Vic Socotra

07 June 2008

Fireproof

Grand Plaza of the Building Museum, Washington, DC

It has been a hell of a week. The claws of the storm raked the trees of leafy Arlington, and behind the rake comes the air from the Gulf, and the first heat warning of the year. One Hundred and Five today, they say breathlessly, fiery moist heat, and breathless is exactly what it will mean to those still in the dark.

The shadow of death was in the air- not on me and mine- but close enough that the dark wings could be heard, and the grief of the loss of a child could be perceived, though not understood.

Then the blast of the storm, the raw demonstration of power that reminds palpably how futile the works of humankind really are. Friday night never came so welcome. Big Pink’s power is fully restored, and the place is buttoned up against the humidity.

I will have to do something about the back door that the storm ripped off; it is a static display, a rectangle of wood jammed into a rectangular aperture, rather than a functioning egress in case of fire, but that is a matter that can wait.

The air conditioning works, and the place is dry, as opposed to the soppy feeling that grips the bushes and concrete outside that made the Founders flee this dismal swamp for more salubrious climes during the sodden months.

Not for the first time did I thank the fates for the decision to replace the old convectors when I bought the place: the motors inside work reliably, work fine, the drains are not clogged with that nasty black mildew found out late yesterday that a friend had a worse storm than I did.

I wandered down the corridor to talk about a project the will kill part of Sunday, and discovered that one of the historic trees that grace the lovingly landscaped grounds of his extensively remodeled retreat had the bad form to depart vertical orientation during the fierce blast of wind that went with the passing of the storm front.

It did a graceful 150-foot pirouette, toppling into the gazebo, crushing it, and then crushing the sensible Subaru parked next to it, narrowly missing the Porsche. It was a close brush.

They say that Senator Clinton will officially throw in the towel today in an announcement at the National Building Museum.

It is a grand place to make an announcement; massive enough to stand against whatever storms might come. The place started life as the Pension Building for the veterans of the Civil War, and was for a brief moment the largest brick structure on earth. Personally designed by Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs, there are supposed to be 15.5 million red bricks in the pile, each one counted by the General.

The need for the building came before Washington was a year-round town, and the structure was designed to maximize air circulation. All offices had not only exterior windows, but opened onto the court, which brought in the breath of ground-level air and exhaust hot gas at roof level.

They should have done that with the Capitol, but no matter.

The stairs that snake up through the walls of the vast interior plaza were designed with the limitations of disabled and aging veterans, having a gradual ascent with low steps. In addition, each step slanted slightly from back to front to allow easy drainage- a flight could be easily washed by pouring water from the top. The evaporation also helped to cool the summer’s fever.

The most striking thing about the place are the eight graceful Corinthian columns that prop up the soaring roof are said to be the tallest in the world still, and dwarf the activities of the mortals below.

Now that the matter is settled, it will be interesting to see how the Candidate deals with the junior Senator from New York. They met, apparently, since they were both in town to make a show of performing their day jobs in the Senate. The historic Candidate was non-committal about the future, which is supposed to be Presidential.

I expect there is going to be a lot of that in the damp months to come.

It is so much easier to retreat inside into the cool dry air and pray that the power stays on.

It also took out the power, and being further down on the food chain from multiple dwellings like Big Pink, Dominion Power will get around to the sawing of the great trunk and he is still without power and the contents of the fridge are long past prime.

I offered to do something to mitigate the loss, and cook some dinner in the cool air. I figure it is pretty close to the least I could do, without actually doing nothing. After all, I have the cable back, and we should be able to watch the third leg of the Triple Crown from Belmont, and maybe Senator Clinton’s speech from the Building Museum.

I am expecting a show of party unity, something that appears like the duck in the stream: serene above the water, and with the legs going like mad. I expect the way she is really feeling is more like the words General Phil Sheridan used to describe the building where the surrender will be made.

Phil was the master of the art of total war, and personally destroyed the breadbasket of Virginia in the Shenandoah Valley.

When they asked him what he thought of the Pension Building, he allowed as how the only thing that he could find wrong with the building was that it was fireproof.

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