"are you a traveling man?"
Music: American Music Club: The Golden Age (2008)
The subject line is a question you might get from a complete stranger in an airport if you have a Masonic emblem displayed on your clothing---or if you're luckier, from a cop who has just pulled you over but just noticed your square and compass bumper-sticker. Moina Ratliff asked me that question yesterday afternoon shortly after I arrived at her bed and breakfast, Yesteryear's Treasure House, in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia. "From the West, to the East," I answered. After 32 years of service on Capitol Hill, Moina started running B&Bs after retirement to make ends meet. It's clear she also enjoys meeting the dozens of folks who move through her deceptively small craftsman-style mansion every year. When she learned I picked her place because of its close proximity to a Masonic memorial, she popped the question: her late husband was a Mason and she was an officer in the Order of the Easter Star, that Great Blue sisterhood.
Moina is in her 70s, a friendly host and a charming conversationalist: after testing the waters this morning with me regarding politics, we discovered we were both left of center and had a bonding grousing session about our mutual disgust with the Bush II administration. She bought this B&B when it was up for sale about three years ago; the smaller house across the street was her former abode for some thirty years (also a B&B) and is now for sale. This house was much larger and, after repairing the foundation and expanding the four-bedroom house to 7 rooms, she's convinced the move was worth it. I cannot disagree: this is a charming place to stay and become absorbed into someone else's well-lived, well-intentioned life.
When I arrived yesterday I was told the place was "close" to the Metro station. "Close" meant about a mile away, which really isn't that bad except for three things: when I arrived at the Metro stop it was raining; I had about 70 lbs. of luggage; and the B&B is about one mile away . . . up a freakin' steep-ass hill. I arrived on the doorstep drenched (in sweat and rain) and was greeted by Moina's daughter, Leigh. Leigh is a very nice though extremely nervous person who didn't quite know what to do with me: "Where did you park?" she asked. "I, ugh, I walked," I said. "Oh [awkward pause]. Well, I can show you to your room, but there's more stairs. Do you want to rest?" What ensued was straight out of a Newhart sitcom, but I'll spare you (or rather, myself) the details to protect the innocent.
After I had a change of clothes I hit "downtown" Old Town Alexandra and wound up at the "Hard Times Café" for lunch. Their claim to fame was (holy Texas!) chili. I had a sampler. I went for the Spicey Red. It was good. I walked back up the hill, relaxed, and then went to the George Washington Masonic Memorial, which also houses three lodge rooms for active lodges, where I was invited to join Alexandria-Washington Lodge #22 for their stated meeting and festive board (dinner). Jeez this place was freakin' huge! And I lived in this city for four years and n'er heard about this monument! There's a museum inside, a dining hall or three, a number of theatres, a library, offices, a viewing tower, and three ceremonial lodges! Sure beats meeting in an aluminum-siding hut . . . .
I know most of y'all who read this are not Masons, so I won't bore you with too many details except to say: WOW! This particular lodge was on the tip, very polished, very formal, very stately. I was very impressed with their ritual work and the ceremony. They wore white gloves, used candles instead of bulbs for the representations of the "three lesser lights," and no one slurred their lines. Their ritual was very different from that of Texas or Louisiana---more formal, more, uh, "refined" (they played classical music "reflections" and stuff during the ritual, which was kind of . . . well, unexpected). What was moving about watching this lodge work was remembering the fact that the original charter was secured by none other than George Washington himself. The artifacts this lodge inherited are (obviously) priceless, and may of them were on display in the memorial.
Kirk McNulty is a member of the lodge and he was in attendance. He writes good stuff on Masonic ritual and psychoanalysis/analytical psychology. I got to meet him and was all fan-boy.
At the lodge meeting the former president of George Washington University, Stephen Trachtenberg, spoke. He was president of GWU when I was a student there. I met with him on numerous occasions---none of which were positive; they were grievance meetings---but the guy wrote letters for me for graduate school. I didn't get a chance to speak with him personally, but I did endure his indulgent speech for some 40 minutes. I didn't get it: this man quadrupled GWU's endowment and turned the university into the most expensive school in the country, yet he couldn't deliver an address that had anything to do with anything Masonic to save his life. He talked about his childhood and college experiences (almost sleeping with Ava Gardner, lessons from his father about counting the shirts you drop off at the cleaners), but didn't have much of anything to say about the "rhetorical situation." He would have got a D+ from me in public speaking 101. He made a gesture toward speaking about George Washington (but again, not in his capacity as a Mason). I was sort of scratching my head: ok, they paid this guy an honorarium, and he tells stories about his childhood and college life? [sigh] Anyway, after his "speech" there was a Q&A and I got to ask a question: "As a former university president, what is your view on the adjunctification of universities country wide?" His answer was, um, "that's a serious issue we need to address."
After the talk and during the festive board, I met a number of the lodge brothers. It was much fun. Fraternities are good for this reason: when you go to a strange place, you're entitled to visit strangers with a password and handshake. Not all of them are hospitable, but that's from ignorance, not a lack of goodwill. I met some very friendly, smart folks and had a blast.
Today was a delightful day in so many ways—went to the Library of Congress and interviewed some folks (got GREAT info), took in the cherry blossom explosion, met up with my ugrad advisor for lunch, and then toured my old stomping grounds at GWU. I was somewhat unsettled by my tour of GWU and the exclusive, super-expensive, super-snotty school that it has apparently become; I want to write more about it, but I'm having trouble holding my eyelids open, so I'll have to finish up talking about my event-fat day today tomorrow. I sleep with a smile, some ambivalence, and a smidgeon of excitement about my tourism tomorrow. Galleries of yesterday and today here, here, and here.