141: THE DAY THE BOBBLE HEAD STOOD STILL

We had made it to the seventh day of the trip and Tom’s alarm rang at 4:30am on Thursday May 20, 2021. My photographer had a grand scheme to ride into Washington D.C. with Mongo and capture sunrise images at the Iwo Jima Memorial while his friend went for his morning run. But when Tom peeled his eyes open, he used every excuse in the book to go back to sleep. The excuse that made me laugh the most was “it was likely too cloudy”; Tom never looked out the window once to check the weather. When Bob left for his run in Washington, Tom closed his eyes for another two hours.

When the three of us left the hotel and headed into Washington, I was excited to go back; even though it was my third visit to our Nation’s Capital. From listening to my photographer and his friend discuss the day’s agenda, I knew we would be visiting some sites that I hadn’t seen yet – including the first one in the Georgetown section of Washington. With Bob behind the wheel of the Rogue, we made our way over the Arlington Memorial Bridge, past the Lincoln Memorial, and the three of us arrived at our N Street destination at precisely 8am. When Tom removed me from the camera case, I got my first look at an immaculate three-story brick townhouse that was once owned by John and Jackie Kennedy.

The future President bought the house as a gift to Jackie shortly after their daughter Caroline was born in 1957 and while he was still a U.S. Senator. The couple lived in the home during the Presidential campaign of 1960, and they left that house for JFK’s inauguration in January 1961. During our 15-minute photoshoot in front of Kennedy’s house, Tom used a vintage photo to place me in the precise spots where John F. Kennedy once stood. At one point, when I stood on the top step near the front door, it was as though both Kennedy’s were standing alongside me – JFK was leaning on the wrought-iron handrail while Jackie stood closer to the door. For eight years I’ve had the honor of standing or walking in the footsteps of the Presidents, but for some reason on that day, President Kennedy came back to life – at least in my mind.

It was hard for me to leave JFK’s home – after all, it was where our first Catholic President lived when he announced his candidacy for the Presidency. That visit to his townhouse had put a huge smile on my painted resin face. But after a short, three-block walk to another section of Georgetown, the smile on my face that was created by Kennedy was quickly removed by Regan. No, not Ronald Reagan; I was referring to Regan MacNeil; a 12-year old girl who became demonically possessed in the 1973 blockbuster film ‘The Exorcist’. In the movie’s climax, Catholic priest Father Damien Karras invited the demon to leave Regan’s possessed body and when it did, the priest jumped through a window and fell to his death down a steep set of stone steps. The fall on the steps ended Karras’ own life, and it ended the demon’s reign as well – at least in that movie. As my photographer carried me down the 75 concrete steps, I imagined the priest as he tumbled out of control down those same steps until he came to rest in a bloody heap at the bottom. I must admit, when Tom set me down on the fifth step from the bottom, an uneasy feeling possessed my entire resin body and I wondered if my head would spin around on its spring. In my eight years of travelling around the country, I’ve visited numerous film locations; but thankfully none were as intimidating as those steps from ‘The Exorcist’.

The three of us left the movie site where pure evil was killed and that meant only one thing – Tom had to lug me up all 75 of the famous “Exorcist Stairs”. As he huffed and puffed up the mountain of concrete, my photographer was forced to stop a couple of times to catch his breath. And I was glad he did, too. I didn’t want Tom to recreate Father Damien Karras’ scene in the movie. Like Karras, my photographer would no doubt end up in a crumpled heap at the bottom of that concrete staircase and worse yet, Mongo would find me scattered in a million pieces as well.

Once my companions and I had made it back to our vehicle, Tom and Bob realized that we were ahead of schedule – we still had two hours to kill before we needed to be at the Udvar-Hazy Center that was located about 30 miles away in Chantilly, Virginia. At that moment, I heard Mongo ask: “Since we have some extra time, could we go to a film location from one of my favorite movies ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’? The house where Klaatu visited Professor Barnhardt is only about two miles away and I would love to see it – if we can get close to it, that is.” As I stood silently in the camera case on the back seat, I thought to myself: “Oh great, I just survived a stop where the Devil fell down a bunch of stairs to his death and now I’m going to a house where an alien from another planet once visited. What’s after that – an encounter with Sasquatch?”

Mongo found a parking spot along the west side of 16th Street that wasn’t too far from our destination. When the three of us got to the sidewalk entrance to the house used in the movie, Bob looked like a kid in an ice cream shop. He bolted up the inlaid stone walkway and quickly went to work with both of his cameras. I couldn’t believe my resin eyes – Mongo boldly walked up to the front door of the private residence and then peered into some of the windows; all the while Tom and I stayed behind and watched in awe. Then it happened – the owner of the house came out and began talking with our friend. I thought to myself: “Well, Bob’s in trouble now. He’s either going to be shot; asked to leave; or the police will be called and he’ll end up in the slammer.” But the unbelievable happened – Mongo and the home’s owner disappeared through the door and into the house. Although stunned by what we had just witnessed, Tom didn’t waste any time; before I knew it, we were inside the house as well.

During our 20-minute stay inside the house, we not only saw the room where Klaatu and Professor Barnhardt had met and discussed the reason for the alien’s visit, we were also afforded the opportunity to meet and talk with Jose Cunningham, the home’s owner. And wouldn’t you know it, our visit to the film location turned out to be one with a Presidential connection as well. As luck would have it, at least for me, Cunningham served in the Trump Administration as the Executive Director and “Chief Sales Officer” of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Advocacy Center. In other words, Jose’s job was to make sure businesses in the United States could compete fairly throughout the world. How amazing could the day get? For the second time in the past two years I was held by someone who personally knew President Donald Trump. In 2019, I posed with Scott Gast, who served as Senior Associate Council to the President and used his clout to get me and my friends into the West Wing of the White House. Two years later, I met Jose Cunningham, who also worked for the Trump Administration and played a huge role in the President’s overall success. Who knows, maybe in another two years, I’ll have the honor of posing for a photo with our 45th President himself. Now wouldn’t that be cool?

Truth be told, I didn’t have great expectations going into our visit to that house. I had never watched the movie and it had been years since my photographer had seen it. The best part of all, at least for me, was watching how excited Mongo got; especially after the three of us went inside. During our hike back to the SUV, I overheard Bob say to my camera guy: “That was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever done in Washington – I can’t believe we were inside the house used in one of my favorite all-time movies. At first, I was happy to get close to where Klaatu and Bobby knocked on the door; then it got better when I shot some video footage through the window. I thought for sure I was in trouble when Jose came out and caught me. It’s still hard to believe he invited total strangers inside his home, but maybe it was because I’m such a huge fan of the movie and he felt secure with that”.

It had been nearly seven years since my first visit to the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center and I was thrilled beyond words to return. For some reason in 2014, Tom failed to photograph me alongside the Mobile Quarantine Facility that’s on display there; especially since that artifact had a direct Presidential connection to Richard Nixon. While the Shuttle Discovery and a few other historic air and space craft were on my photographer’s short list of things to see, it was the MQF that was on top of that list. It was no surprise when we arrived about ten minutes early for our 10:30am tour time, but once inside, the three of us headed immediately to the area where Space Shuttle Discovery was on display. Sit back and let Tom’s images tell the story of my 2021 visit to the Udvar-Hazy Center.

Since the three of us were on a mission to see the historic air and space craft that were important to us, combined with the fact that we had been to the Udvar-Hazy Center before, our stay lasted only 90 minutes. But during that short time, I posed alongside some very historic vehicles – including Space Shuttle Discovery, Apollo 11 Command Module ‘Columbia’, Freedom 7, Gemini 7, and the Enola Gay. But it was my ten minutes posing alongside the Mobile Quarantine Facility used by the Apollo 11 astronauts that meant the most to my Presidential quest. As I stood near the front of the MQF, it was as though I could see Armstrong, Collins, and Aldrin looking through the small window while President Richard Nixon said to the astronauts: “As a result of what you’ve done, the world has never been closer together before.” Before we left the museum, Tom took me for one final visit with Space Shuttle Discovery – and for me, it was a sad moment. During the ten minutes that I stood alongside the enormous “Flying Brickyard”, all I could think about were the three astronauts who made their first flights into space on Discovery and then died on Challenger or Columbia. Judy Resnik first flew into space in 1984 and Ellison Onizuka made his space debut in early 1985 – both astronauts died onboard Challenger on January 28, 1986. Then in May 1999, astronaut Rick Husband made his first space flight on Discovery; only to be killed in the Columbia disaster on February 1, 2003. For a brief moment, I stood still in silent tribute to those three astronauts and thought about the words of President Ronald Reagan: “(They) slipped the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God.”

It was almost noon, and my companions decided they wanted to touch the face of some IHOP pancakes before we made our way back to Washington. While that stop lasted only 45 minutes, it seemed like an eternity as I watched my photographer fill his face with blueberry pancakes and hash browns. I couldn’t help but be antsy, after all, our next stop was Arlington National Cemetery, and I was excited to visit a few sites that we had missed in 2014. Don’t get me wrong, I looked forward to a return trip to the JFK and Taft gravesites, but the fact that we planned on visiting the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and Arlington House this time around had my resin-based adrenaline flowing.

As soon as we got to the Arlington National Cemetery Welcome Center, which was still closed due to the pandemic, Tom and Bob went their separate ways inside the huge burial ground. It wasn’t because Mongo wanted to avoid seeing the same sites as us, it was due to the fact that he moves at a quicker pace than my photographer and Bob had numerous astronaut’s graves on his “must-see” list, which was a list that Mongo knew would take a lot longer for him to check the boxes.

Arlington National Cemetery is huge at nearly 640 acres and there are over 400,000 military men and women (and spouses) buried in its hallowed grounds. As Tom carried me along the uphill paved pathway to President Kennedy’s gravesite, we got our first glimpse at what may have been over 400,000 living creatures as well – those creatures were the Brood X cicadas. While we saw a small handful of squashed cicadas, along with a live one, at the hotel; the orange-eyed, large-winged bugs were everywhere in Arlington. I knew that my photographer was thrilled to finally see them in masses, but where was the noise that’s usually associated with those insects? Tom figured that the cicadas may have just emerged from their larvae cases as thousands of the empty shells could be seen clinging to trees, posts, and tombstones. Once an adult cicada climbs out of their hard skin, it takes roughly five days before they begin to “sing” for a mate.

When Tom and I finally got close to the area where JFK’s gravesite was located, I was thrilled to be back. While I knew my photographer likely wouldn’t set me onto the flat black slate headstone like he had done in 2014, I had figured Tom would capture some images of me standing close to it with the Arlington House in the background. But then we saw it – and immediately my painted resin eyes nearly fell out of their sockets. Kennedy’s grave was barricaded to prevent entry – all because of COVID-19. My photographer was seething with anger when he saw the signs and yellow barricade chain. Without hesitation I heard him say aloud to anyone within earshot: “We’re outdoors, for crying out loud, and we can’t get close to this grave? This is so ridiculous – they jam people onto the tram to take them all over the cemetery and no one thinks twice about it. There’s one grave that everyone wants to see when they visit Arlington and it’s blocked off; even when most everything else has opened back up. This wouldn’t have happened if Trump was still President.” I knew my photographer must’ve been mad when he said that – only because he knew that Trump wasn’t an advocate for COVID precautions in the early stages of the pandemic.

After our abrupt photoshoot near the JFK gravesite had ended, Tom carried me to Bobby Kennedy’s final resting place where I had no problem getting a close-up look at the grave. As a matter of fact, I stood on the small rectangular white marble slab that marked RFK’s gravesite. It was during those few minutes that I silently stood there when I thought about something profoundly cool that Bobby once said: “Some men see things as they are and ask why. I dream of things that never were and ask why not.”

It was a steep uphill climb along a paved roadway that led to Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial. While the former mansion once owned by General Robert E. Lee didn’t have a huge Presidential connection, except for being built to the orders of George Washington’s stepson George Washington Parke Custis, my photographer wanted to get an up-close look at the historic mansion anyway. He figured from the vantagepoint of Arlington House, he could get a great glimpse of JFK’s grave located down the grassy knoll. And he was right – when we stood in front of Arlington House, we were afforded a birds-eye look at Kennedy’s grave, as well as a beautiful view of the Lincoln Memorial and Washington D.C. in the background.

Nearly 60 years earlier, that same view had impressed a President of the United States as well. It was Veterans Day on November 11, 1963 when President John F. Kennedy came to Arlington National Cemetery to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. After he placed the wreath at the base of the marble sarcophagus, Kennedy turned to Representative Hale Boggs and said: “This is one of the really beautiful places on Earth. I could stay here forever.” Exactly two weeks later, on November 25th, John F. Kennedy’s wish came true – he was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery, not too far from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Because of Kennedy’s last visit there less than two weeks before his assassination in Dallas, along with the fact that every President since Warren G. Harding has paid their respects there, I was anxious to finally see the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier with my own eyes. In 2014, during my first and only visit to Arlington, Tom couldn’t muster enough energy to make the uphill hike to that hallowed memorial. As soon as we left Arlington House, however, Tom braved the heat, as well as the squashed cicadas on the walkway, to make the half mile walk to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. As soon as we arrived, I was awestruck and speechless by the sacred memorial to our nation’s war dead.

During our 30-minute visit to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, it became very evident in my mind that there’s no place in our country more sacred than that memorial to our fallen soldiers; heroes who have died for our freedom. It was a privilege for me to witness the Changing of the Guard; a ritual that occurs every half-hour during the summer months. It’s amazing to think that the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier has been guarded every minute of every day since 1937.

There was one final grave that my photographer wanted to take me to; and although it was one that I had visited in 2014, Tom seems to have a hard time bypassing a Presidential gravesite when we’re in the vicinity. But to be bluntly honest, we weren’t exactly in the vicinity of President William Howard Taft’s grave. It turned out that our 27th President was buried on the other side of the entrance to the cemetery and it took my photographer nearly 40 minutes to walk there. At one point near the Welcome Center, Tom’s irritability became very evident; likely due to the extreme heat. As my camera guy did his best to walk in the shade to stay cool, a route which took us out into the roadway, a young security officer scolded him and asked Tom to use the walkway. My photographer instantly became irate and yelled out: “Can’t you see I’m trying to stay in the shade? It’s a million degrees in this place, I’m about ready to die from heat stroke, and you’re worried about me walking in the road? Give me a break!”

It was a long and exhausting hike for my photographer; but for me, it wasn’t bad at all. While it was hot inside the black camera case, I was quite comfortable and anxious to once again see the Taft monument. I had to laugh to myself when we finally arrived at President Taft’s grave. Instead of immediately capturing his pictures, Tom dragged his weary body to a granite bench located behind the President’s monument where he sat in the shade until Mongo rendezvoused with us about ten minutes later.

Although likely dehydrated, Tom mustered enough energy after the short respite to finish our photoshoot at the grave of our 27th President William Howard Taft. As I stood on the 14-foot-tall mahogany granite monument, I felt a bit sad for “Big Bill” as he seemed to be the forgotten President in Arlington. While thousands of people flock to JFK’s grave daily, it’s likely that not many of those same folks make their way to Taft’s final resting place. And that’s a shame. After all, William Howard Taft was the first President buried in Arlington and was the first member of the Supreme Court to be interred there as well. But Taft shouldn’t be just a footnote to the history books. Instead, all hard working-class Americans should be indebted to President Taft for creating the Department of Labor during the final day of his administration. The new D.O.L. insured things like workplace safety, wage standards, work hours, and unemployment insurance.

I thought we were finished when I was removed from Taft’s tombstone, but I was wrong. Instead, we headed down a small pathway for a short distance until we arrived at the monument that marked the grave of Lincoln. No, it wasn’t the burial site of President Abraham Lincoln – that’s in Springfield, Illinois. Instead, we were at the site where his son, Robert Todd Lincoln, was laid to rest after his death on July 26, 1926. I don’t normally pose for photos at the gravesites of Presidential children, except once when I stood on the grave of Ruth Cleveland in Princeton Cemetery, but Robert Lincoln had a handful of other Presidential connections besides his dad. As Secretary of War in the James Garfield administration, Lincoln was an eyewitness to Garfield’s assassination at the Sixth Street Train Station in Washington on July 2, 1881. Then a little over 20 years later, on September 6, 1901, Robert Lincoln was at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo when William McKinley was shot. Lincoln was not an eyewitness to the shooting, but instead was standing just outside the Temple of Music when the assassination occurred. Robert Todd Lincoln recognized those occurrences and later refused other Presidential invitations; stating: “No, I’m not going, and they’d better not ask me, because there is a certain fatality about Presidential functions when I am present.” When Tom placed me onto Lincoln’s sarcophagus, he inserted a small twig under my base to help me balance on the large granite marker. During those few harrowing minutes, I was definitely concerned about my own safety – especially when I considered Robert Todd’s Presidential track record. Even though Lincoln had been dead for nearly 95 years, I wasn’t anxious to take any unnecessary chances. As a matter of fact, I was relieved when my photographer removed me from the tombstone and placed me safely back into the camera case.

The three of us slowly made our way back to the Arlington National Cemetery Welcome Center; Bob walked ahead to retrieve our parked Rogue. By 4:45pm, I found myself standing alongside the TV set in our hotel room while Tom and Mongo collapsed into their beds – completely exhausted from a full day of sightseeing. Since neither of my companions wanted to leave the hotel for dinner, Tom ate a Papa John’s pizza that he had delivered to the room and Bob finished-off the remaining burrito that he had purchased the day before.

When the lights were extinguished at 8:30pm, I was left alone with my thoughts. I had seen some cool Presidential sites during the day and posed next to some historic air and space craft as well. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get the vision of Regan MacNeil and Father Damien Karras out of my mind. And when I finally did, my mind filled with images of Klaatu as he made his threat against humanity. While my friends slept, I stared into the darkness for what seemed to be the longest night ever. It truly became, at least for me, the night the Earth stood still.

** This post is dedicated to Jose Cunningham who graciously invited two strangers, along with me, into his home! **