A. Lincoln 1862 ALARGE, GREY club-footed pigeon bumps along the terra cotta tiles in Union Station. This bird knows exactly how to work the crowd, and she materializes in front of every muffin eater in each seat as we wait to leave on the train bound for Vermont. I will be glad to be home again, but this trip to Washington D.C. has been an adventure.

Hot. We whine in Vermont, but our heat is nothing by comparison. The city’s asphalt streets cook in the heat and the tall buildings trap it into a stifling wall that stalls along the sidewalks. We duck into Ford’s Theater as a destination spot, but there are secondary gains to the air conditioning as we absorb the museum exhibits and listen to the Park Service ranger tell the story of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. It is disturbing to step back in time to the strife which tore apart our nation in the mid- 1800s. The black and white photographs which document those terrible times are ironic in their color presentation. Black and white, telling the story of Black and White.

Knoll House, built in the 1920s, stands in Washington D.C., a reminder of times gone by. Photo by Christine Barnes, The Northfield News A trip to the Norman Rockwell exhibit brings back memories of the “Saturday Evening Post” covers depicting American life. School kids and their teacher, a local barber shop, a little boy crying for his lost dog – Norman Rockwell was a master at charm and interpretation. Notable was the absence of diversity.

Along the city streets, people of every size and shape, every skin and hair color, and in every kind of cool clothing that’s still decent, walk along purposefully. It’s a celebration of diversity. However, it’s immediately clear that city “mode” requires no eye contact, and only the most furtive of inspection of one another. But in our taxi, the story is different.

The driver has been in D.C. for only 15 years. His home country is Ghana, and the conversation turns to an animated replay of the World Cup soccer games recently held in South Africa. We discuss how Nelson Mandela used rugby to make bridges to a divided people as portrayed in the movie, “Invictus”, and agree that soccer is a bridge across cultures. The driver drops us off at our residence, and I feel as though I have a friend in Washington.

We stay at a beautiful mansion, built in the 1920s in the outskirts of the city. It is stately and graceful, with lavish space and carved walnut paneling, leather-bound books, Oriental rugs, and graceful chandeliers from every ceiling to softly light the way. It is a step back into a different time, long lost to our fast-paced, distracted, instant-messaging globalized world. As I rest easy, I wonder where Washington’s homeless lay their heads this very night.

We visit a gallery which features the presidential portraits, and find an adjacent exhibit devoted to activism. The diversity of people on the streets is jarring if you haven’t been to a large city in a while, and this awareness accompanies me to the larger-than-life portraits of the 40-plus White male presidents. In an adjacent gallery, the focus shifts to activism, and the portraits on the walls are of people who have struggled to help us beyond slavery, through Civil Rights, and into confrontation with the issues facing migrant workers and immigrants.

We drive past the British Embassy, the Embassy of South Africa, and the European-style structures of the National Cathedral which stretch high and wide into the blue sky. At Arlington National Cemetery, we visit four gravesites, one being that of John F. Kennedy. The anguish we shared in this country floods back, so clear in memory that it seems like yesterday. Elsewhere, careful rows of small white gravestones mark the remains of those who fought and died for this nation. Too many are marked “Unknown”. They stretch for acres beneath graceful shade trees.

At the train station, a tall, slender nun approaches and asks for help locating her gate. From Kenya, she has been in this country for only 5 years. She has a winning smile and a welcoming way about her, and I reassure her that she will do well teaching high school biology when she reaches her destination in Virginia.

Homeward bound on Amtrak’s Vermonter, I reflect on the D.C. experience. One hundred and fifty years later, we continue to pass through fiery trials. I leave it to you to judge which have been lighted in honor, to the next generation.