Washington, Disgrace

I recently visited Washington, D.C. with my mother and step-father after a long absence. The last time I was there was in the early 80’s, when I was working as a production assistant on "The Man With One Red Shoe." One of my jobs on the film was to handle all all of the paperwork for the locations around the city and get all the proper clearances. It was thrilling to see our nation’s seat and travel through the only real history I had experienced in my sheltered Los Angeles life. I walked through the DAR museum after hours, the Bureau of Engraving after dark and the streets of Georgetown at 4 in the morning.
The feeling I got of Washington then was a place with a story to tell, and something that belonged -- in a very real way -- to me.

So as the plane descended through the clouds and I could see the Washington Monument in the distance, I got excited, like I was about to see a long-lost friend.

After we landed and started to taxi to the gate, I noticed that Dulles airport had not really changed. In fact, it still looked EXACTLY the same as when I was a kid when my dad took my to see the sites with the rest of my first family. They still have those strange, antiquated trams that look like something out of a Star Wars movie. (I wonder if George Lucas had them in mind when he was designing Star Wars?)

As we got to the main terminal, I wondered if I was in the wrong place. It did not look like any other terminal I have seen in the U.S. To put it bluntly, it looked like crap. Ceiling tiles were falling down and it had that old, musty smell like someone's grandmother's house long after a serious fried chicken session. The baggage carousels made that terrible screaching sound.

The next day, in between meetings, my mother and I had a chance to go out and look at a few of the monuments. I told the driver what we wanted to see and how long we had to see them. Even though he said he did, he had no idea where they were. We spent 20 minutes driving around downtown and the backward way to the FDR monument. In this round-about way, I got to see a lot of places I remembered, but this time, they looked different. Every monument is under renovation. Streets are blocked off, paint is peeling off and lights are burned out. At least I got to spend some time with my mom.

I know that we're living in "difficult times" and that security is important, but if I feel this way when I visit our nation's capital, how must visitors from other countries see our world here? Are we becoming a shadow of our former selves?