The family and I visited D.C. last week. Though Mrs. Stroock and I had been in the area before this is the first time I'd been in the District proper since we left Northern Virginia 15 years ago.
Things have a changed. The Ethiopian and Somali immigrant community now has a hordes of teenagers all over the joint. So does the Indian community who have produced thousands of of young people indistinguishable from their cousins back on the sub-continent but who have perfect American non-accents. The ubiquitous Japanese tourists have been replaced by ubiquitous Chinese tourists. Speaking of which I've never seen the monuments so packed in my life. Now back in the day, my friends and I would say, 'Hey its a nice Wednesday night, let's go hangout down at Heavy T's (the Jefferson Memorial)' We'd hope in the car, ride up 395 and park right next to the monument, took ten minutes and then we'd go down to the Fridays on M Street for drinks and aps.
I do miss my Northern Virginia nights. The heat would burn off leaving a nice, still air that one doesn't really feel. As bad as the days could be, and they were brutal in the summer, the nights were just wonderful just filled with that southern charm a Yankee like me was looking for,
I was expecting this at the memorials.
Ha ha ha ha,...This weekend it was wall to wall people, and selfie sticks, that's new.
D.C. is swankier and tonier than I recall. DuPont Circle, once a rough area is all fabulous now, if you know what I mean.
They changed the door ding sound on the Metro.
For that matter I have totally lost my Metro skills, much to my embarrassment, standing on the left side of the escalator, walking off the train and stopping to see where I am right in front of the doors, and generally walking around like a schmuck.
God that used to infuriate me.I once nearly bowled over a gaggle of Guatemalan activists riding the Metro to Capitol Hill when they stopped right in front of Metro doors.
These were my CNN Days. Yes, I used to work at CNN, for Inside Politics. Don't get too excited I was less important than the interns. A subject for another post, really.
After that I wrote direct mail fundraising letters about which the less said, the better. I will say that industry is a racket.
Before that I interned at the U.S. Senate, Bill Roth (R) DE and the summer before that I interned at the White House. This was the summer before Monica, so no. No ugly gals in Bill's White House, that's for sure.
I got off to a good start but my Washington career was a failure, which is why we bugged out in the summer of 2001. I'm still not sure why. I guess I was a bad interview who didn't really know how to sell himself. I didn't really have much to sell, to tell you the truth. I was a college dropout with no skills or experience. At one point in 2002 I sat down and listed all the places I interviewed. I came up with 27 in three years including a lobby group, another lobby group, yet another lobby group, the NYC Lobby office (came home and got a appendicitis, I kid you not) a senator, two think tanks, a DC political temp firm, Roll Call (I'm pretty sure Chuck Todd interviewed me), a local newspaper, etc etc.
This was in NOVA's go-go 90's days, when Silicon Valley east popped up along the Dulles Corridor and young people from all over the East Coast flocked to the area. Man, the place was overrun with southern, blonde, ball busting Republican gals. I knew a few. Lots of young money too. I remember driving to work one morning in my beat up Saturn SC-1 and pulling up to a Lexus driven by a nerdy guy my age. I used to beat up guys like him in gym class, now here he was making a fortune int he corridor.
Speaking of corridors, you've never seen traffic like this. I lived nine miles from my DMF job it took me an hour and a half to get to the office. I left at 7 and got back at 7. It was brutal. It was during this time I learned the tough part may not be the job, but the commute. That was in 99-2000 and it was the last 9-5 job I held.
Well it didn't work out for me, my career in politics was cut short, probably for the best. I write and teach now, and I'm a lot happier. In 2001 we moved to Jersey, in 2002 I earned my degree finally, and early in 2003 I finished reading Nick Hornby's High Fidelity and thought, 'Hmmm I think I could do this too...'
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