Life of Lydia

Dear readers, on Wednesday we had the opportunity to meet both Missouri senators. These meetings were scheduled by the person in charge of the National History Day in Missouri and were open to all NHD participants from Missouri.

We rode the metro to Union Station. This station is an impressive site to see.

I don’t know why people don’t build pretty buildings like they used to. If you’re going to bother making a public building that hundreds of people will come through each day, you might as well make it look good.

We ate lunch at a restaurant in Union Station. The only water they had was contained in metal bottles. The idea was you would be good for the earth and put the bootle in a recycling can after you had drunk the water in it. I was bad for the earth and just kept refilling the bootle and carrying it around in my purse as a source of extra hydradion for the rest of the trip.

These dudes with shields were very intimidating.

The first Senator we met was Eric Schmitt. We were supposed to meet him on the steps of the Capitol Building. When we arrived, we discovered that these steps were fenced off, but the nearest security guard let us pass with no problem, after we had explained our situation.

The Capitol steps were very crowded, as there were multiple groups of students meeting with their senators. My mother spotted this fellow named Mitt Romney. I had never heard of him before, but was quickly informed that he was famous and it was an accomplishment for one to see him.

We took a lot of Papparazzi photos of Mitt. As soon as my mother told me he was famous I started taking pictures of him.

After Mitt and a random sentor from South Dakota had left, the small group of Missourians were left alone waiting for Eric Schmitt. After a bit we saw Eric himself appear at the top of the steps. He didn’t come down to us because he was caught up in conversation. We were all getting mentally prepared to meet such an exhalted individual, when a security guard on a motorcycle stopped in front of us.

“Do you guys have a staff member with you?” he firmly inquired. Of course the answer was no.

“Then you’ll have to go to the other side of the gate.”

“But,” my mother pleaded “Our Senetor is right there on the steps!”

“You are going to have to go to the other side of the gate,” the man replied.

My mother was feeling despondent. She looked up longingly at the senator. We were so close to meeting him, and she couldn’t stand to let a security guard stand in our way. She cupped her hands around her mouth. The words that were shouted out of her lips are iconic, spectacular, and inspiring. Because of them, she will forever be hailed as the hero who saved us from the dark hopelessness of the other side of the fence.

“Senator Schmitt!!! We’re from Missouri! They are about to kick us out! Please come help us!”

Amy E. Tyndall

Eric came striding down the steps and assumed responsibility of our group. The security guard rode off, utterly defeated. We were on the Capitol side of the fence, and there was nothing he could do about it. Eric, unphased by the whole situation, cheerfully posed for photos and shot the breeze. After a few minutes, he left and after a few more minutes, his constituents left as well. We never saw the security guard again.

After our exciting visit with Sentor Schmitt, my mother and I walked over to the Supreme Court building.

I think the message that the Supreme Cort building is trying to convey is: “I have been here longer than you, and I will be here longer than you, so kneel in reverence, Subordinate!”

The security at the Supreme Court Building is very strict. No food or drink of any kind is allowed. My mother was very upset when we had to pour out our water, but that was nothing compared to how distraught she was when they made her throw away her mints and ginger drops. (Apparently she is a bit emotionally attached to her throat lozenges.)

Unfortunately we were not allowed to climb this spiral staircase.

We could not go into the actual courtroom. A kind stranger took this photo at the entrance of the chamber.

Next we headed over to the Russell Senate Office Building to meet Josh Hawley. I discovered that “meeting Josh Hawley at his office” is a lot bigger than I expected. I figured we would stop by, he would be in there, and we would sit and chat for a while. Turns out this notion was completely incorrect! It felt like we were meeting a king, not a sentor. When we arrived at the Senate office building, we went to this conference room. There were a bunch of random dudes in suits standing around and to this day I have no idea who they were. I had no idea what Josh Hawley looked like, so I kept thinking that one of these random suit wearers was him. After we had sat in the conference room, one of Josh Hawley’s interns told everyone from National History Day to “come to the staircase.”

We stood on the staircase for what felt like a really long time, as Josh Hawley’s interns arranged us. They left an opening for “The Senator”, so when he came, they could take a group photo with him. All this waiting made Josh Hawley seem like someone very special.

Finally, the man came swooping in. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

Josh pointed to each person in the group and asked where they were from, except he skipped me. I was a bit put off by this.

After the group photo, Josh spent a few minutes interacting with his constituents. My mother took this photo, and I am very proud of her for it.

The group went on a capitol tour after meeting Josh. We spent as long getting ready for the tour as we did actually doing it. After we had all gone through security, two of Josh’s interns led us through a tunnel that connected Josh’s office to the Capitol.

Occasionally, as we were walking through the tunnel a tram would whiz by. The tram pictured above was for people who worked for senators. There was another fancier tram that was for the seniors themselves. Commoners like ourselves just had to walk through the tunnel.

Once we arrived in the capitol visitor’s center, we stood around for a long time. The visitor’s center was lined with statues. We happened to be standing next to this dude from Hawaii.

My mother says that it is hard to overstate how crowded the Capitol was.

We only went to three rooms in the Capitol. Everywhere we went there were these statues. The tour guide said that each state sends the Capitol two statues of famous people from their state. Sometimes states will swap out one statue for another. Our tour guide seemed to have all the statues memorized.

In the evening at our hotel when my mother and I were looking at this selfie she said “I think I kind of look like Abe Lincoln.”

The capitol dome!

The painting atop the dome is a bit strange. George Washington is sitting on a cloud with a blanket on his lap. He is surrounded by thirteen ladies each with a star over their head, who according to the tour guide represent the thriten colonies. The outside rim of the painting depicts a bunch of partially clothed individuals doing I don’t know what.

The famous Yorktown painting!! This was my favorite thing in the whole building. I wasn’t able to have my mother take my picture with it, because as you can see, the capitol rotunda was the most crowded place on planet earth.

The tour guide said this statue of Harry S. Truman was new. It had replaced a statue of Thomas Hart Benton. She also said that whenever a state sends a statue of a president, it automatically goes in the rotunda. When Missouri sent in Harry S. Truman, Alexander Hamilton got kicked out of the rotunda to make space for Truman. To my surprise the second Missouri statue was not Mark Twain! (To be honest, I can’t remember who it was.)

This was the last room we went to. Pretty much its entire purpose was to house statues.

The outside of the building.

All this capitol touring business took a while. By the time we got back to the metro, it was rush hour. It was especially busy at a huge station we had stopped at to change trains. When the train we were wanting to get on came, it seemed as if half the population of D.C. was wanting to get off, and the other half intended to board. The doors don’t know how many people there are, and after a preprogrammed amount of time, they just shut. It took most of the time that they were open just for everyone to get off. (There was also a guy with a bike kind of hovering in the doorway but not getting off.) Once it was time for people to get on, the doors were getting ready to close. My mother got in the mob of people pushing their way in, but I was both zoned out and also don’t have a naturally assertive personality. I just stood there not fully aware of my surroundings. Next thing I knew, my mother was pulling me through the doors as they were closing. This was very scary, because for the whole trip, I had been worried about getting crushed between the doors. I just about did, and to my surprise I had no broken bones and or mulitated limbs! The moral of the story is: pay good attention in big cities.