Busy Weekend Coming Up

I’m back from my trip to Washington City.  It was a whirlwind tour that included taking many pictures for strangers at the Lincoln Memorial, which is being transformed along with the rest of the mall for a concert on Sunday.  I have never before seen so many porta-potties, even at the Preakness.  It was fun waving my finger to direct groups of seven or eight to shuffle left or right to get Abe centered behind them.  Sometimes I had them do it just for my own amusement.  I also got a picture of the Winder building (my wife was dismayed at my burning desire to photograph the relatively non-descript 5 story building on F and 17th).  It’s where many of the USMA Class of ’61 assembled on their arrival in the city after graduation, and served as Judge Advocate Holt’s HQ for the Lincoln assassination investigation.  We saw the Blair house, scene of the offering of some sort of command to R. E. Lee early on, so ineptly depicted in the cinematic disaster Gods and Generals.  The President-Elect will move in there today – he was in the Hay-Adams Hotel on the other side of Lafayette Square.  That whole block was cordoned off.  We also got a behind the scenes tour of the White House, courtesy of a friend of my wife’s who is a big-shot there, at least until tomorrow.  Larry King was upstairs interviewing the President and First Lady.

I just got off the phone with my editor.  Apparently the deadline for my May reviews is tomorrow.  No way I can get them done by then, so I’ll have to finish them – as well as a manuscript I am proofing for another publisher – this weekend.  The title of the column has been tweaked, and we’ll be including a rating system.  What with a Webelo’s sleepover on Friday, a Duquesne basketball game Saturday (I do stats for them), and the Steelers game on Sunday, I have my work cut out for me, so don’t look for anything new here for a few days.  But do come back and go through the archives!