04-JUL-A-2
SPIT AND
POLISH FULL-DRESS MARINES,
THE
GATHERING OF THE DR/HAITI GROUP
AND SUPPLIES FOR THE MEDICAL MISSION
OF THE
JUL-B-SERIES, AND THE FOURTH OF JULY,
ALL ROLLED INTO INTERFERENCE ON THE LARGE ELDP
WRITING ASSIGNMENT FOR EARLY JULY
July 1-5, 2004
I went to
the Eastern Market section of the Southeast DC to
rendezvous with the students who are seeking to accompany me to the DR/Haiti,
and we got acquainted in Ellington’s on Eighth Street,
a fundraiser for the Haiti
mission’s MAP packs. I passed a number
of snappy US Marines in full dress uniforms on the streets of the inner city
around eighth street which turns out to be the Barracks of the US Marines
selected by Thomas Jefferson and begun in 1801.
They have a very formal full dress Evening Parade on the parade grounds
with all the trimmings, including a salute to the official mascot “Chesty” and
the firing of artillery salutes, and the posting of the colors, and their
retiring, etc, with two Marine bands—a jolly good show, and one that makes me
ever so glad that I do not live in or participate in any such regimented
community that must go through exquisitely precise drills for the sake of doing
just that. The silent precision drill
team that juggles fixed bayonets on M-1 Garand rifles is always a crowd
pleaser. It is highly impressive, and
like much of the drill, entirely obsolete.
I had sneaked out after I learned that from seven o’clock to nine is a waiting period for sunset, so
during that time I met with and talked with the students at the Ellington’s and
went back after the marine drill was over with canon fire. I will go the next time in my Marine Corps Marathon
shirt.
I made my
morning run with Joe on July 4th, as is our holiday habit. I had helped him getting some of the funds
for the family to accompany him to Athens,
and he and I went for an eight mile run—the longest he has gone for a while
since he is concentrating on sprinting for the events in Athens. I also filled out his medical forms for the
competition. I came home and waited
through another heavy rain that threatened to dampen quite a few of the
fireworks displays. I then had a chance
to meet Mark’s mother Julie. Ben had
come in on Friday, and Mark and Ben have been doing the Washington
scene. Ben is a tall handsome fellow and
a bit more outgoing than Mark, and is working as a law clerk in Phoenix,
in the firm he wishes to join next year.
So, his clerkship is one long interview process for a dozen weeks. The brothers have not been together for some
time, so Been expressed much gratitude and they had planned, despite a very
tight schedule to come by with their mother Julie, despite a rigid time table
between Brunch on Sunday and the meting with Mark’s girlfriend Kate’s parents
with whom they were going to watch the fireworks. I was planning on going to Trappe MD and also
had a possible return for the Aukward family fireworks accompaniment, but we
were damped out on the latter.
Julie was
very gracious and was effusively grateful for my having Mark living here,
without which, she said, he could never have done this Congressional unpaid
internship. She was eager to see where
Mark lived, and so they had the very high speed Derwood house tour, guided by
Mark. Julie made references to “Virginia’s
kitchen,” and after the Game Room was especially intrigued with the “Hunt Room”
theme of the Den and Powder Rooms since she is a rider fox-hunter herself. She has likewise been hosting a house guest,
I believe, which is Virginia, but
she has surely talked with her since I have, and I made no such references to
Julie. Ebullient, even in a spray of
fresh rain, they packed up and out to see the parts of DC that they would
review with Kate’s’ parents, so her DC Derwood visit is as compact as I would
imagine many of the others have been, but a good one.
I drove to
the Eastern Shore, and after visiting with Craig and Carol
and catching up on a very unusual relaxing weekend for them, (the following day
he did a half dozen cases, most major and one a Whipple), we did very little. We went to Salisbury where a fourth of July
party was held at the home of the friend whom I had last visited on my last
trip out—for a fortieth birthday party at that time. We went on to Chester
and Carol Jones’ passing about fifty deer coming out to browse the bean fields
at twilight. We were going to go to
check on the possibility of collecting some long distance venison on crop
damage permits. As we drove out to the
ten minutes we had behind the Jones’ farm, we saw a deer at five hundred
yards. At that moment Russ Elwell
called. He was coincidentally at the
fourth anniversary of a meeting in Chautauqua, which I reminded him, and for
which I had written a rather careful letter, later dismissed. As we were trying to line up on the deer, I
was talking to Russ. Craig shot, but the
single shot .308 jammed the brass which could not eject, so we were over for
the night. WE went to visit Chester
and Carol, and then went home.
On Monday
the holiday the fifth of July, I ran along the fields of Trappe, seeing box
turtles and the usual wildlife of the run.
We also saw the dam which had been washed away just before Craig moved
in and for which he bought cement bags to get the reconstruction started,
dropping them into the breach. That
stirred up the neighbors who had been promising to get to that reconstruction,
and so they had a bulldozer CAT 9 go into the mire and clay, and promptly get
stuck. AT the time I left, they were
attempting to get a second bulldozer to pull out the first. If they secure the dam, the backup pond can
re-fill behind the Schaefers’ house.
It was a
lazy day, as I labeled photo albums to catch up—from being four albums behind,
I am now back up to date—and then grilled chicken, before another brief shower. I had listened to a book on disc, which was
on their satellite TV station, so I watched a bit of TV—not something I do more
than an hour a month—and fretted over not getting started on my research paper,
due July 29, when I will have been in the DR and Haiti for two weeks. So, I will try to get back to real work,
while still putting in a fair amount of time running the DC Mall and other
running routes. I have watched a bit of the Haiti
theme in the Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the Mall as I ran through it.
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