Sunday the 18th

This morning I got up took a cold walk through Rockville to the 9:15 "contemporary" service at the Rockville United Methodist Church. The folks I met there were nice, and the two female pastors put together a good service. I don't know what their 11:00 service is like, but this morning one wasn't well attended. It almost reminded me of the pictures I saw last summer in Boston of churches closing in that area. The pictures showed sanctuaries—at least one of them Methodist—that would have seated 300 or more but held only about 7 older people. Rockville UMC had a mostly aged white congregation, but that wasn't the full picture. A fellow my age sat in front of me. On the same pew with me was a woman probably a little younger than I, a few rows ahead was an African-American couple and a near them sat a young Asian-American woman with her rambunctious son. The "contemporary" music was a guy with a guitar and one of those harmonica holders around his neck. During the offering he did a respectable '60s sounding job of the spiritual "Hush" ("Hush, hush, somebody's callin' my name").

After church I changed clothes and headed out for the Lincoln Memorial concert at the National Mall. The Metro pass that the Washington Center had given me expired the day before, so at the Rockville station I got in line to purchase enough day passes to get me through the rest of my stay. I heard a voice behind me say, "You're not a local, are you?" I turned around and saw my friend Linda. She wanted to go the concert, but her family wasn't into it. Just so happened that we arrived at the station at the same time. Hanging out with an old friend made the afternoon go better.

We rode the Metro to DuPont Circle and got off there to walk to the Mall. I hadn't had lunch yet, so we stopped in a place called Baja Fresh, a Mexican-style fast food joint. Afterwards, we made our way toward the concert, but obviously we didn't push to get there early. We stood in line here and there before we decided to work our way to the back, where we got in easily. But we missed seeing the Denzel Washington / Bruce Springsteen opening. Yes, I missed Springsteen. But we stopped on the sidewalk and shared my headphones to listen.

While Tom Hanks was talking about Abraham Lincoln, Linda and I took up a place between the Washington and World War II Memorials. Just above the WWII were three jumbotrons, each with its own set of speakers. I suppose we were nearly a mile away from the scene of the action, so those on the stage were just dark little dots against the white stone of the Lincoln. Lots of folks were at the concert, both in the audience and on the stage, so I won't go into all that. My favorite moment? Well, "seeing" Stevie Wonder and John Mellancamp was cool. Even seeing Garth Brooks was cool. And Beyoncé, always beautiful, was surprisingly good. Somebody was talking—I don't remember who—when the first high chord from the Edge's guitar rang out to begin U2's "Pride (In the Name of Love)." That was my favorite moment.