Navy Yard

When my father graduated from high school, he knew he wasn't ready for real life.  He didn't know what he wanted to do with himself but he did know one thing - he didn't want college right then.  So, like any good Midwesterner who longs for adventure, he joined the Navy.  He still tells stories about his time in the Mediterranean during the early 60s - he was in Beirut before it fell to pieces, and the Balearics, and many other places.

I tell you this because I knew from a little bird (my mother) that he wanted nothing more for Christmas than a hat with "Navy" on it and, being a resident of the capital, I decided to get him one, which was harder than I expected.  My first stop was the Navy Museum at Navy Yard.  It's out of the way, but I figured surely the museum would have a hat.  It did.  But for whatever reason, some bright spark decided that having the museum shop open on the last weekend before Christmas just didn't need to happen.  (So after chasing to the Heritage Center at the Navy Memorial, which closed early for a private party, and returning two days later to discover that they had hats for just about everything else, but not for the Navy - at the Navy Memorial! - I finally ordered it from the Navy online.  For pity's sake.)

I didn't actually spend very much time in the museum, but when I was outside I took some pictures of a rather unconventional "sculpture garden" which I'd like to share below:

This is a big gun.  (Duh.)

This is a big propeller - big as in my head reached the lower edge of the blade at 3 o'clock, and I'm 5'9".

This is the conning tower of a submarine.  And yes, it is in fact sticking out of the ground.  I have no idea where the rest of the submarine is.  Nor do I know which submarine it is, though if someone enterprising wanted to look up that number (285) I'm sure you could find things out.  Leave a comment if you do.

This is a big bell (are you detecting a size theme at all?).  I don't remember why it was significant, but it's here.

Ah, but I do remember the significance of this one!  Remember the Maine?  (You know, the battleship that was blown up in Havana harbor in 1898 and that helped, along with yellow journalism, to start the Spanish-American War?  Please tell me you remember that from high school.)  This is its spare propeller, which is conveniently engraved on it.

This is another big gun.  A really big gun.  Like 30 feet long big.

 This is another series of large guns.  The one in the background is so large that I couldn't get it in a single photo without great hassle.  As you can see, it's mounted on a rail car.  Turns out its a World War I era bombard, which has its genesis in smaller bombards from the Civil War, which were given over to the purview of the Navy because, I guess, no one else thought they could handles such big...guns.  There was actually some neat footage in the museum of these things firing against the Germans in WWI - amazing stuff.

And this is: my idea of modern art/why I will never make it as an artist.  Unless you have the same non-sequitur humor that I do.  Which, if you actually follow this blog (and find it remotely funny), you just might.  Let's just say that that's one well-protected postbox and move on...

But wait - I nearly forgot the best part!

 This is a destroyer [of worlds - hee!].  It's the USS Barry [Obama?] and you can tour it when the Naval Museum is less dead.  Guess where I'm taking Dad when he comes to visit in March?