From R2D2 to Yankee Doodle: A Good Day

A good day.

As I noted in my last post nearly a week ago, this was heavy duty week, the week of the Middle East Institute's Annual Conference, when I'm on duty more than usual (and work my usual Friday off), and we have a banquet Thursday night, and our usual babysitter was sick and we had to hire the more expensive one, and ... oh well, you get it. By Friday night I was drained, exhausted, and fell asleep at 10:30. I'm a night person. I can stay up half the night if I don't have to get up the next day, but last night I collapsed like a punctured baloon. All this even though I didn't chair a panel, didn't give a presentation, and my superb staff did most of the work at the Journal's booth. It was just a long, always-on, networking day.

One of the advantages of going to bed early is that, even without an alarm, I woke up early. After a rough week, I was determined to have a really good family fun day. We went down to the reopening, after about two and a half years, of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, which has been significantly rebuilt and renovated with a new central atrium, a new home for the original Star Spangled Banner, and much more. Sarah liked the museum even when she was six or so, and wanted to visit it; I am of course a history buff (oh yeah, also a Ph.D. if that counts) and always loved the museum in its earlier incarnation.

It's nearly one am I want to go to bed so let me make this short, with more later: there were reenactors (George Washington, several Revolutionary types I didn't identify, Mary Pickersgill who made the original Star Spangled Banner in Baltimore, a civil rights activist talking about the first Greensboro NC sit-in in front of the original lunch counter seats, etc. Sarah tried out the hands-on "science in American history" stuff and an old lab that she'd loved when four or five, revived but not much changed. Much else had changed. There were bands (we heard a kids' Yorktown fife-and-drum group twice, a bluegrass group, and I understand Jazz, Dixieland and other groups played during the day), and, to add to the oddity, the Washington DC R2-D2 builders' club, which is what it says, guys who build working, moving, beeping R2-D2 robots. These guys obviously have more time on their hands than I do (I won't say too much time on their hands, because they've obviously got money to burn as well, neither of which applies to me.) (Sarah: "Is that a sand-person?" Geek: "No, that's a Jawa. Sand-People are quite different." Bear in mind that the Jawa in question is life sized, and for all I know may move. The other robots did.)

At first we filmed one R2-D2 going by, beeping and its upper turret revolving like, well, like a droid. Then two or three were roaming about (these are all full-sized, mind you, with flashing lights and beeping just like the real R2-D2, if there was a real R2-D2), while the fife and drum band was playing "Yankee Doodle" and "The World Turned Upside Down": this is either quintessential Americana or complete surrealism, or perhaps there's no distinction between the two. The R2s seemed to proliferate like cockroaches, though apparently they require a great deal of effort and dedication to build. I know this couldn't happen in Egypt and I rather doubt it could happen in France.

Because the new museum didn't have hot food yet in their cafe we went next door to the Natural History Museum (the dinosaur museum as Sarah has long called it) and then returned. We heard more music, looked around, listened to a presentation on the Star Spangled Banner's creation (the lines to see the original flag were quite long: it's been off display for years while being restored, so Sarah has still never seen it but will when the lines shorten).

Wonderful re-imagining of the central parts of the museum. The Star Spangled Banner is back (though we didn't see it yet), and in December, they'll reopen the First Ladies' inaugural gowns. Those two items long made this the most popular Smithsonian museum.

We stopped at Best Buy to get some necessities and a few frills, went out to dinner, discussed Thanksgiving plans and parameters for Sarah's coming allowance (I won't record for the world since it's family stuff), and generally had a good day.

A video of many of the reenactors and the R2s and other stuff is going up on YouTube as I write this on a different computer. Drop by if you're authorized to see our family YouTube stuff. If not, cheers.

Only as I was moving video and still photos around the Web did the date hit me: November 22. It's 45 years since JFK was killed. I didn't see any mention in today's Washington Post. 45 years. I grow older.

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