Can’t quite quit that D.C. feeling
I physically left the city. But its a lot harder to quit the mindset.
I head out to a local bar here in Minneapolis on Wednesday nights to have drinks with friends. Back in DC, that weekday night out with friends occured on Thursdays. So yesterday I went around all day thinking it was Thursday based on the thought that I’d be going out with friends that night.
I still think that D.C. should become a state with full representation in Congress. I still proudly drive around my VW with DC tags with the not-too-subtle protest, ‘TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION‘, in this city amongst the sea of Minnesota “Land of 10,000 Lakes” license tags.
I still read the WashPost online. I’ve read a lot of newspapers. And none of them have that combination of writers, pluck and, yes, liberal-bent as the WashPost. Case in example this article I read just now about D.C. finally getting their own quarter from the U.S. Mint. Some things worth quoting that are entirely too true about D.C.
The District has no vote in Congress, its laws can be trampled by federal legislators and even its streets can be closed by the feds on a moment’s notice.
How many times have I found myself sitting in traffic on 13th Street watching the Presidental caravan scream by, sirens blaring and sub-machinegun toting Secret Service agents peering out of armored SUVs?
”We get snubbed, disrespected, belittled, forgotten, overshadowed and minimized in every way,” said WTOP radio political commentator Mark Plotkin, a virtual thesaurus of how the city is disparaged, denigrated, underrated and calumniated.
This is why I love the writers at Washington Post.
In a city where activists have launched their own Olympic curling team and tried to get RFK Stadium renamed Taxation Without Representation Field, there is no shortage of ideas.
I didnt know about the effort to rename RFK, but that slogan is just too good to limit to just license plates.
“I don’t know if we could put Ben’s Chili Bowl on there,” he mused.
I lived three blocks away from Ben’s Chili Bowl. I ate my last lunch in DC there.
While I’m glad I moved away, I find there’s a lot of things I miss about that city.
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