Day 20: Holes in My Socks

I had an amazing and powerful day today. The AirBnB I stayed at had 18 legs in it--sixteen paws and two feet--not including mine.


The girl I stayed with rescues animals, and she said she goes for the geriatric and black cats because most others don't. Plus, she found a stray dog just wandering around. He was a beagle something, and he was adorable!

There was an invisible cat that I was lucky enough to see four times. But he never even talked to me. The talkative cat, well, he talked to me. And the princess? She just claimed me!

But please don't tell the boys! They'll hate me!

I slept outside, again. That is five days in a row. I have to say that I am well rested. I loved it! I don't know how I'm going to get Val to sleep outside. Here is my view from this morning!

I got to Arlington and checked in at the exact moment that my roommate did! It was crazy. And do you know what's crazier? He has a big read beard, he was waring sandals, cargo shorts, and a t-shirt too! It was really weird! Really. Weird.

We had a great first meeting at the "Graffiti Houses: The Civil War From the Perspective of Individual Soldiers," where we are making a study of Civil War graffiti. The idea is to start with a name of a soldier who left his mark, research the name through the National Archives, put it into a context, and use a digital tool to tell that soldier's story. I'm still in awe and amazed that I get to do this!

And I'm really looking forward to using this model of study in the classroom for my kids!

A note from the meeting:
The future history is at the mercy of those who leave their mark now, and those who cannot are left to fade away. Except in bureaucratic systems; everyone survives in the records of bureaucracy.

Mad, crappy part of the end of my day:

I was walking back to the hotel in Arlington, where I'm staying for a week. There were three cops surrounding a homeless, black dude with holes in his socks. He was sitting at a table in front of a restaurant, and he had a drink that someone, I guess, bought from the restaurant for him . He was there when I walked by earlier, and he was in the same spot just drinking his drink.

I stopped to listen to him--he was making well-articulated points about his rights to be there and drink his drink, and I studied him and listened. One of the cops said something like "this is federal land, and it can go one of two ways..." The homeless guy was an old dude with holes in his socks sitting at the table drinking his drink.

I walked closer and one of the cops asked if he could help me. I said no. I sat down by the dude and he said to the cops, "What about him? Can he be here?" I just looked at the cops as I took out my phone to film the incident. The dude just wanted to sit. He could be a veteran, someones dad, and he was certainly someone's son. I started filming because the tension was rising.

Really, he was just an old dude with holes in his socks. Do you know who we were sent to fight in Iraq? I only remember old brown dudes with holes in their socks.

I won't fight those guys anymore because they are humans too. And they have every right to sit and drink a drink as I do. After all, I'm just an old white dude with holes in my socks.