Springtime in Washington

We have recently bought a book full of photo prints of 19th century Washington DC. The city was founded in 1800 and was a bit of a backwater all the way until the Civil War and massive expansion of the federal government. “There was a time”, notes the introduction, “when cows grazed within sight of the Capitol.” The farmers are out, but the city is still closer to its rural origins than a visitor — particularly someone from the thoroughly deforested and dewilded Western Europe — could imagine. Theodore Roosevelt Island is about a mile from the White House as the crow flies, and even closer to some other well-known monuments. ⊕ [Note: The island is the memorial to Teddy Roosevelt in the same vein as the more well known ones — Lincoln, Jefferson — or less directly the Kennedy Center for JFK or what the Epstein File Memorial Archive will be for DJT. But no one goes there to see the somewhat uncanny and Bioshock Infinity-like statue of Teddy; you go there for the nature. So, I would call…