History Lesson, Part 1

     If any of my descendants reflect someday on why they get excited about finding ancient treasures in their attic,  or if they wonder why they get goosebumps while visiting a museum full of relics that are hundreds of years old--then I hope that they'll read this essay and consider that their love of the days of old just might be in their DNA.  

Fort George, Ontario Canada

     As a 9 year-old boy, while on a family vacation, I loved the excitement I felt for the first time, when we visited a restored British fort in Ontario, Canada.  Fort George also had a museum, with artifacts from that War of 1812 era, and I was enthralled.   I couldn't understand why no one else in the family wanted to spend as much time looking at the exhibits as I did.    In other boyhood trips, I visited the Ohio and West Virginia state capitol buildings and soaked up every display in their museums.

Somehow, I had been gifted with a passion to learn how generations past had lived.   And I realized early on that I didn't just want to read about them or visit their locations.  I wanted to somehow leave the year of 1955 or 1958, and break through into the year of 1776, 1812, 1863 or 1941.

  

     I've never lost that passion.

     In fact, while I've been blessed to travel to 42 of the 50 States, there are three particular places where  I've been most successful in breaking free for a time from the present, and watched dizzily as the hands on my watch wound backwards. Over the next three days, if you'll join me,  I will share each of these three places both with you and of course, with that descendant who I hope will inherit my time-travelling ability.    Now, mind you, I'm not ruling out the possibility that one of my eight grandchildren will receive the "gift",  but if not, maybe some of their unnamed off-spring will make a bridge to their great-grandfather,  when they go to a Civil War museum at the age of 9 and annoy the rest of their family by wanting to read every exhibit. 

     The first time I visited Washington D.C. was a pressed-for-time, whirlwind trip in the early 70's.  But it was enough that I knew I had to return someday, and spend as much time as necessary to absorb our national treasures.  I eventually did return, and I was not disappointed.  I wondered how anyone could visit here and not be energized about our American heritage.  Watching the solemn and disciplined guarding of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers.  The overwhelming sight of row upon row of white headstones at Arlington National Cemetery,  each one etched with the name of someone who had served our country in a memorable way.  I was in awe of the Marine Corps Memorial which is located not far from the Arlington Cemetery.  This massive bronze statue depicts six servicemen raising the American flag on the summit of Mt. Suribachi on the island of Iwo Jima during WW II.

 

Marine Corps Memorial

     There are so many sites in Washington that stir the
imagination about American history.  There are too many to mention them all here.  The Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson Memorials.  The White House and Capitol Building.  The Vietnam Memorial.

     Then, there's the Smithsonian Institution, the guardian of some of our nation's most treasured keepsakes.  I will mention only one here, one that's been in the Museum since 1928.  Suspended from the ceiling, so it appears to be in flight,  is Charles Lindbergh's single-engined plane, the Spirit of St. Louis, N-X-211, which he flew non-stop from New York to Paris on May 20-21, 1927.  He did what no man before him had ever done.

     It's not easy to describe the transcendence of being that close to this winged participant in history.  With every ounce of Jules Verne-like  ability I have, I tried to get in that cockpit with Lindbergh and go back to May 21, 1927.  Once, I felt like I was almost there, but was jostled from behind by someone who apparently just didn't appreciate the finer points of time travel.  I think the only way I'll ever do it is to have the entire Museum to myself.   You'll probably say I don't need to apologize, but please don't think me strange.  I just love the whole idea of being there when history is made.  Although Custer's Last Stand and the sinking of the Titanic would probably be exceptions....

     The next time I write, I'd like for you to come along when the time machine will be dialed in for a Sunday in December of 1941----in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.