Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Shootings and sights to see

Not long after we moved in our folks delivered the boys. During the week we had never seen so much traffic. It was 6 & 8 lanes of wall to wall traffic. So week days we did not venture out much. Thank goodness our apt was close to the school.  But on the weekends we did the tourist thing. We even went to the Wax museum and had our picture made with LBJ.

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We all loved the Smithsonians, Especially Air and Space, American History and Natural History .  We climbed the Washington Monument and walked to the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials.  We made a trek to the Arlington national Cemetery and the ‘Tomb of the Unknown’.  Being a sailor and an ex-marine I was over come by the size and impact of the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima. I love statuary and monuments.

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In the United States and the United Kingdom tradition dictates that if the horse is rearing (both front legs in the air), the rider died in battle; one front leg up means the rider was wounded in battle or died of battle wounds; and if all four hooves are on the ground, the rider died outside battle.

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In School I was studying the 407 accounting machine. Every time I fixed something and tried to cycle to print it would blow up! I tried this three or four times, each time with the same results, it would blow up, It continues UNTIL SHERRY FINALLY SHOOK ME AWAKE FROM MY NIGHTMARE! She was saying excitedly, “Someone is shooting from the windows on the 3rd floor!” So every time the man would shoot, the machine in my dream was blowing up! Now that will get your attention.

Sure enough, from our window in the “U” shaped building (we were at the center of the U.) you could see someone running to the windows and shooting at anything that moved.  It wasn’t long until the place was surrounded by police and the man with two pistols kept shooting. The police fired a tear gun canister at one window and missed, hitting the wall and sending tear gas all directions. Our apt began to fill with tear gas.  We evacuated out the back. We went to some friends apartment across the road.

The shooter had a brain tumor pressing on the wrong place and he went berserk.  Fortunately no one was hurt, but made for a good story. We do have  a fun life. (Sherry just attracts this stuff!)Winking smile

The other shooting was the assassination of George Rockwell of the American Nazi Party leader, he was shot at a coin laundry  in Arlington.  We only heard it on the news, thank goodness we didn’t need anymore shooting around our house.

Life continues. More DC tomorrow.

Nite Shipslog

PS:

The nicest thing about the future is ...

that it always starts tomorrow.

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1968 GTO, Motor Trends Car of the Year

9 comments:

BlueRidge Boomer said...

today will be in the 40's with lots of sunshine....Welcome Home..!!

Elizabeth said...

Yes, you and Sherry do have a fun life!

shirl72 said...

My first hearing about the shooting.
in DC. You will be coming home to cool weather they say will last 2 days. If I remember it is always cool at Easter. I think I have heard that cool weather had something to do with the crucifixion of Jesus.

betty said...

That would be so scary with that shooter, makes you feel sorry for him with the circumstances of it, glad no one got hurt!

There is so much to do and see in DC; sounds like you guys took great advantage of your time there to take it as much as you could! That traffic can be a bit tricky; I'm sure it is worse now!

betty

I'm mostly known as 'MA' said...

You certainly lead an exciting life. It would take you a few moments to realized the reason things were blowing up there was that a man was shooting. Oh my, that had to have been scary. Glad you got to see the many wonderful sights there.

Paula said...

Oh wow! That shooting must have been scary. Exciting life but Sherry is a magnet for all that, huh? Sherry keeps you calm I bet.

TARYTERRE said...

WELCOME to DC. Crime sprees happen. looks like you found that out.

Mevely317 said...

That shooting and tear-gas so close to home had to be awfully frightening, especially with two young sons!

Brain tumor, hmm? That reminds me of Charles Whitman and the University of Texas tower shootings ... and of course, Kinky Friedman's ensuing "Ballad."
(Have you heard it? Really UN-politically correct, but hysterical all the same!)

Chatty Crone said...

I think you have had an extremely interesting life. I guess you learned ALL about that area.