When I was 15 or thereabouts my mother drove her three kids down to Washington, D.C. Stroll around, see the sights, absorb the governmental atmosphere. Motoring from Westfield, N.J. to the nation’s capitol and back again took about eight hours; I seem to recall flopping in some modest motel in a D.C. suburb.
At some point in the late afternoon my sister and I were both suddenly anxious about attending to #1. We were in the car and my mother was having trouble figuring where to drop us off (hotel, restaurant, anywhere). At one point we drove by a large fountain in Dupont Circle with water shooting out from 15 or 20 spigots, and my mom said “oh, God…a bad thing to contemplate in this situation…don’t look at it.” I recall glancing at her with irritation and thinking “Jesus, that’s an annoying thing to say, and certainly not funny.” But here I am recalling this decades later. The things that linger in the mind
