BUS TRIP TO THE NATIONS CAPITAL ON APRIL 7, 2021 - note the date - PLUS I FELL

 

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Trip to our Nation's Capital - Cherry Blossoms - African Art - Hirschhorn - Souvenirs

My boss gave me the day off so I took a Hagey Coach to Washington DC. Met the bus at Montgomery Mall. Unsure of where to go, I arrived 45 mins early after missing the first jughandle turn, but fort'ly there was a U-Tube, oops, U-turn.

Bob Bergey, our coach driver. His wife Glenna was in the last row so she couldn't be a backseat driver, said Bob, who not only had a great sense of humor but was very knowledgeable about just about everything.

The name Bergey and also Hagey are common names in Perkasie where Bob lives. Here's his awesome website.

Our Hagey coach cost half a million dollars. It contains enuf diesel fuel - not cheap at over $5 a gallon - to drive to Florida and back.

Most of the cherry blossoms had already fallen off, but since there are dozens upon dozens of varieties Bob led us down an abandoned lane where there were scads of them.

Bonnie Woods took this photo of me. Four of us sat in the very front seat - the best place to sit b/c you can talk to the driver and also have a great view.

Next to me was her dad Tom. Across the aisle was red-headed 25-yo Bonnie, who's an artist, and her mom, a woman in her 50s who had quadruple bypass surgery at Doylestown Hospital, of which she couldn't say enough. Symptoms were: she climbed up a flight of steps at work and couldn't catch her breath. Husband Tom took early retirement from Verizon.

Lincoln Memorial. Martin Luther King gave his "I Had a Dream Speech" here. I did not climb up the stairs as I was conserving my legs. I knew they would ache by day's end. But I didn't dream that I'd have a fall.

As I've said before, my photos are really meant to remind me of all the great times I've had, 66 years and counting!

Roll em Ruthie!

Vietnam Memorial. Tom, the retired Verizon man sitting next to me, was in the Navy and was in a battleship and swam in the Gulf of Tonkin.

I knew several guys who fought in the war: My cousin Dan Sewell who was really messed up after he came home, David Moyer who was in a foxhole when the Vietcong came dangerously close, and Marine Frank Marrone whose wife died of cancer and he recently remarried.

This is a statue of the women who were in the Vietnam War. Never heard of it before.

The huge WWII memorial. Again, I was saving my legs so I just strolled by.

More WWII.

There were LONG LINES at most of the Smithsonian museums. But the art museums were not crowded, so that's where I spend most of my time.

My friend Judy Diaz told me about the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Outstanding! My sister Ellen was a friend of the director's - Susan Fisher (now Susan Fisher Sterling) - when we lived in Shaker Heights. We lived on Glenmore Road, she lived on Shelbourne.

I took a taxi to the women's museum. Unlike Philly or NYC, the cabs are not government-regulated, so everyone can charge what they want. All the cabs look different. I had a nice guy from Nigeria drive me to the museum. He had a blue van with sliding doors. I couldn't shut the door myself so he had to get out. You also had to step very high up. Not good for old ladies.

I told him about a movie Scott and I recently watched called The Bone Collector w/Denzel and Angelina. A cab driver kidnaps people and kills them, scraping out a bone for a souvenir. Tres suspenseful.

The above lithograph has an Emily Dickinson poem printed on it about a spider.

A book cut-out.

The previous works were on the ground floor. Mary Grady, who sat at the reception desk, helped me choose what to view. She's coming to Philly for Easter to see her kids. I thanked her when I left, but didn't tell her about my fall.

I took the stairs to the old masters room.

The museum, founded 25 yrs ago, is exquisitely beautiful. Forgot to ask Mary what the bldg used to be. Every little detail was gorgeous. So much to feast your eyes upon. Sorta like my house - seriously - where every spot in my living room office is covered with something b'ful or interesting like this:

Air Force Pilot, cover of LIFE, July 19, 1943. Ten cents a copy.

What could be more b'ful than this? That's Mary at her reception desk.

From their brochure I learned that the bldg, built in 1908, is Renaissance Revival and was formerly a Masonic temple.

Flowers in the cafe.

Contemporary art and sculpture.

Loved this foto of David slaying Goliath. It's hard to see his enemy's face but it's grotesque. BTW, did you watch The Ten Commandments on TV Saturday nite? Charleton Heston's son played baby Moses, an Egyptian name.

I only watched bits n pieces cuz I was at a Passover seder at my 'inlaws.' The living room TV always has sports on, but we three women - Natalie (Scott's mom) and Debbie (his sister) had the Samsung kitchen TV on.

This one was a real beauty, full of great details: King Philip II of Spain Upon Hearing News of the Destruction of the Armada.

Mother and her son after a flood.

This is by famed artist Alice Neel (1900-1984). This young man has been shot by a bullet and will die shortly.





These are women in the Manhattan section of Soho. (South of Houston street. Houston pronounced HOW-ston. My sister Donna used to live there. She was a potter and gave live demonstrations that you could see from Macy's outside window.)

Loved this mystical painting of rainfall.

The always recognizable Louise Nevelson. Actually there's another sculptress I thought was Nevelson, but she's Louise Bourgeois.

The young Louise Nevelson - birth name Leah Berliawsky - and her family immigrated from Czarist Russia to the US. They spoke Yiddish at home but Louise quickly learned l'anglais, as we say en francais.

The two sculptures on the right are by Nevelson. I love the one directly in front with all its interesting shapes. The painting in the back shows a powerful woman: Ruth as she was falling.

View out the window from the Nevelson room. Museum is at the corner of New York Avenue and 13th Street, NW.

I'll tell ya, I was really enchanted by all the artwork. The museum was practically empty!

This work, made of wax and melted wax, hung from the ceiling by the window. The artist was raised Catholic and this gaily colored sculpture aspires to show the contradictions inherent in the Catholic religion. Celibate priests, pedophile priests, good priests, hatred of gays, which they say is espoused in the Bible. So what? The bible is merely one book out of millions in the world.

Why not read books by gay authors such as James Baldwin, experience art work by gay men such as Andy Warhol, or poetry by gay women such as the late Adrienne Rich?

They have made enormous contributions to the world. Are they not God's children?

Fascinating painting. Look at the little man at the tail of the wounded bird and the skeletons grinning on the side.

Wonderful room of B&W photography.

I was fainting away when I saw these fotos. My friend Helene Ryesky uses that term.

Here I was really fainting away. I love abstract art.