soaked her feet in the washbowl in the rest room.) We got back to Cumberland at
about 2:30 A.M. It was truly a day to remember.
I had seen only the beautiful, the interesting part of Washington, I’m sure I
realized at the time. Yet I think it was that first visit that aroused a desire to come
back, some day, perhaps for much longer.
Today, on infrequent trips into the city, I invariably see tourists - their attire,
for one thing, identifies them. Whether they are, as was I in 1938, victims of
Washington’s magic, I cannot say. Perhaps there is some common denominator
among the people who choose to visit their capital that seems to standardize their
behavior. They seem comfortable, not strange; wide-eyed, not blasé. I believe that
even today I could fit right in with them and feel seventeen again.
Later in July I enjoyed another first - a trip to Solomons, Maryland. My
grandfather Wallace’s brother, Will, a fisherman by occupation, and his family lived
there. In earlier years, Pop traveled there a few times by train and boat, sometimes
taking along perhaps two of his children. It had been some time since he had been
there, so he was elated when Foxie offered to drive him and some family members
there. So at a little after 4:00 A.M. Pop, my mother, her sisters Dorothy and Regina,
and I squeezed into Foxie’s car for the approximately seven-hour trip. I swam in the
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CWR’s “first unforgettable sight of the city’s grandeur"
Washington visit, July 1938
