The year 1979 was the year a friend (Terry) and I ended our summer work a couple of weeks early and decided to travel to Washington D.C. (My first jet trip, by the way.) Terry had an older sister who lived there and worked as a manager at a major hotel. She offered to stay at the hotel while we were there and let Terry and I stay at her apartment and use her car. You can imagine a couple of 18-19 year old’s with the run of DC.
Terry had a 35mm camera and it seemed, as this being our first time in D.C., we’d be taking a lot of pictures. I decide to buy one too, so we found a camera store and I bought a Nikon FM camera just like his. It was entirely manual except for the internal light meter. I knew just a little bit about focal length, depth of field and bracketing exposures so was planning a lot of practice.
We decided to visit the monuments on the mall one night, to see what kind of night pictures we could take. The monuments were fairly deserted and as we wandered around the Lincoln memorial, a lone security guard walked through on his evening rounds. Another young kid was hanging around, maybe with a skateboard or something, and Terry asked him how long between rounds does it take until the guard came back. The kid thought about 20 minutes.
Well that was enough time for Terry, a budding rock climber, to try out his skills. We set up the camera and Terry started his climb. Now remember this was before security cameras and terrorist fears were rampant and things were a little more open and accessible. The Lincoln sculpture is impressive in size. His shoes were about at our eye level, so the top of the knee was quite a ways up there. That pity little statue of Lincoln, down on Bascom Hill in Madison WI is nothing in comparison.
I regret that this image is of poor quality, but it is a picture of a picture probably of another picture. I shot all Kodachrome slides on that trip, so once I find the original slide, I will finally make a proper enlargement. It was, after all, 40+ years ago.
Was it our Rebel Years? Terry thought good ones. I say some of the best!
And there are more stories to tell from this trip. A drive to the ocean, my first time, and body surfing in the waves. Chasing sand crabs and walking the boardwalk. Fixing a flat tire. Wandering the Capitol grounds and visiting the many museums. Sleeping in a VW Rabbit which we sometimes parked by hand, bouncing the back end toward the curb. And pinching every penny we had.
Different people remember different things about their experiences. Terry, when are we going to get together and reminisce?
