The History in Our Town

Today the missus, my mother-in-law and I will get gussied up and return to my old neighborhood in the District's West End for an annual black-tie gathering of close friends and our special guests. It also will be a time for some of us to marvel at -- or gripe about -- how much our city has changed in our lifetimes.

My maternal grandfather, who died in the 1950s, lived most of his life in the vicinity of the hotel where today's event will take place. But he would be absolutely lost among all of the office buildings, condominiums and restaurants that have supplanted the homes and small shops that were standing in his day.

Tonight's conversations may also touch on words of our childhood that have fallen into disuse, such as icebox, paper wagon, coal chute, washboard, skate key, knickers, marbles, running board, skate-a-mobile, window pole, Sam Browne belt, horse trough, scissors grinder, ice-man, milkman, playing the bones, "playin' the dozens" and "Sneaky Pete."

Ah, then there are those characters of whom we seem to speak no more: the Shadow, the Black Whip, Johnny Mack Brown, the Durango Kid, Hopalong Cassidy, Buster Brown, Jack Benny and Rochester, Howdy Doody, Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five, Johnny Ace, Ruth Brown, the Orioles, the Ravens, the Dominos, the Clovers, and the Five Keys.

And other words that now seldom pass our lips: "Commissioners of the District of Columbia"; "Division I, D.C. Public Schools (White), Division II, D.C. Public Schools (Colored)"; the Black Maria; Winifred Thompson; "the man-in-the-house rule."

We may recall things of the past: junior high school woodworking, metal and electrical shop classes; the National Training School for Boys; the Republic, the Booker T., the Broadway and the Mott theaters; the Dunbar Hotel; Kann's and Lansburgh's department stores; Emergency, Gallinger and Garfield hospitals; the old Children's Hospital at 13th and V streets NW; Griffith Stadium, the Lighthouse Carry Out and Bill's Grill.

Sure, they're just buildings of bricks and mortar, and a list of famous and not-so-respectable names and places. All long gone from the scene.

They are probably of little consequence to some of our newly minted Washingtonians who believe the District of Columbia didn't amount to much until they came on the scene.

But those items of the past are threads deeply woven into the lives of many of the people who will come together this evening. And that, perhaps, is one of the tragedies -- no, that's too strong a word; misfortunes, perhaps -- of a city that has so many people whose roots run deep somewhere else.

History matters.

To understand this city, you must know its past -- warts and all.

Knowing the city's long and tortured history with Congress and the courts -- our mistakes and misjudgments -- would give us a better handle on today's efforts to win full representation.