Being there

If you were fortunate enough to have been born and raised in the slums of Washington, D.C. like I was, your rat-infested public school's curriculum would have required you and your fellow classmates to go on regularly scheduled school trips to places like: The National Galley of Art, The National Symphony, The Library of Congress, The Smithsonian Museum, etc.

You would have been required to walk with your classmates to Constitution Ave. and stand on the sidewalk so that you could witness every parade that the rest of the world had to watch on tv.

Like the parade for The Mercury 7 astronauts and their families, featuring John and Annie Glenn, riding in an open car with Vice President Johnson, who waved to all of us standing out there in the rain on that wet, chilly day in February, 1962

JFK's inaugural parade in '61, and then his untimely funeral procession in November of '63 - the caisson, the horses, the indescribable air.

And having to go to The Lincoln Memorial on that hot August day where we listened to Martin Luther King, Jr speak about having a dream.

Now here's my point. Being there. That's the main point that I want to make before I finish. Being there.

I was a little girl on one of those class trips to The National Gallery of Art. I wandered off and got lost. When I finally stopped wandering and turned around I was directly in front of Manet's "The Dead Toreador" - and flew right out of my body. In fact, I felt like I was floating along-side the painting, instead of feeling the floor below my feet.



This, as weird as you may think it is, is simply a true story about a little girl having an enormous aesthetic response to a powerful work of art.

As Father's Day approaches, how about foregoing the necktie and instead give the gift of a family museum membership. Maybe create an enormous aesthetic memory for your family.

Just being there, that's all it takes!

p.s. support art programs in public schools!