Garden Party, Funny Letters to the President, Catholic Gospel Church, and a Racist Cop

Such a great weekend!

Ed and I, though exhausted, got the house cleaned and laundry done before company came on Saturday. Sat. a.m. we did a grocery run for the garden party, which started at 1. We made fancy chicken salad sandwiches and Texas Caviar, the easiest recipe in the world. Others brought stuff and came dressed for summer. I had a really good time.

It was warm out so we took an afternoon nap, and then I started to feel restless. We randomly decided to go the National Archives, which was closed for a few years and recently reopened--this is where they keep the D of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights. After we saw all that jazz, we decided to check out the “museum” part of it (this is new, I am pretty sure). They had the funniest exhibit of letters written to various presidents, many from school children. One to President Ford (I think) was like, Dear President Ford, I think you are half right and half wrong. Signed, XXXX Another kid wanted his room declared a natural disaster by President Reagan and another wanted to be the marine corps mascot. They were so fun. There was a letter from Fidel Castro when he was like 11 asking for a $10 US Bill. The exhibits were actually really great. They had great photos of presidents/first ladies as children. They had a movie of all the different armed forces propaganda. We were there for a little over an hour—it isn’t huge, but the information was really interesting. Best part of course, is that it is free.

Sunday we went to church. It is a Catholic Jesuit church that has a gospel choir (as in full on clapping etc.) and is held in a small chapel of the church in the basement. This was not your traditional church. I felt well dressed in shorts and flip flops. Church started about 10 minutes late as everyone chatted it up. Everyone comes up to the alter for the Eucharist and the peace offering is one big love-fest. It was a very small, but diverse crowd. The homily was about acting kind and altruism. Church went a good hour and half. I couldn’t help but thinking that this is how Church was back in the days of Christ—a small group of people from all walks of life who all knew each other who worshiped in an understated basement and hugged at the peace offering and sang loudly and clapped because they just wanted to praise God. Ooohhh so different from St. John’s Parish in Minot.

After church, we picked up our friend Kevin for a day at the beach. A mere 45mins, $6 later we arrived at Sandy Point on the Chesapeake. The beach was huge. It was a great day of laziness and goofing around in the water. The only downer was me overhearing a beach police officer on the phone talk about the “stupid Hispanics” he was just dealing with it. I didn’t really think, but reacted from my gut and screamed “I heard that” (he is still on the phone) louder…”I heard that” and then he got off the phone and came over to me, I said “I heard what you said and race is not a factor” he informed me that when people use their race (I think he meant language) to avoid the law that it is (whatever that means). I repeated that race is not factor. He apologized to me. I told him ”don’t apologize to me, apologize to them”. He left. Ed and Kevin were gone at the time and when they returned they wanted to get his badge number. I didn’t really didn’t want to—I publicly embarrassed him and called him out on his wrong. He’ll think twice next time—whether or not he really understands what is wrong about what he said….that is another matter