Home > The Four Horsemen > Archives > 2008 > May > 16 > Entry
A New Level of Respect.
This entire trip has been devoted to strictly baseball. We have been to 10 stadiums around the country, walked on the field at Wrigley Field, sat atop the Green Monster in Boston, and had the opportunity to get up close and personal with Babe Ruth’s bat. Today, however, we took some time to pay our respects to this nation’s real heroes.
We began the day by getting our expected dose of baseball by touring the Nationals Stadium in Washington D.C. The tour was awesome, and included walking on the field, sitting in the dug-out, peeking inside the immaculate home locker room, and throwing a couple of pitches in the National’s bullpen. Our tour guide set up a plastic mannequin to simulate a real batter. I toed the rubber first and had trouble finding the zone as I bounced my first pitch and nailed the plastic batsman in the ribs with my second. VanZandt had much the same result on his first pitch, but showed his best stuff on his second offering, freezing the already frozen plastic batter with a fastball at the knees. Ethan filled the zone nicely with his first pitch but went up and in on the second, while Ed had a hard time shaking his jitters, throwing his first pitch low and his second behind the batter.
The tour seemed to end as quickly as it had started, so we headed to the subway and made our way to the famous monuments of D.C. We started at the Washington Memorial before moving on to the World War II memorial. I can’t speak for the rest of the Horsemen, but this memorial gripped me as I walked around reading the quotes and stories of battle sculpted into the granite. One particular quote from Admiral Chester M. Nimitz really got me thinking. It read: “They fought together as brothers-in-arms. They died together and now they sleep side by side, to them we have a solemn obligation.” I have always been thankful for the freedom we enjoy in this country, but I feel like that gratefulness was taken to a whole new level today as I viewed this solemn reminder of the price of our freedom. Millions of men and women died for our freedom, and oftentimes it seems we take it so lightly. I think every American should visit this memorial at least once in their life. I have been awestruck by some of the stadiums we have visited over the last week and a half, but none of them have brought me to tears, as the WWII memorial so powerfully did.
After tearing ourselves from the WWII shrine, we moved on to the Lincoln, Vietnam and Korean Memorials. All of these were as gripping as the next. After walking through all of these historic monuments, my patriotism was strengthened, my thankfulness to our veterans re-awakened, and my sense of responsibility invigorated.
After an emotionally charged early afternoon, our day took a wild twist. We had a tour of the White House set up for 7:30 with Ray, a White House chef. However, we let time sneak away from us while we were looking at the monuments that we did not have time to go back to our hotel before the tour. As you can imagine, we were hot and sweaty after walking around all day in the D.C. humidity, but we had nowhere to shower and not much time to make our appointment on Pennsylvania Avenue.
To add to our lack of showering facilities, Waller forgot his dress clothes at his house. So we came up with a solution; we dropped Waller off at Jos. A Bank in downtown D.C. and set off to find somewhere to park, in hopes there would be a bathroom nearby where we could change. The only place we could find was a parking garage, so we pulled in, got out and begin to hurriedly strip out of our sweaty tourist clothes and into our elegant White House attire. As this was going on, Waller had completed his shopping trip and was trying to call us. However, because we were in a parking garage underground, we did not have a signal and thus did not get his calls. He began to worry and began walking up and down the street looking for us, thinking we had gotten into an accident of some sort.
We finally got changed, and hurried back to ground level in our wrinkled dress clothes that have been smashed into the back of the Tahoe for the last week and a half. We found Waller, who had to run back into Jos. A Bank and change into his complete outfit he had just purchased, while we hailed a cab for the short journey to the President’s abode. We pulled up late to the White House, complete with wrinkled shirts, sweaty bodies, and a great story to tell.
After passing through heavy security, Ray showed us around outside the House, then took us into the West Wing. Once inside, we were not able to take pictures but saw the Oval Office, the kitchen, the outside of the Situation Room, and all kind of other cool secret stuff. One really cool place he took us was the Media room, where major press conferences take place. We took pictures in front of the lectern, with the presidential seal in the background, and even got to use one of the White House’s 26 bathrooms. Not many people can say they relieved themselves inside the most important house in the world, the Four Horsemen can now add that to our list of accomplishments!
There is a ton of other stuff that happened today that I have failed to share, but it the hour is late and the sheer magnitude of what we witnessed today is weighing on us! We’re going to try and get some sleep, but we are planning to stick around D.C. through tomorrow afternoon and try to go see Arlington National Cemetary and the Iwo Jima Memorial before heading to Atlanta for a game on Saturday.
Donation totals are up close to $2,000, but we still need $3,000 more to reach our goal! Can you help us get there? Every little bit helps, and it is for a great cause! http://www.active.com/donate/tylerkomen08/4horsemen
Until tomorrow, I’m Aaron Bearden, for the Four Horsemen, signing off!
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