commentary by Michael L. Bromley
copyright 2005

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... of Automobiles

Mar 18/05: Colin Powell, speeder:

RETIREMENT, THEN ROAD HAZARD
That was former Secretary of State Colin Powell grinning broadly at the Kuwaiti ambassador's residence the other night when a fellow dinner guest asked him what he's up to these days. "I get into my shiny red Corvette, drive up and down the George Washington Parkway and try to outrace the Park Police," Powell answered.

I'm a regular on the Parkway (Park Service site and private web description), because I like the destinations it brings my way, and because it's one of the most beautiful roads around -- anywhere.

It gets going quick, racing down the Potomac River from the Beltway's leap at Carderock, down past Langley and the CIA, to Fort Marcy Park (where Vince Foster's ghost dumped his dead body), under Key Bridge, before which one gets a nice cross-river view of Georgetown's Exorcist Stairs, and on along the Potomac flats, with the monuments across and the Pentagon before, on down through Alexandria, and, eventually, after another lovely, lovely riverside run, to George Washington's home at Mount Vernon.

If you were like the guy I followed down the Parkway the other day at eighty to ninety-plus, you'd be a commuter, in our cases, late late late to the airport, photo-radar and Park Service cherry-tops be damned. No shiny red Corvettes -- just a Merc wagon to set pace for my little Ford, and a near-miss arrival to Reagan National. Made it. And no cops on the way. If you get caught, as Secretary Powell surely knows, it's Park Police. That's federal court. If you want local judges, local D.A., and friendly local counsel, go speed on I-66, not the Parkway. You're Federal bait on the way to G.W.'s home. In other words, pay the damned fine, and be done with it. You'll get no sympathy in Federal court.

The Parkway runs some hundreds of thousands of commuters every week. Yet, says the Park Service, it's a "parkway" -- that is, it's an automobile park for tourists, and not for commuters. Speeds, then, ought be appropriate for tourism, not commuting.  And so, too, exits and curbs and break-down lanes (none). The road is caught between the institutional mission and its actual use. Morning and afternoon hours are jammed stopped, and with no thought to scenery except get me the hell home and out of this traffic... I guess the mixed purpose works, although I'd sure love to see higher speeds. Such a nightmare in traffic, it's otherwise a brilliant driving road!

The Parkway comes to us of my man, William Howard Taft, who used the path as a favored motor venture. Back then, the road was known as the way to Washington's house, although there was no formal purpose. Its lay was upon the Virginia side of original Washington, within the land ceded back to Virginia from the District in 1846. (Part of the original grant to the Feds from Virginia and Maryland; as Washington and his wife were the largest land owners there, the Virginia side went unused.)  It was long a popular route. Only, with its ease and distance-eating powers, the automobile gave the road a unity and purpose unknown to the horse-drawn, and Taft flew it appropriately. With the connection to Washington, it seemed natural for the Federal Government to have a say. The deal was consummated in 1931 and launched the next in honor of the 200th anniversary of Washington's birth.

In only a few weeks, the Parkway will explode in beauty. Gone will be that eerie, happy view through open, winter trees, looking upon the river, over upper DC and Georgetown, and into the woods on either side. Suddenly will be a green wall. The buds will have turned to flowers and leaves, and the dogwoods will poke from below oaks and sycamores, grabbing what sun they can, and showing pretty white, pink, and gorgeous. It's a wonderful sight, and a truly beautiful stretch. So when you're flying up or down past Fort Marcy, think nothing of Vince, and don't worry too much about that graying, unseemly relaxed old guy in a shiny new red Corvette. Let him run interference for you; let him argue it out with the Park Police. Just you groove a good speed behind, wind the Parkway's easy twist, and take in that magnificent scene.
 

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