Thanks, everyone, for your support and suggestions on Tuesday as I prepared for the visit of Marky Ramone to watch American Idol. We enjoyed Ring Dings (which I mistakenly called Ding Dongs), new Spicy Sweet Chili Doritos, and Peanut Butter and Jelly (open-faced). Interestingly, Marky no longer eats cereal so I waited until he left before breaking open the Frosted Mini-Wheats.

Sadly the show (Idol, that is) was a bore. Anyway I'll post my interview with Marky in the next few days. Now for a trip farther back in time...

On Easter afternoon my mother and I went to Lincoln's Cottage down in D.C. I'd taken both my parents to this little-known gem about 7 years ago, before it was spruced up and opened to the public. And a gem it is.

The Gothic Revival home, on the grounds of what was formerly known as the Soldiers' Home (initially for poor, displaced German and Irish veterans of the Mexican-American and Civil Wars) is where Lincoln spent a total of thirteen months, a full quarter of his presidency. For our greatest president it was an escape from the office seekers that would line up for him daily -- and other time-sucking trivial obligations that came with his office. (I need a cottage to escape email.) Plus, sitting at the third-highest spot in Washington, it was a respite from the heat.

It was here that Lincoln drafted the Emancipation Proclamation.

Readers of this blog know that my three favorite people are Teddy Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln and Loretta Lynn. (I also love Pope John Paul II, Billie Jean King and educator Marva Collins. The 1981 TV movie based on Collins' life in the Chicago Public School system moved me deeply.) Well seventh place belongs not to an individual, but to a whole class of people: Docents.

I love docents. Trained museum (also walking tour) guides are wonderful people who've certainly enriched my life. In these uncertain times, we're all grasping for connection with our national past. We want to know what it means to be American. Time (and population growth) is working against us in certain respects: Soon we will no longer be the world's economic superpower. Not long afterward we will lose our distinction as the world's unrivaled military power. If we're not the moral superpower, the beacon of freedom for the rest of the world, well then we might as well be The Netherlands. Just some upscale-ish, medium-sized country with a manageable underclass and a bunch of fancy shops.

Luckily docents are committed to guiding us through our past and reminding us of what our forebears did for us and the world. Docents are interpreters (often their preferred title).

Our docent today was the incomparable Shira L. Gladstone. My blackberry camera photos from the day are frustratingly blurry so I'll do my best to describe the scene. Shira's look was updated Lisa Loeb: sexy glasses with neat medium length brown hair. (Overall she had a very healthy sheen.) Her camel-colored toggle coat was a perfect fit over her ecru turtleneck. A student at GWU, Shira could have gone the slovenly route, using her Foggy Bottom late nights as an excuse to look like crap. Instead she gave us all the sense that she respected us and, more importantly, Lincoln. (Come to think of it, she was more Diana Prince than Lisa Loeb.)

She approached the subject matter with energy and appropriate earnestness. A couple more interesting points from the tour:

• The cottage, three miles from the White House, was a thirty minute drive by carriage. The route was rural back then, and the drive was extremely dangerous, what with so many people trying to knock off Abe. (A shot even penetrated his stovepipe hat on one ride.)
  
• Washington was ringed with forts throughout the war. At Fort Stevens, only a mile and a half from the cottage, Lincoln came under fire - the only president in our history to come under fire during wartime.

Rather than inundate us with random factoids, Shira helpfully repeated her main points (cottage as respite, site of drafting of Emancipation Proclamation, full quarter of presidency spent there, etc.), aware that most tourists can only absorb so many facts. This was not about Shira showing off. It was about her giving us a couple, at most a few, precious insights into the man who saved our country.

It was a memorable and moving visit, thanks largely to Shira. (The reason I've never forgiven Bill Richardson is that years ago I wrote him a letter commending the docent from Santa Fe's Palace of Governors/New Mexico History Museum. But I never received any acknowledgment from his office for my letter.)

Do you like docents, too? Have you had any great docent experiences lately?


My mother standing in front of the Gothic Revival Lincoln Cottage.


Shira with our group inside the cottage. (I don't know what that man is looking at.)


Most of what's in the cottage is a reproduction or period piece, rather than original Lincoln artifact. But the banister is original. Lincoln touched this!