EDITORIAL/OPINION

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Our Lives, Our Presidents

Are you a baby boomer? Then you spent your stroller years during the administration of Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson. Gen Xers were weaned, so to speak, on Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. And millennials are children of the Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton presidencies (Gen Y started to appear during Clinton’s second term).

Seated in your high chair, you probably weren’t following national politics as closely as you do now. But, assuming you were raised in the U.S., your life couldn’t help but be determined by the occupant of the Oval Office in your childhood.

Part of this has to do with policy. How did the president’s actions impact the economy, employment, education, social services, international relations? Was our country fighting a war, hot or Cold, when you were in diapers?

But perhaps even more important, as no one past toddlerhood needs reminding, presidents from their bully pulpit can set the tone of the national discourse. Do any of the following phrases ring a bell?

“Ask not what your country can do for you.”

“Pat doesn’t have a mink coat.” “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”

And, though he never used the word “malaise,” President Carter’s speech on July 4, 1979, will forever be branded with it.

We, the people, seem to choose our presidents in seesaw fashion, going from introvert (Carter) to extrovert (Reagan), from aw-shucks (George W. Bush) to cerebral (Barack Obama) to unfiltered (Donald Trump).

For many of us, to view clips of President Reagan or President Obama speaking at a campaign rally, and then to see our current president speaking at his rallies, is to experience not only nostalgia but cognitive dissonance. Judging from the audience reaction, however, there are those who find it a refreshing change.

Here, in the very city named for the first president, we live our lives near the Commander in Chief. He (she, at some future point) resides temporarily in our city. Washington residents can hardly help but feel a personal connection to POTUS, reacting to the presidential personality as one would to a neighbor.

This coming Monday is Presidents’ Day, the successor to Washington’s Birthday, celebrated since 1971 on the third Monday of February. This year, it falls on Feb. 17. (George Washington was born on Feb. 11, 1732, according to the Julian calendar then in effect; Gregorianized, the date became the more familiar Feb. 22.)

So let us, in this election year, take a moment on Presidents’ Day to consider the strengths and weaknesses of the presidents we’ve shared our lives with — their policies, their words, the tone they’ve set — and think hard about who we’d like as a leader, a neighbor and an influence on the generation to come.

Who’s your favorite president?

YOUR OPINION MATTERS. Post your response. Facebook.com/TheGeorgetowner

Yarrow’s Bones?

In reference to the story, “4 Skeletons found on Q Street,” one of these could be Yarrow Mamout. I wrote the book on him, “From Slave Ship to Harvard,” and participated in the archaeology on his property in 2015. That lot is on Dent Place and shares a backyard with the Q Street houses. Yarrow (his last name) is the subject of a famous portrait by the artist Charles Willson Peale. Yarrow came on a slave ship in 1752. Once freed, he bought the Dent Place property. He was so famous that his obituary in 1823 was carried by white newspapers. Peale wrote one that said Yarrow was buried in the garden where he resorted to pray.

The 2015 archaeology found neither grave nor garden. However, the lot where these recent bodies were found was vacant, set aside for the Episcopal Church, in Yarrow’s day. So his garden might have been there with vegetables, fruit trees, flowers like the one on Peale’s Belfield farm near Philadelphia. Or the garden might have been a cemetery for African Americans on the church property.

CAG UPDATE Exploring Homelessness An in-depth exploration of homelessness in Washington, D.C., and Georgetown kicked off the Citizens Association of Georgetown’s 2020 program of community meetings on Jan. 22.

We had a full house in the beautiful sanctuary of Grace Episcopal Church, which houses daytime services for Georgetown Ministry Center.

Lindsay Curtin, policy advisor to the D.C. Interagency Council on Homelessness, reviewed patterns of homelessness in D.C., along with the District government’s current policies to address it.

Every night, some 600 people sleep on the streets in the city, with over 10 times that number in shelters or other temporary housing. Curtin noted that substantial progress has been made in the past few years to reduce the incidence of homelessness in families, while progress has been slower for individuals who are homeless.

The next speaker was Sean Read, who oversees numerous key programs at Friendship Place, an organization that provides street outreach services in Georgetown. He emphasized the history of trauma that often accompanies homelessness and the importance of respect and consistency in building the trust necessary to help those in need. The Georgetown Business Improvement District’s John Wiebenson, vice president of Georgetown Ministry Center’s board, then shared the center’s history and current board efforts to ensure a sustainable future for homeless services in Georgetown.

One key question is how Georgetown residents can help.

Both Curtin and Read stressed the critical need for more affordable housing in D.C. and called on residents to proactively support policies to increase its supply. They urged developers to build more affordable housing and employers to consider hiring people experiencing homelessness.

In addition, while noting that not all panhandlers are homeless, they suggested that small gifts in kind — such as socks or low-denomination gift cards — can be very helpful to those on the street. And simply reaching out to ask people their names can be a valuable gift.

CAG would like to thank Rector John Graham for welcoming us to Grace Church and all the residents who joined us, many of whom brought scarves, mittens and socks to donate to Georgetown Ministry Center. Our next community meeting, on Monday, Feb. 24, at the Ritz-Carlton, will focus on transportation (including scooters) and pedestrian safety. We hope to see you there!

Cheryl Gray is president of the Citizens Association of Georgetown. BY CHERYL GRAY

Letters to the Editor

Needed: Respect from the Post Office

As a busy, stay-at-home mom to a toddler and a frequent customer of the U.S. Postal Service, I wanted to bring to your attention a significant safety and accessibility issue at the USPS location at 1215 31st St. NW in Georgetown.

I often visit this location with my toddler in her stroller and, on many occasions, with heavy packages to ship or simply packages that do not fit in the mailbox on the street. At the risk of injuring myself or my child, or leaving my child in her stroller unattended on the sidewalk (neither of which I am prepared to do, nor should I be asked to do), the double sets of stairs leading up to the main entrance of this location are not an option for me. On these occasions, my only safe and accessible avenue into the store is by the ramp that leads to a side entrance.

Unfortunately, the side entrance is always locked and the USPS employees who work at this store very rarely answer the side door (despite my repeated attempts to knock loudly and respectfully ask for help). And on the rare occasions they do answer, I am always met with a hostile reception and, at times, an unreasonable demand to go back around to the front entrance — again with my clearly visible child, stroller and packages in tow!

Not only is this a problem for me as a mom trying to get errands done while attending to and keeping my child safe, it may be a much more serious concern for the many disabled Americans who rely on USPS every day for their mail and shipping needs. Indeed, it may be against the law based on the requirements set forth for USPS facilities under the Architectural Barriers Act.

I’m not asking for much from USPS — just have your employees consistently and respectfully open the side entrance for customers who need it to access the store so that everyone can use USPS’s services in an accessible, safe and dignified manner. And before I finish, I would like express gratitude to countless neighbors, friends and faces both familiar and unfamiliar of Georgetown: thank you, dear Georgetowners, for stopping on the sidewalk and graciously carrying package(s) inside for me.

— Alexandra Moskowitz