Touring The People's House

In the early days it was called Washington City and it could be muggy as all hell.  It’s now called Washington DC and it’s still muggy as hell.  James Madison, the fourth President used to avoid Washington City in the sticky summer.  He was prone to illness, especially what he used to call the “bilious fever,” whatever in the hell that is, and so he did what he could to take care of the nation’s business from his home in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains in his native Virginia. 

No bilious fever after our first day, but some gooey clothes; the weather weighs heavy, like a big damp blanket.  Tired feet.  They say that DC is a walking town.  Just who are they anyway. We always invoke they as if they are the world's greatest authorities. They say that every city is a walking city.  San Francisco for instance; hills and all.  Did they ever climb up California Street?

The White House has been called “the people’s house” and it was such at one time.  After an inauguration the White House held an open house and revelers of every stripe and station came to visit.  Many came to party and others came looking for the President himself, aiming to get a job in the new administration; an interview with the man himself.  At times the partiers got a little too hardy and wound up trashing the joint a bit. 

Today it’s the people’s house in name only.  If you want to get in you apply for a tour through your Congressional Representative as much as 6 months in advance.  Either that or you win the World Series or fly into space and get a special invite.  White shirted, uniformed Secret Service agents patrol in and around the grounds.  We walk past a vehicle checkpoint.  The driver steps out and opens the doors, the hood, and the trunk.  An agent who looks like he spends every available off hour in the gym dons rubber gloves and goes over every inch of the vehicle.  Meanwhile another agent leads a bomb sniffing German Shepherd dog from stem to stern. 

Tour day at the White House and we've dressed in nice clothes to go see the President’s digs.  I’m wearing slacks and a nice collared shirt and Cora is wearing a nice blouse.  We fall in line with our fellow Americans and I’m about the only one who’s dressed up.  Everyone else is all dolled up to go to Madame Tussaud’s tourist trap wax museum at SF’s Fisherman’s Wharf.  Flip flops, baggy shorts and a Red Man chewing tobacco cap?  At the White House?  Maybe I’m just from a stodgy generation but I just feel it’s respectful to dress like you’re going to, you know, the President’s house – even if you’re just a tourist.  

The first president to take up residence was John Adams and when he and Abigail arrived it was still a work with a lot of progress to go.  They were aghast that black slaves were doing the work on the home of the Chief Executive of the nation that proclaimed all men are created equal.  He wasn't joined by his brethren from Virginia, Jefferson and Madison, who talked a good game but never could get around to freeing their own slaves.  That would have played hell with the economics of their agrarian idyll in the Old Dominion.  Centuries later all manner of excuses are offered but they never wash. 

We fell in line at 8:30 with the schlubs in tourist gear and were led through a gate to a checkpoint.  The uniformed officers are polite but humorless and let’s face it, one fuck up in that job and you earn a very dubious place in history.  From the first checkpoint you go through another checkpoint and then you’re down a flag lined garden path and into the White House.  Interestingly it seems that airport security is much more thorough.  The self-guided tour takes you into or past some of the rooms you've only heard about or maybe seen on the TV news; the green room, the blue room, the red room and the state dining room.  Every wall has a painting of a president or a famous work depicting the American scene. 

A silver coffee urn that belonged to Abigail Adams; a stunning portrait of a younger Benjamin Franklin; the state dining room where the powerful of countless nations and generations have broken bread.  In the red room hangs Gilbert Stuart’s famous painting of George Washington.  Its fame comes not only from the image itself but because in 1814, just before the British torched the White House, Dolley Madison ordered the painting taken down and away to safety.  I walk past Stuart’s lovely painting of an attractive Dolley; one that I've seen only in history books.  In the East Room there is a Steinway Grand Piano valued at 2.5 million dollars and has been played by the likes of Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder and Elton John.  We walk past a portrait of Ronald Reagan and the wife nudges me and says, “Oh look, there’s your friend.”  My lip curls in a Clint Eastwood snarl but I hold my tongue. 

 

Stuart's Dolley 

Stuart's Washington 

This isn't the first White House. The original was burned by the British during the War of 1812.  In fact it was nearly two hundred years ago to the day.  James Madison was the president.  Dolley and the staff fled just moments before the British entered.  The British sat down to the dinner that was still at table and then they set the torch.  The response in the American press was of humiliation.

You have to forgive an old student of history here.  I never wanted the tour to end.  I wanted it to be an endless loop; go round and round to take in the countless details that I’d missed in the previous turn.   I was in awe of everything that I saw and at times pushed back tears at being witness to national treasures that I’d only seen in books.  You walk through the dining room and reflect on the people that have sat in this very place: Lincoln, FDR, Woodrow Wilson, the Kennedys, kings and queens, Churchill.  What was discussed in these halls?  Lincoln agonized over a union sundered.  Presidents mulled over the fate of the American Indian.  Nixon calculated (and lost).  Kennedy took us to the brink and Khrushchev blinked.  Truman mulled yea or nay on the nuclear option and opted for yea - and changed the world forever.  FDR delivered fireside chats and calmed a worried land.  Heroes, the famous and the fleeting famous were feted here.  Astronauts, war heroes, entertainers, world leaders, heroes of sport.  Getting a tour of the White House is not an easy thing but certainly well worth it.  You’re in awe of everything you see within the walls but when you stop and reflect, you’re more in awe of everything the walls have seen.