Lying in State

The Final Tribute from a Grateful Nation - an unscheduled reflection.

This Wednesday after work I walked down the street to join a friend. It has been snowy and icy here in the Capital and sidewalks were either fine or frozen as we walked down the street towards the metro. I knew that it would be busy and that heading towards downtown the final night to pay respects would probably be asking for trouble. On the platform, an older woman walked past carrying a tote bag from a bookstore I frequent, I noticed she had on legwarmers that didn't look very warm.

We got off at the Capital South stop and meandered around a little bit among the barricades and roving people working our way towards the building. Eventually a police officer yelled across the street that we were to go over a block and cross at 2nd street. So we did that. Walking down Independence towards the capital proved annoying. It is not clear to me that the Capital groundskeepers have enough in the budget for salt and snowclearing. Snow and ice packed around the metal gratings of the barrier bottoms and parts of the sidewalk were clear and parts were not. Crossing each intersection felt like child's first mountaineering class.

We turned on Second street and followed folks to East Capital and that's when we hit the line. We hit it around 6pm. Murmurings around suggested about a two hour wait and the 'feels like' temperature at the time was maybe 18 F. We stood and waited and talked. The line got up to First Street and my great joy vanished when we found the queue spiraled up and down side to side across First St from its bifurcation at E Capital down to the end of the SCOTUS building and wherever it ended on the other side.

We had gone down one queue and back up the other, probably about 30 minutes into our wait, when the older woman with legwarmers reappeared. She was accompanied by an older (?) woman on a zimmerframe. Someone opened the barrier for them to cross in front of us, and the zimmerlady asked if we minded the cut. What are you going to say to two elderly women that do not look well prepared for very cold weather? The one sat down on the zimmerframe while my friend braked it with her foot.

We chatted with them a bit about the cold and zimmerlady asked what I was reading. "The Old Man and the Sea," I said, turning the book towards her. She hoped it kept me distracted and warm. I, bundled in my thermal sweater and thermal underwear and coat and scarf and hat and gloves and handwarmers, hoped so too. She looked very cold and without enough layers, and legwarmerlady next to her had a bead of snot on her nose and looked very cold as well.

Zimmerlady took her gloves off and made a comment about how cold her hands were. I offered her the handwarmers I had in my pocket and she did not know quite what they were. She asked if she should put them in her gloves and I said sure. She did so and put her hands back in and said something like, "oh isn't that nice and warm!" She offered to give them back after a bit and I said that'd be okay, I've got more.

The line at this point moved on and my friend and I awkwardly stood there unclear as to if the folks in front of us would move along with it. Eventually we walked on, me looking back awkwardly a few times to excuse myself. Thankfully someone began opening the barriers for them so they could cut again. My friend and I exchanged comments about how they should have just been let through at the point which the line split for all of this queuing.

Somewhere towards the third spiral of this is where my toes gave up. My Doc Martens are not winter boots and they'd surrendered all guise of keeping me warm. We talked about wishing we had another pair of socks and another sweater. I looked jealously at the people in front of me, both of whom had cups of coffee. I wondered how long the coffee would stay hot in those paper cups in a feels like temperature of 12, which is where we were at the time.

Great joy, we were at the final spiral of the queue. Slowly, slowly, we advanced. It was about 8:00 I guess by the time we got to the front of that and the guards let us through. And yet, more. We had to wait along the curved descent to the visitor's center, wind blowing specs of snow at us. All of us vaguely dancing to beg our blood kept flowing south.

I thought security was pretty easy, no belt removal, just dump everything in the buckets and pass on through. Apparently it was enough to stop someone coming in with a machete, so I suppose that is good enough. Then we waited another big chunk in the first entryway of the visitor's center, though we were relieved for the bathroom. I was for sure that once we crested the stairs we'd be welcomed into the rotunda, and yet no so. The "final queue" as we were advised probably lasted another 30 or 40 minutes.

Our chat had warmed up with our body temperatures and once the threat of freezing to death while waiting to see a wooden box alleviated we were in better spirits. I was watching the people around us and recognizing people from the metro and trying to figure timing. We didn't see the older women again but kept wondering about them. We speculated as to the temperature and time limits that we would be willing to withstand for future Presidential Farewells. I think we agreed that Bush and Trump would not be worth a visit at all. Clinton I'd probably stand around for, despite my rage at PRWOA and whatever problematic stuff we have to sort of sigh at. Obama I'd probably wait outside for for a few hours, after all I was alive and coherent for him. We agreed we hoped it'd be 20 or 30 years before having to wonder about that.

I kept getting distracted. There was a lot of lint around the floor. Where was it all coming from? It wasn't coatstuffing. It looked like it'd come out of my dryer's linttrap. I expected it to stop with each spiral of the queue, but it persisted all the way to the final bend and all the way back and up the stairs and up to the final door towards the rotunda. I lost track of it there because I became distracted.

The Capital Rotunda looks big from the outside. Within, it feels smaller in all dimensions except vertically. We stepped in and they'd roped off a circle around and we stood at the ropes staring.

Jimmy Carter was a one term president. By most accounts his post-presidency was more positively regarded than his rather halting time in office, beleaguered but wellmeaning as it was. I've always been a little fascinated by Carter's decision to forgo a White House Chief of Staff and opt for a circle of advisors all with access like spokes on a wheel (citation - https://www.nytimes.com/1976/12/26/archives/which-white-house-style-for-carter.html). This did not prove very successful. But it is interesting.

Anyway, none of that makes his casket any bigger. The smallness of it struck me. I have never seen a President in person. I still haven't, because the casket was closed. But now I know that a President's casket is no bigger than my great-grandpa's.

The casket sits draped in an American flag, surrounded by a ceremonial guard, and atop basically the same catafalque that Lincoln's did. I forgot that the Space Force existed until seeing one of the honor guard in uniform. It did not seem comical in that setting. Wreaths were at three sides of the casket. I saw one that said, I think, Executive Branch and another that said U.S. Senate.

As we stood, the guard changed. The movements so slow and deliberate. Each movement of rifles and tap of foot echoed in this roomful of people standing stockstill. I could do nothing but gulp watching it.

When the previous guard had lined up, stomped once, and then quietly marched out, I watched the new guard stand at attention and then enter a different stance that I don't have vocabulary for. I looked around the crowd. There were some sounds of sniffling. I remember being anxious that in taking off my sockhat upon entering the rotunda that my hair would be in twenty-thousand directions and look stupid and disrespectful, but I think if this was the case no one likely noticed.

I looked up. The Rotunda's ceiling is adorned with the *Apotheosis of Washington* by Constantino Brumidi. I don't remember when I learned the name of this painting, but it was the same time I learned that the word apotheosis means to become godly. Divination. Deification. To reach the highest point.

I am often uncomfortable with the religiosity of our country. Something about seeing the casket of a President sitting under this painting made me tremble. There is quite simply no higher honor that our country can bestow. Nothing even compares to it. There is no way that a person can be forgotten, and this memory will live for ever. There were people in the room crossing themselves and saluting and quietly crying. I was not moved to tears, but I was moved.

We walked around the semicircle, pausing at points to observe from a different view. We stopped in front of the exit and watched from behind the lead of the honor guard. I could see the casket under the draped flag. It looked like any other plain, light wood. Oak? Maple? I have no idea. What I could see looked much lighter than I expected. It was not a deep, rich mahogany look that I expected. It looked plain. I suppose that is in character for President Carter, unflashy and humble. Admirable.

The American flag draped over the casket. I had a strange thought at it - a sort of pride or warmth. I noticed that and thought to myself that this was the first time I have seen an American flag and felt something akin to pride and not a sort of uncomfortable wondering. It is not a symbol that means the same thing that it suggested in my childhood, not that I had any strong national pride then or now. I suppose someone who works for the Man should feel more passionately. I don't know. I believe very strongly in the power of government to help people, to improve lives. It is hard to square that with the incredible and shameful coldness and even outright derision that some administrations have for their people.

We left the rotunda and quietly walked down the stairs and down the escalator and through the hallway. We stood in line for the condolence books and I felt an awkward silence. I did not know what to say after such an experience and do not remember what I said. Probably something like, "that was... something."

Even then, I don't think the full weight of the thing hit me until an attendant unwrapped a new bundle of papers and handed me two. One was a picture of President Carter with his dates of birth and death. The other was a program for the service, on heavy woven paper and embossed with a golden seal. I felt moved by these words: "The Final Tribute from a Grateful Nation." There is nothing to call it except extraordinary.

I have never seen State Pageantry at this level. Maybe I have never seen it at all, really. I'm not sure that 4th of July parades and fireworks even begin to approach it. Probably not. This felt hallowed. I hold President Carter in high regard, but not for any personal reason. His administration far precedes my birth. I know of his loss to Reagan more for my revulsion and contempt for Reagan than my love for Carter. I know that he built homes, and that is an admirable thing. I know that by all accounts, he was a good person. That is not something easily said about many other living Presidents.

I wonder what this experience would have been like for a President that I was proud to work for, proud to vote for, and loved? I don't know, but it must be intense. That must be what people in the room wiping tears or saluting felt. The final tribute from a grateful nation.

When we arrived to the condolence book I wondered what to sign for my town. I live in Washington, D.C., but I do not consider this place home and it will be well represented. I moved around a lot in my childhood and so don't claim any particular place as my hometown. Yet, I realized that my home county, as much as I do not enjoy visiting and despite that I will have to be dead to ever live there again (and certainly not even then), is unlikely to be represented. Has it been before? Maybe. But *only* maybe.

I chose to sign my home county. I thought about all of the people in my family and realized that I am the first of them that has ever had this opportunity. And I would imagine the number of folks from my home county that have ever had that opportunity must be small as well. So I hope that they are willing to have me represent them in this very small thing, on the middle line of a middle page of one of the likely dozens of books that will be signed by thousands of people.

The final tribute from a grateful nation.

Thomas