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On the scene at Reagan's funeral procession

With digital camera, radio, and bottle of water, I took the Orange Line down to the Federal Triangle station. The Metro exit at Federal Triangle is in the courtyard of the aptly named Ronald Reagan Building.

I walked down to Constitution Avenue. The crowds had already taken all the good vantage points and it was still an hour before anything was expected to happen. I knew that I would never be able to get any good photos with all these people blocking me.

I walked two blocks down to Tenth Street, hoping that the crowd might be thinner in that direction, but there was no such luck. I found a spot in the shade back from the street to sit down and wait—no point standing in the sun for an hour.

I took out the portable radio, put on the headphones, and tried to find a station with funeral coverage. The only station that seemed to have anything was NPR. Listening to NPR is like being in an alternate universe. Everyone kept calling in with nothing but bad things to say about Ronald Reagan, the greatest president of my lifetime. “So many people died of AIDS because of Ronald Reagan,” said one caller.

After about half an hour, my batteries ran out. Darn.

The crowd looks looks out over Constitution Avenue.

I figured it was a good time to scope out a better standing spot. I settled for the middle of Tenth Street, as close to Constitution Avenue as I could get. Lots of people were talking on cell phones. Who were they talking to? It seemed like a good way to kill some time, I tried to think of someone I might call.

I envied these guys watching from the balcony of
the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. They
could actually see stuff.

There were all kinds of people in the crowd. There were touristy people with little kids, local office workers looking very hot and sweaty in long sleeve shirts, gorgeous babes in skimpy outfits, and senior citizens. People from all walks of life came to pay their last respects to our fortieth president.

Something smelled really bad. Someone near me had some awful body odor! I moved twenty feet in the direction of the Washington Monument. It smelled a little better now.

Finally something started happening. There was a marching band. Then some military units. Then another marching band. More military units. A third marching band. The military units were wearing all sorts of different uniforms. There were black uniforms, gray uniforms, navy uniforms, green uniforms, and white uniforms. There was one unit in bright red uniforms. They looked like the guards at Buckingham Palace. Maybe Her Majesty had to lend us some soldiers because too many of our guys are in Iraq?

Reagan’s casket. You probably had a much better
view if you were watching on TV.

After the soldiers and the bands, there were two DC police cars, followed by a whole bunch of black cars. And behind all the black cars came the horse drawn casket. Some people clapped as the casket passed. I don’t know why they did that, it didn’t seem very appropriate.

A “Panda on Parade.”
It has nothing to do with Ronald Reagan.

After the casket, there wasn’t anything else. That was it. People started heading back to the Metro or wherever it was that they were going. As I was heading back I heard the jets flying overhead. But I could barely see any of them because they were blocked by the buildings.

Pennsylvania Avenue lined with American
flags in honor of Ronald Reagan.

When I got back to the Federal Triangle station, they weren’t letting anyone down the escalators. Instead of waiting around I decided to walk to the Metro Center station. I stopped in at Barnes and Noble on the way to Metro Center. I thought it would be a really smart business move to put a whole bunch of Reagan books up front. B&N would have made a killing. But unfortunately they didn’t have the foresight to order a bunch when they heard rumors that his health was failing.

Was it worth the trip? Yes, because it gave me an excuse to post some photos to my blog.

UPDATE

Additional blogosphere coverage of the funeral (with pictures):

Mark the Pundit
INDC Journal
Red Line Rants

Additional blogosphere coverage of the funeral (without pictures):

Staunch Moderate

posted Wednesday, June 09, 2004