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You are here: Home / Photo Blogging / On The Road / On the Road and In Your Backyard

On the Road and In Your Backyard

by Alain Chamot (1971-2020)|  April 6, 20185:00 am| 15 Comments

This post is in: On The Road, Open Threads, Readership Capture

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On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.

From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.

Submit Your Photos

Good Morning All,

This weekday feature is for Juicers who are are on the road, traveling, or just want to share a little bit of their world via stories and pictures. So many of us rise each morning, eager for something beautiful, inspiring, amazing, subtle, of note, and our community delivers – a view into their world, whether they’re far away or close to home – pictures with a story, with context, with meaning, sometimes just beauty. By concentrating travel updates and tips here, it’s easier for all of us to keep up or find them later.

So please, speak up and share some of your adventures and travel news here, and submit your pictures using our speedy, secure form. You can submit up to 7 pictures at a time, with an overall description and one for each picture.

You can, of course, send an email with pictures if the form gives you trouble, or if you are trying to submit something special, like a zipped archive or a movie. If your pictures are already hosted online, then please email the links with your descriptions.

For each picture, it’s best to provide your commenter screenname, description, where it was taken, and date. It’s tough to keep everyone’s email address and screenname straight, so don’t assume that I remember it “from last time”. More and more, the first photo before the fold will be from a commenter, so making it easy to locate the screenname when I’ve found a compelling photo is crucial.

Have a great weekend everyone, enjoy the pictures!

 

 

Today, pictures from valued commenter marv.

Sending in these four photos from the March in DC because I didn’t see any posted by Juicers when I returned. Another reason is I think Cole’s near-legendary analogy about the futility of modern political “dialogue” between the right and left – one side proposing Italian for dinner, the other tire rims and anthrax – is why this movement of young people exploded on the scene. After 20 years of idiocy, which inevitably drew us in as well as the other side, it took the children who felt it to wake people up.

 

The main reason I drove 700 miles to be there is simply I was a public school teacher for 20 years. It’s a humble position, but I’m pretty sure there are teachers in the background for these kids. I just wanted to show up.

 

The most moving part of the whole thing for me was it became increasingly clear, speaker after speaker, that it was just going to be young people talking. I hadn’t really expected anything about that one way or another, but just being there I became really grateful that no politician, no adult, strode out to proclaim unity, co-opt, congratulate, etc.

 

Photo No. 1:    The crowd. Exactly to my left is the “J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building”. It was strange looking at his name on the front of it, which I did often. It was a comfort to think a person he tried so hard to destroy (MLK) now has an astonishing, powerful memorial just a few blocks away. Hoover’s name is still on FBI headquarters, but aside from that I think he has largely, and justly, been consigned to the dustbin of history. Maybe the moral arc really does…

 

Maybe I’ve been living in the country too long, but it was some kind of overload to be in the nation’s capital with hundreds of thousands of others on an historic day and then on the way out see this notice of an upcoming Cezanne exhibit.

 

 

I was surprised how moving it was for me to be back in DC, partly I’m sure because it was an historic day. But also because the last time I was there was over 50 years ago with my mother, a high school American history teacher, shortly before her untimely death. So I liked seeing the Washington Monument in the background as we left. My mom and I walked to the top of it back in the day

Enough said. As I grew up in DC, I spent a lot of time around the monuments (for example, the morning of my last high school exam, I took a long bike ride, past the White House, Capitol, the mall and its assorted monuments, etc). The good friend of our middle school art teacher sculpted the Vietnam Vet statue, so I’ve always felt a personal connection to the memorial. Whenever friends or family came to town, I would always take them for a walk along the wall. It still makes tears well up in my eyes, remembering the thousands of vets I’ve seen there at all times of the day and night, in any weather, crying, never forgetting, reaching out to a brother.

 

Thank you so much marv, do send us more when you can.

 

Travel safely everybody, and do share some stories in the comments, even if you’re joining the conversation late. Many folks confide that they go back and read old threads, one reason these are available on the Quick Links menu.

 

One again, to submit pictures: Use the Form or Send an Email

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Previous Post: « Friday Morning Open Thread: Repubs Just Want the Dirty Details
Next Post: Risk adjustment and Silver Loading »

Reader Interactions

15Comments

  1. 1.

    raven

    April 6, 2018 at 5:19 am

    Man, I just realized it’s been 13 years since I’ve been to the Wall.

  2. 2.

    bluefish

    April 6, 2018 at 5:38 am

    Thank you for sharing these. Very nice.

  3. 3.

    Quinerly

    April 6, 2018 at 6:10 am

    ?

  4. 4.

    satby

    April 6, 2018 at 6:13 am

    Yes, thank you marv. Both for the pictures of the march and for being there. It was a day for making history.

  5. 5.

    rikyrah

    April 6, 2018 at 6:27 am

    Love the pictures

  6. 6.

    Mary G

    April 6, 2018 at 6:31 am

    History is happening right now. Hope we survive it. I feel good knowing these kids are in charge.

  7. 7.

    Louise B.

    April 6, 2018 at 8:18 am

    Thanks, marv, for the pictures and your reflections on the march.

  8. 8.

    Amir Khalid

    April 6, 2018 at 9:08 am

    @marv:

    Hoover’s name is still on FBI headquarters, but aside from that I think he has largely, and justly, been consigned to the dustbin of history

    Hoover will always be remembered for spying on people for nefarious purposes, and for his love of women’s clothing.

  9. 9.

    Waratah

    April 6, 2018 at 9:50 am

    Thank you marv, I wish I could have been there.

  10. 10.

    J R in WV

    April 6, 2018 at 10:08 am

    Great pictures, Marv, Thanks!

    For the pictures, for being in DC on such an important day! You were part of history last Saturday, while many of us just watched from the sidelines. So thanks again!

    Alain, thanks again for building this tool so we can share pictures from our lives, all over the world. From elephants in SE Asia to antique buildings in Austria, just wow!

  11. 11.

    marv

    April 6, 2018 at 10:39 am

    Thank you, J R, and everyone else commenting here. You da person! in regard to great photos (really enjoyed the Baja photo series and should have said so here.) It did feel historic to be there in DC

  12. 12.

    Another Scott

    April 6, 2018 at 10:50 am

    Thanks for the pictures and for being there, marv. (I was home sick.)

    OT – I just came across this story about a traveling dog and cat at the BBC.

    Cynthia Bennett – Henry and Baloo at Instagram.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  13. 13.

    Mnemosyne

    April 6, 2018 at 11:19 am

    Nice! I think the only adult who spoke at the LA march was a Columbine survivor, so he was there as a gun violence survivor. There was also a guy who was a local college student, but he was there as a student, not an adult.

    In Atlanta, Rep. John Lewis spoke but, again, he knows a little something about what young people can do when they get together and push for change.

  14. 14.

    eclare

    April 6, 2018 at 11:43 am

    Thank you for the pictures. Impossible to see the wall and not tear up.

  15. 15.

    marv

    April 6, 2018 at 12:09 pm

    @Mnemosyne:
    I can’t think of a nat’l political figure who would have been better to see than John Lewis. I actually thought at one point during the proceedings that Michelle Obama would have been a welcome sight. But that’s wrong, I think. Would have been seen as “polarizing” by the right. One thing that seemed so great was there just wasn’t any sign of all the old debate talking points. For example, a really hard-hitting video presentation about “thoughts and prayers” – they were just taking no prisoners on that one. And I think it’s a stroke of genius the young people aren’t even going directly at the NRA, but simply asking politicians why they take NRA money. Changes the whole conversation, I believe, especially for young people

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