A Country With No King – Can We Keep It?

The Jefferson Memorial on a spring night, 2024: Glynn Wilson

The Big Picture – 
By Glynn Wilson – 

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Growing up in the suburbs of a Southern town in the early days of television, what we knew of the nation’s capital city we learned from what politicians said and what TV news personalities reported with the neoclassical architecture on display in the background.

The earliest black and white images came through on the tube, video footage of John F. Kennedy’s funeral on Nov. 25, 1963, images of flower children or hippies protesting for civil rights and against the war in Vietnam on the National Mall, embattled President Richard Nixon meeting demonstrators by the Lincoln Memorial.

President John F. Kennedy’s funeral wagon in November, 1963: NAJ screen shot

President Richard Nixon meets demonstrators on the Lincoln Memorial steps on May 9, 1970: NAJ screen shot

Many years later while covering politics for newspapers in the 1980s, I considered trying to move to Washington. But opportunities presented themselves elsewhere. The Southside of Birmingham. The beach.

By the time an opportunity presented itself to visit D.C. I was teaching journalism in Georgia. A friend who I had advised to move to Washington to cover politics invited me up for a visit, and gave me a press insider’s tour of the Capitol. It was awesome. That was the mid-1990s when Bill Clinton was president.

My journey took me from there to Tennessee and then New Orleans, another swampy city. I finally found a way to spend some time in Washington as a news reporter when George W. Bush was president. But circumstances cut that stint short, so I ended up back in my home town of Birmingham, Alabama for another decade.

It took a heart-wrenching plan to move my mom into a retirement community and sell the house I grew up in before a plan came into focus that would allow me to spend enough time here to learn the place. I wanted to know it well enough to write about it.

For the past decade, I’ve had that opportunity. Now what to say about it?

The other day I was invited by another friend to spend a Sunday in the city when traffic and crowds are at a minimum and parking is free. We parked right on the street by the historic old press bar and Irish pub the Irish Times, a place where newspaper reporters from all over the country used to have an after hours good time. I witnessed that in the mid-1990s and early 2000s, before the bloggers came along and the internet helped kill the newspapers.

Last week we had the fish and chips and a dark beer on a lovely spring day.

The Irish Times historic press bar in Washington, D.C.: NAJ screen shot

We made our way over to the Capitol reflecting pool where they were setting up for the Memorial Day concert and caught the sunset.

Ducks on the pond, or the Capitol Reflecting Pool: Glynn Wilson

A sunset view of the Washington Monument over the U.S. Capitol Reflecting Pool: Glynn Wilson

My companion had never seen the Jefferson Memorial, so we made it there for a night visit. There’s some construction going on, but it was still open. We sat on the steps and enjoyed the view of the Washington Monument over the Tidal Basin, and contemplated the past and the future of American democracy.

The Washington Monument after sunset over the Tidal Basin by the Jefferson Memorial: Glynn Wilson

How much longer can this experiment last? Will war ever come back to these shores and destroy this place? Will it end up under water when sea levels rise due to climate change from global warming?

Imagine it a thousand years from now. Will it be a place tourists visit like the Parthenon in Athens, Greece or the Colosseum in Rome?

If you have not seen your nation’s capital, don’t be turned off by what politicians say. This is your city, and it is one of the greatest cities in the world, from where power flows out like the torrential power of a giant waterfall creating a raging river. A country with no king.

Yes, it tends to attract some crazy politicians who like to go home and bash it to their constituents like the place is a murky swamp full of strange bugs. But go online and read reviews and you will see why millions of people visit from all over the world.

It’s a pedestrian friendly city these days with bike lanes and trails all over the place. It’s all the great Smithsonian museums, the national monuments, and the diversity of the people and the world class hotels and restaurants, if that’s your thing. For people living here, it’s also close to all kinds of amazing outdoor opportunities, just a couple of hours from Shenandoah National Park and Skyline Drive, and only an hour from the Catoctin Mountains, home to Camp David.

There are other great cities to visit within easy striking distance too. It’s only a couple of hours from Philadelphia, where it all started, and four hours from New York.

My time may be up here soon, and I can’t wait to spend more time exploring the American West. But for now, Spring is in the air and I’m in love with this place, so I will endeavor to persevere and enjoy it while it’s still possible. Come see me if and when you can, and I will show you some things from an insider’s view.

For now, we hope you enjoy these pictures and perhaps they will stoke your interest.

More Photos

The Senate Fountain by the U.S. Capitol: Glynn Wilson

The statue of Ulysses S. Grant on the U.S. Capitol grounds: Glynn Wilson

A statue of George Mason of Virginia, the author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, a precursor to the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution: Glynn Wilson

Ducks on the U.S. Capitol Reflecting Pool: Glynn Wilson

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