Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Class Dismissed

They actually ran out of work for us today. The files we needed had not come in from records storage, so we had nothing to do. So they sent us home. Well, back to the hotel anyway.

So I and my other fellow displaced project managers jumped on the Metro and walked up and down the Mall this afternoon. We saw the Washington Monument, which, in order to learn anything about, you must go inside. Of course, we arrived two minutes after the Park Rangers closed the doors. No, there is not one single placard, sign, display, what-have-you in the area surrounding the monument. So, my idea of telling you all a really cool trivial fact? Gone out the window.

We walked down to the World War II Memorial. It was stunning. Not silently reverent like the other war memorials, but a proud proclamation that America fought her heart out and was victorious. And really cool fountains.

Then we hit the Lincoln Memorial. Did you know that the original designs for the Lincoln Memorial showed it as a pyramid – both Mayan and Egyptian versions? I sure didn’t. Did you know that six brothers carved the statue of Abraham Lincoln out of white Georgia marble? I sure didn’t. Walking into the memorial itself and staring old Abe in the face, I was struck with an interesting thought.

3,000 years from now, when the flood waters from global warming recede back due to the coming of another mini ice age, will these monuments be honored as testaments to our society, similar to the awe and respect we give the Parthenon and the pyramids of Giza? Will whoever excavates them from the ocean sediment understand why they were built, or will they be a mystery? And whatever happened to that show Leonard Nimoy used to narrate – In Search Of? That show was great.