UTC)

"And which war is he talking about?" Most of their wars involved trolls, and could not be described as civil.

These United States [Wednesday, May 7, 2014]

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