Barb’s Burblings

If you look at where the John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo did the majority of their killing in the fall of 2002, it’s like a map of where I’ve lived in the past 10 years. A mere two blocks from where I lay in bed last night, seeing confirmation that Muhammad had been executed, a woman was killed while vacuuming her minivan at a Shell station. I regularly drive by the sites of five of the other shootings. I remember the sound of the helicopters and being stopped as I drove to work to have my car searched. I recall putting groceries in my car, always in motion–harder to be a target if you’re moving around. Part of me still looks askance at white box trucks.

I also saw the shootings from afar. I was in New York City just after the first round of killings. My mom was nervous; it was my first solo business trip, and to New York! (Brooklyn, to be specific, which made me a bit nervous as well; midtown Manhattan I could handle, but Brooklyn’s a different story!) I don’t know how much it helped when I pointed out that I was apparently safer there than in Montgomery County, Maryland. I stood in Times Square and watched the news ticker tell me of shootings at home. Then, weeks later, seeing updates on CNN while at Homecoming at Gettysburg about a shooting that happened not far from where my parents had lived just a year before.

I’m not in favor of the death penalty in general, but in this case, I can’t get upset. The more I read about what the two had planned, the more satisfied I am that Muhammad is gone. Because, as this good article in the Post points out:

It might have been anyone in the cross hairs of that .223-caliber Bushmaster in those 22 days and nights when millions cowered from a roving, unseen menace — when ballfields and school yards fell still; jittery motorists squatted like baseball catchers to fill their gas tanks; ubiquitous white box trucks loomed suspicious; and the dour visage of Charles A. Moose, the tight-lipped Montgomery County police chief, filled the news.

The stalkers were elusive; the attacks, indiscriminate. And death came for the unfortunate ones in otherwise mundane moments, without warning: in gas stations and parking lots, on a bench in front of a restaurant, on the lawn of an auto dealership.

I was lucky. I still am.

I didn’t plan it, but 5 years ago, on the 15th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, I found myself at the Imperial War Museum in London, where I took this picture of a piece of the Wall. I don’t remember much from 9 November 1989 (I was 11 and in the 6th grade), other than my German teacher being very excited, and I can still see the poster she had hanging in her room for the next 3 years. But watching specials about it and reading about it…it’s so moving. And crazy to think that I’ve lived through such turbulent times. That’s a decent-sized part of why I want to visit Berlin and Moscow. In my lifetime, I’ve seen them change. Which is just crazy.

Anyway, cheers Frau Venus.

So today’s the 70th anniversary of the beginning of World War II, the invasion of Poland. That seems like an insanely long time, doesn’t it? I’ve been following a blog done by the Orwell Prize, which is run by by the Media Standards Trust, the Orwell Trust and Political Quarterly, posting the diaries of George Orwell. It started about a year ago and will go, presumably, until 2012, when Orwell’s diary ends. For a long, long time it was just him wandering around and had a lot about eggs. Seriously. A lot. But lately it’s gotten more interesting as he chronicles the political maneuverings that led to World War II. They’re also including newspaper images from those days. The beginning of today’s entry?

Invasion of Poland began this morning. Warsaw bombed. General mobilization proclaimed in England, ditto in France plus martial law.

It’s just kind of neat to see a firsthand account of it. Also, fewer mentions of eggs.

In other news, September 1 means September callups for baseball. Huzzah! Jeff Fiorentino, a.k.a. Screech, was called up from AAA Norfolk and that made me happy. He’s been doing really well. He was first called up in the middle of 2005, which probably didn’t help (he was only 22, was called up from AA, and probably was just not ready, though he did OK then [.640 OPS] and in 2006 [.683 OPS] in very limited at-bats). Anyway, yay, Screech! I admit I’m partial to him, too, because he bats lefty, has super nice blue eyes, and I have a cute picture of him from photo day back in 2005:

Screech and me

He looks OK, but it’s actually a great picture of me. Yay! (I have one with Javy Lopez from that same day, and I look wretched.) Anyway, I went to a game at Bowie last year or the year before, and the players were signing autographs before the game. I went up to Jeff and got his, and said that I was bummed I didn’t realize it was autograph day, because I had this great picture of the two of us, and bless his heart, he looked bummed and was like, “Man, that does suck!” Aww, Jeff.

(In mixed news, it looks like he actually may get a decent amount of playing time, due to Adam Jones spraining his ankle in tonight’s game. Good things never happen to Orioles in September games against the Yankees.)

One of the things I really like about volunteering at the National Museum of American History is when I can interact with history-geek kids. Like today, I was in the American Presidency exhibit. One of the pieces in the beginning of the exhibit is the coat Grover Cleveland wore to his inauguration. Now, a lot of people look at it and assume it’s Taft’s, because it’s a fairly sizable coat. I heard a little boy telling his mother he thought it was Taft’s, and I said that no, it was Cleveland’s–Taft was much bigger. The boy got excited and started talking about the bathtub they had to have made for Taft, and when I said that he could go to the National Archives and see a replica of the bathtub, his eyes positively lit up. It was awesome.

I also got to hear those magic words: “So, how are you with assassinations?” Very good. And it doesn’t sound nearly as messed up in context!

On a completely unrelated note, this afternoon I was watching television when I heard bagpipes. At first I thought it was on the tv (because why wouldn’t there be bagpipes at the O’s-Blue Jays game?), and then I saw, marching down the sidewalk, a bagpiper, followed by two drummers, then two or three random other people. I have no idea why this happened. I did see British, American, and Scottish flags hanging on a corner near my apartment, but that didn’t actually solve anything. (No signs.) Bizarre.

Happy Independence Day from me and Tom, author of the Declaration!

And as a bonus…Muppets!

I knew I wanted to go to this past Saturday’s ballgame; I had to miss Adam Jones bobblehead day, so I definitely wanted to be there for Markakis jersey day. Plus, it was the Nats and the O’s were showing Field of Dreams after the game. Cool! It wound up working excessively well; it was my friend Tim’s birthday, and his father had scored his company’s seats…which are on the field, just past first base. And they had an extra seat. Win! I wound up getting there first and securing our place in line, ensuring that we’d all get the jerseys. Of course, it also meant that we were in the stadium by 5:10.

So Dave and I wound up wandering around the stadium when a couple of Orioles staff people came up to me and asked whether I was a season ticket holder. I said that I was, and they asked whether I was familiar with the “Wear and Win” contest, in which a person wearing the season ticket-holder t-shirt wins at every game. Turns out I won an inning in the press box and control room. Woo! Since it was Tim’s birthday, Dave and I figured he’d come with me. So we spent the top of the 3rd in the control room, where we saw the tech folks cueing up replays, tweaking graphics for the scoreboard, and setting up the Hot Dog Race. The bottom of the 3rd was in the press box, where I got to meet Roch Kobatko and Paul, who does the recaps for the Orioles Hangout. Everyone was incredibly nice–O’s staff, folks in the control room, Roch, Paul. It was awesome.

Plus, the O’s won! Woo! And you can see my pictures here.

Then, last night was usher appreciation night at Ford’s Theatre. There wasn’t much to it, but we did get a sneak peek of the museum, which won’t open until July 15. We were allowed to just wander around the theater, which was just awesome. I could go backstage and peek in dressing rooms. Sweet! The museum was still being worked on, but it looks neat. They’ve obviously taken criticism about the museum focusing too much on the assassination–which, hello people, it’s Ford’s Theatre. What do you want them to focus on? Anyway, so they have stuff on Lincoln’s, you know, life. It’s pretty interesting. And the assassination stuff is still there, though kept more to the edges. I’m looking forward to seeing it when it’s done.

But anyway, the best part was that we were allowed to look into the presidential box! Usually you have to sort of lean over the railing from the balcony to see it from that angle; the door to the box itself generally is closed. But last night we got to go into the vestibule where Booth waited; we could see in the box, and see the actual sofa that was in the box that night. I totally did the History Happy Dance. And then had my mind blown listening to other ushers discuss the assassination; clearly these people are more interested in theater than in the history of that actual theater. Which is fine, but kind of weird. (Pictures? Here.)

There was also a raffle for door prizes–books, umbrellas, mugs, that sort of thing. I didn’t win anything, but I guess I had won enough on Saturday to make up for it. Plus, my tap teacher decided to use “You Can’t Stop the Beat” for a routine for next year, at my suggestion. So, wins all around.

Edit. Amusingly enough, it looks like there’s an article in tomorrow’s Post about the new museum. Funny!

Happy 266th birthday, Tom!

Becca said that they had cake at UVA in honor of the occasion. How cool is that?

There was an interesting article in the Post Magazine today about Henry Rathbone and Clara Harris. If you somehow missed who these people are (and how could that be?), they’re the couple who attended Our American Cousin with Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln the night the President was shot. Major Rathbone tried to stop Booth from getting away and was stabbed for his efforts; the blood on Miss Harris’s dress that kept upsetting Mrs. Lincoln that night was most likely that of Rathbone–Harris’s fiance. Anyway, Harris and Rathbone got married, and, years later, Rathbone wound up killing Harris, then stabbing himself. (He survived.)

It’s amazing how far reaching one act can be–and beyond the obvious. The Lincoln assassination was a tragedy for the country; our history would be so incredibly different if Lincoln had seen out his second term. But you see its influence in this story. These two people, who are so associated with that event…it’s entirely possible that Rathbone’s insanity was helped along by the assassination. I doubt it was all PTSD; his medical history seems to indicate that he had problems before April 14, 1865. But the combination of shooting and stabbing that he used to kill her…it was too reminiscent of Booth going into that theater box with a gun and a knife.