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The Bread Line
Nov. 14th, 2005 | 11:55 pm
I was about 13 years old, and had spent the morning walking through Roosevelt Island by Georgetown with my grandparents, parents and two younger sisters on a cool November day. We then ended the day at the newly built Roosevelt memorial, lined by cherry trees with brown and yellow leaves by the Tidal Basin. The water would have been falling in a large square sheet, I would look so small next to this monument to nature’s power over Man glistening in the fall sun. I imagine I stood and listened to the constant stream of that 1st waterfall for a moment before becoming restless to wander through the rest of the cherry-tree lined, stone-walled labyrinth that is FDR's memorial park. I imagine I read the quotes, etched up high in the grey stone walls, took them in for a brief moment and forgot them as I reached to place my hand on the column where a bronze handprint was already golden smooth from so many people's placing their own fingers within. I imagine I stood in line, beside the statues of a depression era bread-line, waiting until a spot opened behind the bronze men, hungry to have my photo taken, to pose with them- also a statue, never to grow older, if only in 4x6 on glossy paper.
The FDR memorial remained a pleasant memory of a day with my family, climbing rocks, pretty waterfalls, and impressive statues. Like so many of my childhood memories, I remember it through the photos: Me, all grinning smile with my sisters, my red-checked flannel jacket wrapped around my waist, contrasting with the grey, jagged rocks and final clear waterfall. A photo I had taken and cherished with Roosevelt’s “I Hate War” etched into large rough stones on my billboard. The memorial remained as photos and pleasant memories in my mind until my first return 8 years later.
This time it is a cool spring night. The waterfall must sound the same, though like my thoughts, it scintillates with a greater complexity under the soft yellow lights. The jagged rocks and waterfalls representing Roosevelt’s struggle with the need to unify Man with Nature, his fight both in and against war. I know better than to think the ex-president a saint of any kind, but his quotes inspire me. I think how our current president would never utter such beautiful truths and notions that speak not of how great the country is now, but of how great it can be in the future. Where did that vision go?
I spent the last week on an alternative spring break, noticing the disdain in this city of the hungry and homeless. I learned the inner workings of government bureaucracy in social services. I came into my “spring break,” setting out to learn about “hunger and homelessness issues” that I was too overwhelmed with un-understanding to have the courage to face head-on before. A week later, I understood how complex the issues are. In school, I learned all about the New Deal, but I was never taught about modern reality. The Roosevelt memorial was transformed in my mind, beyond a photo to a symbol of the history the nation’s un-addressed and avoided complexities.
I come upon the bread line- it is overrun by a busload of high-schoolers on a night-monument visiting trip. They’re having fun jumping on the rocks, goofing around, running past the waterfalls, placing each finger in the handprint on the column- a pensive one here and there, perhaps noticing a quote or two. They come around to the brick wall before which stand bronze men with sad faces and droopy hats. The men are lined up at the bronze door, eternally closed, hungry for food above all else, as adolescents bounce around them, impatient, hungry only to be pixelized in the frozen bread line of the Great Depression.
Which one of them realizes bread lines didn’t end with the depression. Which teacher will point this out to them? Which one has looked beyond the many men of stone, the myths and legends that adorn their nation’s capital to its living people, its daily reality? Which one would even notice, let alone come within 50 feet of one of the 50 modern-day soup-kitchen lines the city would host by dawn the following morning?
But then, I didn’t either. Perhaps one of them will come back again in a different light.
The FDR memorial remained a pleasant memory of a day with my family, climbing rocks, pretty waterfalls, and impressive statues. Like so many of my childhood memories, I remember it through the photos: Me, all grinning smile with my sisters, my red-checked flannel jacket wrapped around my waist, contrasting with the grey, jagged rocks and final clear waterfall. A photo I had taken and cherished with Roosevelt’s “I Hate War” etched into large rough stones on my billboard. The memorial remained as photos and pleasant memories in my mind until my first return 8 years later.
This time it is a cool spring night. The waterfall must sound the same, though like my thoughts, it scintillates with a greater complexity under the soft yellow lights. The jagged rocks and waterfalls representing Roosevelt’s struggle with the need to unify Man with Nature, his fight both in and against war. I know better than to think the ex-president a saint of any kind, but his quotes inspire me. I think how our current president would never utter such beautiful truths and notions that speak not of how great the country is now, but of how great it can be in the future. Where did that vision go?
I spent the last week on an alternative spring break, noticing the disdain in this city of the hungry and homeless. I learned the inner workings of government bureaucracy in social services. I came into my “spring break,” setting out to learn about “hunger and homelessness issues” that I was too overwhelmed with un-understanding to have the courage to face head-on before. A week later, I understood how complex the issues are. In school, I learned all about the New Deal, but I was never taught about modern reality. The Roosevelt memorial was transformed in my mind, beyond a photo to a symbol of the history the nation’s un-addressed and avoided complexities.
I come upon the bread line- it is overrun by a busload of high-schoolers on a night-monument visiting trip. They’re having fun jumping on the rocks, goofing around, running past the waterfalls, placing each finger in the handprint on the column- a pensive one here and there, perhaps noticing a quote or two. They come around to the brick wall before which stand bronze men with sad faces and droopy hats. The men are lined up at the bronze door, eternally closed, hungry for food above all else, as adolescents bounce around them, impatient, hungry only to be pixelized in the frozen bread line of the Great Depression.
Which one of them realizes bread lines didn’t end with the depression. Which teacher will point this out to them? Which one has looked beyond the many men of stone, the myths and legends that adorn their nation’s capital to its living people, its daily reality? Which one would even notice, let alone come within 50 feet of one of the 50 modern-day soup-kitchen lines the city would host by dawn the following morning?
But then, I didn’t either. Perhaps one of them will come back again in a different light.