An annotated tour of Capitol Hill

Hard to catch up a couple of weeks in a few paragraphs, but here goes: Daisy and I spent a week or so in Charleston with her mom in the hospital, then went to Washington, DC, for a work-related conference, then she came home to the Upstate and sweltered until a broken heat pump was repaired, then we rode back to Charleston for her mom's check-up in the heat and humidity. Daisy's right: It's been a long, hot summer already, and summer's not over.

A couple of interesting things occurred during this time, not counting that I've learned a little bit about kidney stones, E. coli, MRSA and other bacterial infections.

One is that we spent July 4 in the nation's capital but didn't spend it on the crowded National Mall with thousands of others; we watched happily from the air-conditioned comfort of our hotel room. Another is that we scheduled a tour of Capitol Hill through the office of one of our illustrious Senators -- I won't name names but there are only two, and only one of them made his name as a presidential persecutor during the Clinton impeachment trial. And speaking of persecutors, Old Scratch collected on his contract with Jesse Helms, and Daisy and I happened to drive through Raleigh on the very afternoon that the Helms account was closed at Hayes Barton Baptist Church. (Yep, I got pictures, but no, I didn't get inside.)

I'll skip the lessons in bacterial infections and hospital visits, and the various dramas connected thereto, and get straight to Washington. Well, it was hot and the days were long. This was no vacation for either of us, and some of our real goals were accomplished. But at the end of the work, Daisy and I scheduled with that unnamed Senator's office to get a guided tour of Capitol Hill.

In fact, Capitol Hill isn't open to the public as it was before Dubya's and Congress's knee-jerk reactions to the attacks of 2001. Now, law-abiding Americans can only visit the People's House -- as it was called when it was being conceived by Washington, L'Enfant and others in the eighteenth century -- by calling and getting an appointment for a guided tour through a member of Congress.

Because Daisy and I had watched C-SPAN's gorgeous documentary on Capitol Hill on Memorial Day, we actually called to get one of the special tours up into the Rotunda. But we were advised that the rules are different for those tours: Your member of Congress must accompany you, and you have to sign papers declaring your physical fitness for that tour (because it involves climbing a ton of stairs, and it takes a long while), and those tours have to be arranged with the office of the architect of the Capitol. Indeed, our contact advised us, our Senator had never taken that tour himself. (It is more important, after all, to travel the nation in support of John McCain's presidential campaign than to be available to meet the requests of constituents.)

So for these reasons (though we were not only sufficiently physically fit, but excited at the prospect of that behind-the-scenes tour), we didn't get the Rotunda tour. Instead, we got (the names have been changed to protect the uninformed) Bart. Bart would take us and another unsuspecting family on our guided tour. Okeydoke.

So on July 7, Daisy and I parked at Union Station. We tried to park closer to Capitol Hill, but Capitol Police advised us that the closest "citizen parking" was in the pay-by-the-hour parking deck behind Union Station. "Citizen parking," the officer called it. I took it to mean that those hundreds of cars parked behind the martial perimeter around Capitol Hill must be other-than-citizens, either "non-citizens" or "super-citizens." In either case, I'm concerned; the Constitution does not establish any "super-citizenship," and it makes no sense to allow non-citizens to park nearer to the government than citizens themselves are allowed to park. Nevertheless, we parked behind Union Station and called our office contact to ask about the policy on carrying bags and purses.

When we told her we'd parked at Union Station, she blanched (yes, even over the phone, we could tell she blanched) and said that we should park near the elevators and cover anything valuable we might have to leave in the truck. In fact, she told us that it would be safer for Daisy to leave her purse in the Senator's office than in our locked vehicle. It was a confidence booster, since we'd checked out of the hotel already, and everything we'd brought to Washington was in the truck. Mmm, I thought: My tax dollars at work. I gave my little truck a second glance as we rounded the corner to leave the parking deck.

Did you know Union Station was built on bottom land that once was occupied by Irish transients? The shantytown was called Swampoodle and the Irish had to be run out so the land could be filled in and the station could be built. What a fine welcome for the Irish, I thought. Give us your tired, your poor -- but get the hell out of the way now, because progress is coming, and its god is capitalist. Swampoodle.

And did you know that the statues of Roman centurions that ring the upper deck of Union Station were original cast as nude, but shields were cast additionally to cover the nudity in order so as not to offend weaker sensibilities? To which I thought, then why cast the statues at all, and why not just paint murals of Mickey Mouse up there instead? What unnecessary drama.

There are inspiring inscriptions in the station's facade, and we paused long enough to read them. But the heat and the taxi traffic kept us moving toward our Senator's office, a little up Delaware Avenue and on the left.

Though we got there a few minutes early, Bart started our tour fifteen minutes late, there being more important matters to address: checking Facebook pages and whatnot. It was a precursor of things to come.

Bart told us he'd only been with the Senator's office for a few weeks. He may have said, too, that he spent part of the spring as a legislative page, but he mumbled a good bit when he was unsure, so he may have been saying something else entirely. I'm certain that the mumbling is endearing to the co-eds at his college -- which will go unnamed here to protect those who may actually be paying attention to their history professors in Clinton -- as is his fresh-from-North-Myrtle tan and Zoom!-whitening, but it was a bit of an aggravation to someone who'd seen the C-SPAN documentary and who was actually interested in learning more about our Capitol. I can tell you too that those hiking from Union Station on a hot July afternoon were not as charmed by Bart's surreptitious smoothing and primping as were the nubile tour guides with whom we crossed paths. I'm sure that many have swooned upon hearing that he's a business major, with intentions of law school thereafter.

Lucky for Bart that the LSAT doesn't include a section on American history. Or on grammar. "The most funnest part" of the tour for Bart, he told us, was riding the underground trolley that ferries legislators from their office buildings to their respective chambers for votes. "The most funnest" is a direct quote; I have no reason to lie about it.

He took us downstairs to line up for the trolley and explained the little red light on the clocks located throughout the Senate complex. Based upon his mumbling explanation, I still have no understanding of the clock system, but I know the clocks have little red lights on them for some reason. And it's important to members of Congress.

The original statue of the Lady of Freedom, the model for the statue that stands atop the Capitol dome, was encased in plywood because it's being moved to a visitors center. Bart explained that this "15-feet-tall" statue was the tallest in Washington, by law. None can be taller, he said. Having seen the statues of Jefferson and Lincoln, I kept my lip buttoned, for I didn't want to get anyone into trouble.

Stepping up into Statuary Hall, Bart explained that each state has two statues in the Capitol, including South Carolina. (!) Our two are of Wade Hampton and John C. Calhoun, he told us.

Of course, Daisy and I went to marvel at many others we recognized by image or by name. We apparently impeded Bart's tour plan, as we pointed and called out names, and took pictures, amazed at the collective significance of the history in the room. I figured that if Bart were brighter, he likely would have thought, You can take the yokels out of the sticks, but you can't take the sticks out of the yokels. But I rest assured that Bart arrived at no such construction.

As Bart made his way through a halting, embarrassing explanation of Constantine Brumidi's murals in the Rotunda, Daisy and I agreed that he would benefit from watching the C-SPAN documentary, and we noticed too that other tour guides were going into much greater -- and more accurate -- detail than was ours, and that some were referring to a printed script of some sort. Not our Bart.

I have to confess that because our little tour party included another family, a couple with elementary- or middle-school-age kids, I felt compelled to correct some of Bart's more egregious declarations. For example, a bit of the mural in the Rotunda illustrates the Wright brothers' first flight at Kitty Hawk. When Bart said it occurred "sometime in the mid-1900s," I couldn't stop myself from telling the kids, "That happened in 1903."

"You must be a real history buff," said young Bart.

"I was an English major," I replied. What I didn't say, but thought, was: The reason I can recognize these statues and murals, and know the dates of certain important events, and know their significance, is that I paid more attention to what I was being taught in the public schools of eastern North Carolina than to what I'd be doing on Friday nights, and with whom, and where, and what beverages might be available there.

On the other hand, if only I'd paid more attention to primping and tanning and Zoom!-whitening, I might have been working for a Senator too when I was 20. And I might still be there, parking in the "super-citizen" parking areas, much closer to Capitol Hill than Union Station's dark and dangerous parking deck. C'est la vie.

Is it really important, after all, to know that flight began with the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk in 1903, instead of in the mid-1900s? Maybe not.

Is it really important to recognize Po'pay as a leader of the Pueblo tribe in New Mexico? Young Bart informed us that Po'pay -- which he pronounced unmumblingly "Pompeii" -- was a statue of an Indian and had been removed from Statuary Hall "to get a bath or something." He didn't know who Po'pay was, or why Po'pay was significant, only that a statue of an Indian had been removed, maybe for "a bath." In fact, in a chronology of all the statues on Capitol Hill, Po'pay represents the earliest one of a person born on what ultimately became America. Pretty significant, in the scheme of things. And the statue wasn't removed for "a bath," but has been moved to the new Visitors Center behind Capitol Hill. Hm.

Ushering us out of the Rotunda, young Bart took us quickly to and through the old well of the Senate -- which bears a literal resemblance to a well, and might explain why it's called that -- when the young nation's Senate had only 26 members and could be accommodated around a circular bar, overlooking the speaker below (like a medical theater). Daisy and I were fascinated here, standing where America's first few crops of Senators stood.

Then Bart led us hastily through the original Supreme Court's chamber and we took a few photographs of it. It's a tiny, rare space, all the rarer given the importance of what occurred there. And then he led us to the "Crypt," another room that today houses statues but was originally built to be the burial place for a president, Bart told us. "I think it was George Washington," he mumbled.

Pausing to wait in line to get out of the crypt, our tour mates asked Bart where he thought was the best place in town from which to watch the fireworks display on July 4th. He wouldn't know, he said; he'd spent the evening "on a crowded dock on the waterfront," he said. Okeydoke.

It happened that the Senate was in session that day (the House was not), so I asked Bart if we'd be able to visit the Senate gallery. Well, he didn't bring passes, he said. He didn't think we'd be interested in that, he said, because he finds it really boring himself. And he'd never taken a tour group way up there; he'd only been there himself on his own "training" tour with other legislative staff. But if we reeeally wanted to see the Senate gallery, he'd call back and "try to get some" passes. Mm, we definitely felt it might be an uphill climb. But indeed, Daisy and I said, and our tour mates agreed that they'd like to do that, too. So Bart made a call and mumbled that maybe someone could bring us passes as we moved along.

And we moved along, finally, to a momentous spot on the tour. In one smaller chamber off Statuary Hall is another ring of statues, including a massive bronze statue of King Kamehameha of Hawai'i. Bart merely pointed to the statue, standing in a dark corner, and said it was there because it was so heavy and it was moved to a spot where it was supported by a pillar on the floor below. He didn't know who it was, he said, but he told us it was solid gold and it was from Hawai'i. "It's a little ironic," he said, "I just got an email this week saying that Barack Obama's parents were from Hawai'i."

I was instantly embarrassed for Bart, knowing as most of America does that Obama's mother was from Kansas, as landlocked a state as any state can be, and that his father was from Kenya, which isn't even in the Western hemisphere. So I spoke up to divert attention. "It's King Kamehameha," I told our tour mates' kids, "who ruled Hawai'i when it was still a nation, before it was discovered by white people and became our property."

I think Bart was oblivious. He led us into the next little hallway where, he told us, President George W. Bush walks through double doors to deliver his State of the Union Address to Congress. In fact, he said, drawing our attention to a window between statues of Jonathan Trumbull of Connecticut and Father Jacques Marquette of Wisconsin, this is the spot where President George W. Bush knelt and prayed after September 11. "I wasn't here to see it myself, but I've heard it from several people."

Daisy didn't miss a beat: "He ought to be praying now," she said aloud.

I was aghast. Our tour guide, a representive of one of our state's Senators, had just repeated Internet misinformation about Barack Obama, and in the next breath had repeated equally vapid reverence for the least capable president in history, at least the worst one since James Buchanan. If there had been any question before of Bart's ineffectiveness, he had erased it now.

That would have marked the end of the tour, but there was the question of the Senate gallery passes. Bart hadn't gotten a call back yet, and he mumbled about someone bringing passes to us in mid-tour, but no one had come. So he left us alone in one of Brumidi's hallways, pointing to painted birds and lilies on the wall to keep us occupied. A bit later, he returned and turned us around to take a corridor to the Senate gallery.

On the way, we passed a plaque in a stairwell, marking the spot where George Washington himself had laid the original cornerstone of the Capitol. I was struck by this and pointed it out to Daisy, because I've been reading a book called "The Sacred Geometry of Washington, D.C." about Pierre L'Enfant's draft of the city of Washington. It is this point, the cornerstone of the Capitol, that marked L'Enfant's "zero meridian" and from which he marked the various measurements, streets, avenues, circles and squares that were mostly realized as the city was built. As much as anything else we'd seen, seeing this spot sent chills down my spine; this point on a one-time hill overlooking the Potomac River was the origin of so much of the future world capital's history.

Of course, we passed it right by; it didn't register a blip on Bart's radar.

Upstairs, we unloaded all electronics into a plastic bin, which Bart checked into a little office, and filed into the Senate gallery. More chills. At the moment, Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota was orating on the rising costs of oil on the world market and decrying the role of speculators in that increase. Dorgan was alone in the chamber except for his legislative aides and Sen. Jim Webb, sitting on the dais as the presiding officer of that day. That very morning, Webb has issued a statement taking himself out of consideration for the vice presidency on Obama's ticket.

Far from being bored, I was enthralled, studying the busts of the first several presidents of the Senate in little alcoves around the gallery, and catching various details I remembered from the C-SPAN documentary: the Latin inscriptions over the doors, the eagle in the Senate skylight, and others.

Our tour mates had kids with them, so after twenty minutes or so, Daisy tapped Bart on the shoulder and said we were ready to go if he was. He certainly was.

And that was it. Bart led us back to the underground trolley, which carried us backward to the Senate office where we began, and we collected our things to leave. Outside, we paused on a park bench to rest, decompress and reflect on the tour before starting our long drive home.

Back at Union Station, we were thankful to find the truck intact and unmolested. We left Washington and got as far as Raleigh, North Carolina, where we passed the night at a hotel just outside downtown. And the next morning, we decided to spend the day in town. But that's a story for our next note.