Wonders and wackos in Washington DC

Secret Service with “Secret Service” emblazoned on their uniforms?

How secret is that?

Thus starts my visit to the White House with unexpected mirth.

It’s a day in Washington for me with husband Bruce and stepdaughter, Cathy.

I’ve been here before. I’ve done art museums and the Air and Space Museum but never ventured to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

And here it is - that famous and handsome white edifice set back across the lawns behind the iron rails. And Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House is a broad expanse of open dirt road. Yes, a dirt road.

Ye olde presidential dirt road.

People group at the railings gazing at the White House. There’s an epidemic of selfies.

The public Secret Service guys watch them.

The police presence is extremely high. I see guns. Dogs. Police cars.

Fair enough. People have in the past tried to scale the fence and run amok.

Of course, once one has seen the White House sitting there being the White House, that is pretty much it.

One can’t get a tour without having approached one’s member of Congress and we plain forgot to do that. We three are just outsiders.

We do the right thing. We pose for photos.

Then my attention is attracted by an old woman sitting under an umbrella in the middle of the road, knitting. Yes, knitting.

This is not what I expected. Bloody hell, This old bird is knitting the Pentagon’s budget priorities. Of course she is. It’s a massive rug spread out over her knees and all around her and she’s adding to it. The temperature is about 1 million degrees with added humidity but there she sits with sun shade and ginormous woolen rug, diligently knitting the USA's defence spending.

People seem to avoid her. The police leave her alone.

I, of course, have a chat. She says there were others in her peace campaign but her friend who used to make her stand for peace sitting over there has died and she is it these days, the only one of her ilk. Oh, apart from those people by that tent over there.

Sure enough, there is a makeshift tent over there and some men standing about with placards. They look bored and hot. No one seems to take notice of them, either.

Then a women strikes up from the other side of the road. She has brought her own amplifier and mike and she is making a speech in a shrill, grating voice. For heaven’s sake. She is running for President. This woman is campaigning. Move over Hillary Clinton. This is Melody Crombie. She is reading a speech from her iPhone. But holding the microphone and the iPhone is not an easy task and she is reading very badly. It is hard to make sense of her. No one is taking any notice. I try to listen but in her jerky delivery it is meaningless polly-babble. Then she starts on about God. I’m gone.

I’ve found the anti-gun lobby. Now these are really brave people.

Not that they are really anti-gun. Well, they would be. But that is an unpopular position. They are pro smart-gun technology and are telling the NRA to step up. To that end, they are holding rather naif placards in luminous colours.

I engage them in conversation, of course saying that there are fewer gun accidents if there are fewer guns.

Oh, another smug Australian, they say.

Seems I am not the first.

Police are thick on the ground in Washington DC and police sirens are frequent in the air but they are not chasing crooks or dealing with emergencies but providing security for VIP cars and buses. Washington is VIP central.

Accommodating many of those VIPs since 1850 has been the Willard Hotel. It’s now an Intercontinental. It is just the grandest and most beautiful posh old hotel.

I come upon it by accident.

We have been hoofing around for some time with me trying to find a letter box in which to post postcards home to the grandies. The lack of post boxes is a worry, reflecting all those reports on the slow death of the postal system. I am trying to keep it alive single-handed with my regular flurries of cards. But it is a hot day and frustration is mounting so, seeing a hotel entrance, I figure I can dash in and beg a friendly bellman to take mercy upon a traveller and pop my cards in with

the hotel mail. Well, the hotel door is its rear door leading down a vast arcade-like corridor. Thick carpet, rich red tones, chandeliers...

The reception area is at the front of the hotel, at the far end of the corridor.

And I find myself in one of the world’s beautiful old hotel lobbies. Not just beautiful, but significant.

It is a short walk to the White House so world leaders and all manner of VIPs stay here.

Popular legend has it that this is the hotel where President Ulysses E. Grant’s visits for a gregarious brandy and cigar were some times blighted by opportunistic people in the lobby petitioning him for favours for their assorted causes. It is said that he came to refer to them as “those damn lobbyists”. And thus was the term lobbyist coined from that very lobby where the bellman cheerfully took my mail and whisked it off to the antipodes.