When I was eight our family of six piled into our astro mini van and headed east. Like so many family vacations as a child, I didn’t know where we were going or why, I just knew to get in the van and not to forget the water jug–a red, Tupperware jug that held four liters for the whole family to share. Do I even need to mention that we packed our own ham sandwiches or is that a given?
At some point between the alphabet game and the ham sandwich lunch break, I learned my Dad had a cousin who lived in Washington D.C. and we were heading down I-75 for a week of American history. This is most likely the moment when the word vacation became synonymous with visiting historical battle sites or the Amish.
Cousin Linda had been a government employee of some kind, which in my mind meant you wore shiny pants to work and knew the pledge of allegiance by heart. By the time I met her, she had retired her shiny pants and grew blueberries in the backyard with her husband and had a jukebox in the basement. The best feature of the house was a matching salt and pepper shaker set that played Glen Miller’s In the Mood and danced when you twisted them, like tiny, robotic cabaret singers. As soon as their song was finished, I would crank them again and my sister and I would watch the plastic dancers, mesmerized.
We had traipsed through a weeks worth of every free institution our nation’s capitol had to offer. In every portrait gallery, memorial, library, even a tour of the White House, like an albatross around my neck, the water jug was there too. Having not yet exhausted their appetites for nuanced American history, my parents took us to Newseum–a museum dedicated to the first amendment and the history of journalism. It had a podium with the presidential seal where visitors could pose for pictures.
My parents truly loved each of us equally, would give limbs and kidneys for our well being, but really only saw presidential potential in one of us. “Julie, pretend you’re giving your inaugural address!”
I lingered by the podium, hoping to be noticed. I held the red water jug at my side like a brief case, practically screaming, “I have professional potential!” Seeing this moment as an adult now, Julie is the one I would choose as president. However, I was not prepared to accept this fact as a seven-year-old. My dad had moved on from his photographer squat, Julie had moved on from the podium, and I was left, just me and the water jug.
Julie always loved reading, one of her most presidential qualities. As we meandered back to Cousin Linda’s house, we came across a group of protestors in front of the Capitol building. The protesters had a lot of words to offer, on posters, plaques, through their shouts, and Julie’s head was spinning with the privileges of civic responsibility. Mine was too, but it was because I was thinking about the swing-dancing salt and pepper shakers waiting for me at Cousin Linda’s. We nudged our way through the crowds, my parents doing non-verbal “Yes, 1,2,3,4. They’re all here.”
My eyes were locked on the red water jug in my hand, bringing me back down to earth. Moving upstream in our newly purchased Washington D.C. bucket hats and t-shirts, we were just a little bit conspicuous. It had been about ten minutes of crowds until there was a break. Elisabeth emerged from the crowd, then Anne, then my Mom, then me, then the water jug. My Dad counted again, “Anne, Elisabeth, Mom, Karen, water jug. Water jug. Julie!” Our only hope of presidential glory was missing.
Back through the crowds, the water jug knocking every protesters knee, panic was setting in. My parents were growing anxious, and the pressure was building. The presidential hopes of our family could not rest on me. I knew that now. At best, I was the star of shocking family scandal.
Suddenly, the sea of people parted and there she was standing between two police officers. She had been signing a petition when the rest of the family had forged through the crowd. Having circled back to the authorities, she was waiting calmly. I gave her the water jug for a drink and prayed she would grant me a presidential pardon at the moment of my inevitable disgrace.
It wasn’t enough just to tour historical sites or see socks a general wore in the Revolution, the true history-lovers wanted total sensory immersion. If you wanted to live like it was the year 1775 but didn’t want small pox, you visited Colonial Williamsburg. There were apothecary shops where you could try on wooden braces. There were stocks where they pretended to brand you for missing Sunday meeting. Local community actors moseyed around town in 18th century clothing waiting to banter with tourists. A woman selling tricorn hats asked my Dad where we were from. “We’re from Michigan!”
“Ah, yes, I believe that is a French territory.”
They never broke.
A circle was forming by the stocks around a man on horseback. Inside the circle everyone was wide-eyed, searching eagerly for the other players of this scene. Eyes darted sprightly back and forth silently asking, “Is it him? Is it really who I think it is?”
The tricorn hat saleswoman gave knowing glance seeming to say, “Yeah… it’s him.”
Paul Revere was on horseback, sizing up the afternoon crowd about to hear his monologue about the British coming. The group was rounding out–Sam Adams showed up, and I think George Washington? The actuality of this conversation having any historical accuracy was of concern to no one.
Paul Revere was all grandiosity on horseback looking like Napoleon crossing the Alps again, and I was in awe. As he spoke with authority about red coats and lanterns, I watched, slack-jawed. He continued on, and a wave of humidity washed over the crowd as we stood in the exacerbating August heat. Meanwhile, the actor (George Washington?) receiving this update arched in, listening to the cue that would lead to his own monologue. All that stood between me and George Washington was the red water jug. I was that close.
Paul Revere cued George in with “Two by land, one if by sea.” At the precise moment the crowd turned to see George’s response, the water jug slipped from my tired hand and landed squarely on George’s foot. There was a blaring silence as the fourth wall broke.
I was paralyzed as he bent towards me, eyes narrowing into a withering stare. He had scowled so hard it looked like his jaw muscles had spasmed, and he was frozen looking disgusted forever. Without breaking eye contact, I picked up the water jug. He dismissed me with one calculated turn of the neck and faced Paul Revere again. At that moment, I knew shame in the deepest parts of my being.
I didn’t even deserve the company of dancing salt and pepper shakers. My parents looked on surely thinking, “And this is what your ancestors escaped famine in Sweden for?”
My only companion: The water jug.
Busy Nothings 