Mr. Jefferson... I don't know how to tell you this...

Good day, Fellow Citizen. Let me tell you a story about Freedom.

All my life I wondered what it might be like to stand before our nation's great monuments and ponder the history that made them come to be. This great idea, this beautiful dream called "America" and it's Freedom for All, embodied in marble and towering above the City of Washington D.C. I always wanted to see it in person. Read the words that were so important they were carved 36 inches tall into solid marble 40 feet or more off the ground, lest we forget their importance and enduring significance.

It was in this excited mindset that I embarked on my journey. Howard (Heidi's extremely funny and personable cousin who happens to be a cop) and I set out toward the National Mall, cameras in hand, anticipation gleaming in our eyes. I would finally get my chance to stand in awe before these sculptures and monuments and see the grandeur with which our American ideals were represented.

Wandering toward the Vietnam Memorial, I was struck by how small it actually is. This homage to those who fought and died on command seemed a bit less... Memorial... than what I had been led to believe. Perhaps it was just assumption on my part, but I figured we as a nation had realized the pure insanity of allowing lives to be ended on behalf of some nonsensical political agenda and came to our senses, building what (in my imagination) was not only a Memorial to our 50,000+ fallen soldiers, but also an apology of sorts... A monument that would not only recognize the great blunder and deception of the Vietnam War, but also offer a collective "We're really, terribly sorry that we as a nation allowed this to happen. You didn't deserve this fate, we recognize your sacrifice, we will never forget you and we will never make such a ridiculous mistake again."

Contrasting with what my wild imagination had been leading me to expect, the Vietnam War Memorial itself seemed rather small and ineffectual... Being rather difficult to see from the street and even the sidewalk, the monument seems (to me) to invite us all to forget. To simply pass by on our way to the next attraction without the quiet reflection and empathy that should overtake any true American as they process an idea such as that shameful war we pretty much lost. There was not a soul there but us.

Let me be clear here. I am not in any way implying that the veterans of our mostly senseless and profit-driven wars do not deserve to be recognized. I do not want to be mis-quoted here. As a matter of fact, I'm of the opinion that these people who were drafted and then killed deserve a monument which is enormous and impossible to ignore, perhaps on par with the Lincoln Memorial, which lies just a short walk beyond the wall full of names who deserve our deepest and sincerest respect and apology. There will be plenty of opportunities to mis-quote and misunderstand me from here on out, but on this particular point I want to be very well understood. If you send me an e-mail about my "disrespect for veterans" i will respond in one or more of the following ways:

1.) I will copy and paste the above text into an email and send it back to you in response, including the text you are reading right now, which includes the ways in which I will likely respond to your thick-headedness.

2.) I will forward the text of your own e-mail back to you with the inevitable grammar and spelling changes you should have noticed before you sent it, highlighted in red.

3.) If I see you in public I'll loudly accuse you of being the guy who "raped my neighbor's dog" or something equally undesireable.

Back to the story about Freedom, which actually does get more interesting, I promise.

I took some photographs and we began our meander toward the Lincoln Memorial. As we approached I couldn't help but notice the distinct smell of Marijuana. Rounding the corner to the huge marble steps allowed me to see that there were about 12 or 14 college-age men and women casually strolling down the stairs toward me, burning joint in hand. It seemed wholly inappropriate, but hey, who am I to judge? It's a free country, right? Had I run into them somewhere else, who knows what excuse I might have thought up in an attempt to join them in their endeavor?

I walked slowly up the stairs, Abraham Lincoln glowered out at me from his enormous chair behind enormous pillars. I stood for what must have been almost 5 full minutes, just trying to imagine what it would have been like to be standing in that very spot on the day of Martin Luther King Jr's famous speech. I walked up beyond the stairs and attached my camera to my tri-pod and set it down on the marble.

I was able to snap 2 photos before a man with a thick foreign accent and a badge and uniform came rushing at me yelling, "NO TRIPODS! IF YOU DON"T PUT IT AWAY YOU'RE IN VIOLATION!"

"What?!? Why?!?" I asked, astounded. He stopped rushing at me, but didn't answer.

Howard's timing couldn't have been better, he called from the bottom of the steps right then and said, "Let's go to the Jefferson Memorial!" I don't know if he did that on purpose, knowing that the monument to Jefferson was the biggest deal of all to me and I would leave immediately to go there, or if it was just coincidence, but somehow I was able to restrain myself and pick up my tripod and head back down the stairs. I snapped another photo or 5 at the bottom of the steps and no one tackled me, so my frustration faded quickly. I was now on my way to the Jefferson Memorial.

A walk through the FDR Memorial and past the cherry blossoms brought us there. Again, I slowly walked up the steps. The moment my tripod touched the ground I was verbally assaulted from two seperate directions.

Let me preface this part of the story by reminding those of you who know me and educating those of you who do not, I love foreigners. I think they're interesting, funny, personable, entertaining, friendly, and some of them smell bad, which is the kind of foreigner I love most. A world without stinky people (including myself) and immigrants from far away lands is a pretty small, lame world. I mention their status as "English-As-A-Second-Language" citizens NOT because it makes them less cool, but for two very good and well thought out reasons:

1.) The irony of having someone yell at me (or you) in broken English from behind a badge at the Jefferson Memorial because I (or you) had the nerve to place my (or your) tripod on the marble floor is pretty much surreal. I will, of course, attempt to convey this surreality as best I can in the remaining text of this essay.

2.) I would assume these people are citizens of the United States, considering their position of authority and fancy policeman costume... Unless of course this malignant "government" of ours is attempting to cut costs (...yeah- I know that sounds like science fiction) by hiring illegal aliens to enforce the new government-sponsored fear of freedom, which is the basis for all their new "security" rules, regulations, and statutes. As "new" citizens to this country I would think that they must have recently been educated about (and tested on) their knowledge of our history, our rights, and our freedoms as Americans. What happened? Did the big paycheck knock all they had recently learned right out of their heads? Does what they have been taught about Freedom and America actually differ so much from what I had been taught? Perhaps these are questions for another day...

Two gestapo-costumed men were now yelling... something... at me from opposite ends of the inner rotunda in which a 40 or 50 foot statue of Thomas Jefferson stood, no doubt appalled at what he would be hearing... if statues could hear. Apparently it was the tripod thing again... I know, what the hell is my problem anyway? How dare I?

I decided to ignore the men screaming at me and began to capture digital images of the closest thing to a hero I've ever been willing to admit. The men began their quick approach, probably prepared to mace and tazer me because of my terrorist act. I could vaguely make out something about "RUIN THE MARBLE" and "COMMERCIAL PHOTOGRAPHY" in their thickly accented attempts at loud, forceful English.

Let's pause once again... "RUIN THE MARBLE"... You know, MARBLE?!? The stuff that is chosen for the creation of monuments because it lasts FOR FUCKING EVER!?! Yeah, that stuff. Apparently they would have me believe (or perhaps they somehow actually believed) that the RUBBER feet on my tripod posed some sort of threat to the MARBLE FLOOR of the monument. A threat far worse than, say, 5,000 pairs of shoes, 54% of which are attached to obese people, every day.

"blah blah blah COMMERCIAL PHOTGRAPHY blah blah"... Apparently they were also charged with discouraging commercial photography on the premises... Mind you, these photographs I was taking were never intended for commercial use. They were for me. They were to be a reminder of the grand ideas of our forefathers. They are now a reminder of what I saw just before being convinced once and for all that "freedom" in America is nothing more than a word in the minds of the masses, even while standing in the shadow of T-Jeff, as my brother and I affectionately refer to him. No longer anything more than a rallying cry to war and an empty promise... But I did have a tripod and ONLY commercial photographers use tripods, we all know that. No regular, normal person has a tripod. Only commercial photographers and terrorists have tripods.

Needless to say, I have now made the images available for commercial use. Contact me for licensing information.

The yelling continued as they made their final approach, which I was pretending to ignore. One man stood in front of my camera lens and the other grabbed my shoulder... Yep.

It was my turn to yell. But what to yell? What argument could I possibly have that would contend with the obscene and over-reaching authority of these enforcers for the overlords?

Stretched around the inner circumference of the monument's rotunda was the answer. By some extraordinary twist of circumstance across all barriers of time and space, my script had been chisled into marble over 200 years ago and placed high above for all to see (in all caps):

"I HAVE SWORN UPON THE ALTAR OF GOD ETERNAL HOSTILITY AGAINST ALL FORMS OF TYRANNY ON THE MIND OF MAN."

I let it loose. At the top of my lungs. I'm not sure how many times.

"I HAVE SWORN UPON THE ALTAR OF GOD ETERNAL HOSTILITY AGAINST ALL FORMS OF TYRANNY ON THE MIND OF MAN."

The hand continued to grasp my shoulder, the other man was positioning himself to grasp the remaining shoulder... And Howard appeared. I had almost forgotten he was there with me. For a moment the only souls present were Thomas Jefferson, 2 Red Coats, and myself. Howard grabbed a handful of my shirt and proceeded to pull me toward the exit as I (loudly) recited the words on the walls.

"I HAVE SWORN UPON THE ALTAR OF GOD ETERNAL HOSTILITY AGAINST ALL FORMS OF TYRANNY ON THE MIND OF MAN."

Strangely suprised by my outburst, the men seemed to be in some form of shock and/or disbelief. They backed away and Howard "directed" me down the stairs and out into the cherry blossoms. Exhausted, disheartened, and truly discouraged, I decided it would be in everyone's best interest that I leave the immediate area and call it a night...

I would love to spend some time dissecting this statement: "I HAVE SWORN UPON THE ALTAR OF GOD ETERNAL HOSTILITY AGAINST ALL FORMS OF TYRANNY ON THE MIND OF MAN,"... I would thoroughly enjoy the act of reminding you, dear reader, that Mr. Jefferson was not in any way vague in this pronouncement. He had SWORN UPON THE ALTAR OF GOD, not simply promised or implied... ETERNAL HOSTILITY, not spirited disagreement. Against ALL forms of tyranny, not just the worst and most obvious forms. On the MIND of Man, not just when the bruises can be seen on his physical body...

I would love to spend that time, dissect that statement. But I won't.

...Now, where did I put my tinfoil hat?