Judy, the Killington realtor, a Mom and her son and the Japanese American WWII Patriotism Memorial.

Christopher Isherwood said,"I am a camera."  As I drive the pedicab around DC many amazing and different people come into my visual field. At Jefferson I picked up a spry Judy Storch from my favorite East Coast ski spot, Killington, VT.  She sells real estate there, Killington Valley Real Estate and worked on the slopes for years. Took her the long way back to the Marriot on "effin 9th Street" past the monument to Japanese American Patriotism in WWII with the eagle ensnared in the barbed wire, like the miles of barbed wire we strung to pen in Japanese-Americans in concentration camps away from the coasts so they couldn't help in a possible invasion.

http://njamf.com/index.php/virtual-tour-of-the-memorial

I took a young man there studying art in college and showed him and his mother the sculpture of eagle and the barbed wire and the oriental tubular gong that wasn't quite working. Mentioned as I dropped him off at Union Station that we still have a Puritan strain here as those Centurion didn't have shields in front of them when erected. He gave me a big hug when I told him to follow his bliss, make the best art he could,  and that the rest of his life belonged to him. His Mom gave me a big tip, and that felt good too after a slow day.

Next I have to post about Uncle John's email on why the Washington monument is the highest edifice in DC ....

One Step Ahead of Hitler author Fred Gross (and his 3 granddaughters)

Much of what I do driving around the Mall is to give simple directions between the various Smithsonian Museums. So a nice looking family with a stroller asked me where Air & Space Museum was from Natural History. After I pointed across the Mall diagonally, the middle aged Mom and Dad put grandpa and three little girls in the pedicab and asked me to meet them there.
I give everyone a tour, even if it is 100 yards and try to engage them. Grandpa was a writer, Fred Gross, here from Kentucky to do a book signing at the Holocaust Museum 1-4pm. I think I'll go.
Or as Santayana wrote, "those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it."- Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur - "man's inhumanity to man", my Mom used to shake her head and say. Will it ever end!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/13303252@N06/sets/72157623432947007/

Discovering the Shaw neighborhood via pedicab: 3 quotes about travel

Sometimes, no, often, we pass by and through places and never really see or know them. Yesterday, I had the privileged of taking three dynamic women on a larger group tour of the Shaw neighborhood. Arranged by Danny Cochrane of National Pedicabs and Alexander M Pedro, Executive Director of Shaw Main Streets, we started our three hour tour in front of the Carnegie Library between 7th and 9th Streets across from the Convention Center.

A convoy of pedicabs started out in front of the library, through an alley where the movie "Being There" was shot with Peter Sellers, and then to one of the oldest liquor stores in the area. There, the tour members (NOT pedicab drivers!) sampled mint juleps in honor of the Kentucky Derby. Next we went to Chatman's D'Vine bakery and cafe and sampled their cupcakes and sweet potato pie.

We stopped at Azi's for more delicious samples, and then an amazing bed & breakfast dcguesthouse.com that was so chocked full of amazing artwork it reminded me of a mix between William Randolph Hurst's San Simeon castle (Rosebud?) in a brownstone rowhouse. We ended at a wonderful Ethiopian restaurant, Asefu's Yegna restaurant with excellent lentil and beef snacks.

So where did the name "Shaw" come from? Remember the movie "Glory" about an African American brigade during the Civil War? Matthew Broderick played the white commander, Shaw, of this brigade.

And 3 quotes animate my perception of travel: First, Mark Twain, "Nothing is more dangerous to prejudice than travel."
Second, Henry David Thoreau,"I have traveled extensively in Concord."
Third, T.S. Eliot from Four Quartets, "We shall not cease from exploration / And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time."

Quote from sociobiologist EO WIlson's new book Anthill

"He constructed a broader context in which he drew a picture of humanity, and of himself. The image was at first vague, but grew thereafter steadily in clarity. In time he understood that nature was not something outside the human world. The reverse is true. Nature is the real world, and humanity exists on islands within it."

I really enjoy my passengers. The couple that came up to me when I was being interviewed, the Ellmores of North Carolina, and I had a a wonderful ride. Unfortunately the US Botanic Garden was closed as they have an amazing orchids exhibit. (I used to have hobby of killing orchids, now I water them less and they live longer and bloom once in a while!)

And for Mr. Ellmore, who works for Duke Energy, at the end of a joyous ride, I pointed out the fin de siecle ethos carved into the stone at Union Station something like - "electricity- lighter of darkness, conveyor of messages," etc. and I want to find it exactly online and post it because it honored him and his work and gave an idea of the hustle and bustle and manifest destiny jazz of the turn of the previous century when electricity was a new and marvelous thing, not just another semi-regulated industry we all take for granted.

http://peoplesdistrict.blogspot.com/2010/04/paul-on-riding-through-history.html

It's springtime in Washington: the cherry trees are blooming!

Wow! Spring has finally sprung in Washington DC! And a simple gesture of peace by a Japanese businessman around the turn of the previous century, a gift of dozens of cherry tress, has become a Cherry Blossom Festival drawing thousands from around the world. Tomorrow starts the two week Festival!
http://www.nps.gov/cherry/schedule-of-events.htm

Pedicabs on skis?

After two relentless snowstorms, one the National Weather Service http://www.nws.noaa.gov/ called a blizzard, Washington is still digging out from mountains of snow. Biscuit, a Red Cross buddy, called, laughing, saying he wanted his birthday pedicab ride now. I said, "Sure, just get me a half dozen hardy Huskies and a couple of skis and away we go!"
We pray for spring.