I Regret Not Letting the Sun In

Wall of 9/11 newspaper front pages at Newseum.

The trips to the East Coast was a blast. I enjoyed both Baltimore and DC—and I’ve decided that staying just inside the beltway, some miles north of Washington and using the Metro to get to the National Mall, is totally the way to go.

One of my Facebook friends noted that I looked a little haggard in photos of the trip that I posted. You can see the gallery—I changed it to “public” after we got back home—and judge for yourself. I may need a break to recover from break, but still it felt like time well spent. It was great to spend some time with Nina and to see the law school she’s attending. My one regret is that I didn’t find a place to buy a Sunday Baltimore Sun while I was there, but oh well. The free Metro version of the Washington Post helped a bit with my newspaper deficit.

Sobering display–just some of the journalists who lost their lives in pursuit of the people’s news.

Anyway, Thursday was our final day in DC. It was raining that morning, but we spent more than half of the day indoors at the Newseum, the news museum on Pennsylvania Avenue. We had a hilarious time finding it—because I misread the map and we wandered far the wrong way until a kind native took pity on us and oriented us—but it was worth it when we got there.

I think I could spend a lot more time there. Among other things, there is a huge display of the front pages of hundreds of newspapers every day. The museum was overrun with middle school kids on trips, and they didn’t linger in that hallway—perusing newspaper front pages apparently is not a big occupier of the middle school mind—but that was a bonus. Mainly, I just enjoyed browsing the layouts and headlines.

Fountain and flowers at art museum in DC.

My “Corridor Business Journal” media column is due at the end of this week, and I’m trying to figure out what from the Newseum might make sense to write about. Those front pages? The First Amendment room which featured the Tinker case from Des Moines? The 9/11 display? I’m not sure.

I didn’t take in many of the educational films at the Newseum—I did not see the 4D theater, which I mildly regret, but by the time we got to the lower floor where that is located, we were ready for a change of scene and a relief from the middle school crowd. Still, I did enjoy browsing the displays, including the pieces of the Berlin Wall—heavily painted with graffiti on the West Berlin side, stark and bare on the East Berlin side.

Berlin wall fragment, Newseum.

After the Newsueum, The National Art Museum provided that needed break from noisy teens, although we were again deep in adolescent hormones when we made our final museum stop of the day at the Natural History Museum.

The Newseum is a bit pricy, but it’s private, unlike most of the museums we stopped in, which were federal and free. Parts of it were a bit hokey—the FBI room was sort of cool, but its connection to news media seemed a bit tangential. On the other hand, I did stop and watch the film of Pulitzer-prize photographers, and browsing the photos and seeing that film were alone almost worth the full price of admission to the whole Newseum. I do say “thumbs up,” and go there when you visit DC.

The Tinkers of the famous 1960s court case. The notebook is a hand-written school report that she prepared, complete with the actual arm band used in the protest.

Anyway, some final impressions of the trip east:

• People seemed helpful and friendly, especially in DC. Baltimore had a bit of a brusque big-city feel to it, and I never got used to panhandlers asking for change, but there were plenty of nice people there, too. In particular, the guides at the Baltimore Basilica were particularly chatty. As for DC, it felt almost like a Midwestern city. I know that it’s a big East Coast city, but it has a lot of federal workers from the Midwest who still have the friendly small-town habits. A black guard at the art museum teased us as he checked us for weapons, and asked if we had left Iowa, would the other three people there miss us? A Metro worker came out of her guard booth and efficiently and politely oriented us on how to buy Metro cards and what lines-stations to use. And when we could not find the Newseum, a random DC resident sensed we were confused and voluntarily offered helpful guidance. All in all, with the exception of Baltimore panhandlers, the people of the east were very nice.

• The food was great. Baltimore crab cakes? The ones we had at “Speakeasy” were yummy. Coconut milk pancakes at Dooby’s in Baltimore? Possibly worth the trip to the city. Food at the Greek diner that was next to our motel in College Park, Maryland? Well, it was the only repeated restaurant on our trip, and there was a reason for that. The only mediocre food we had was fast food on the long drive to and from, and I suppose that’s to be expected.

• Washington will be worth more visits. I don’t know exactly what I expected. I felt slightly oppressed after a while by all the huge columns on street after street of federal buildings, and I have to admit that as an out-of-the-beltway citizen, I felt mild umbrage—does the Department of Agriculture really need one building that could house six MMUs and still have change? But it did feel a bit like The People’s House. Very interesting free museums, monuments to key moments in our national life—and we didn’t even make it to the White House or the Capitol. I would like to see both, and definitely I would like to visit the Air and Space Museum, which we missed. I want more time in the art museum, and to see the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian. Two days in DC were not enough. I would marvel at more and would like to go back.

A tree that will never bud–part of outdoor sculpture area near National Art Museum in Washington, DC.

The drive is long and tiring, but the southern route that avoids tolls is worth it, even as bad as the interstate is going through Columbus. And, really, Ohio? It’s your biggest city and your state capital. Can’t the roads make a bit more sense?

Finally, when we got back to Iowa: Spring! Not full, warm, green spring, yet, but more spring than we’ve had. Some photos taken in the late afternoon sun of a day that started with cold rain and ended in sunshine:

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