Thursday, July 6th
Washington, DC

I had a very relaxing day today for Pete. The students had classes that I did not have to teach this morning. The weather was a very overcast and cool 72 degrees. I went for about a three mile run, well not quite run, more like an amble, about 35 minutes, forget it, you find the right verb. After lunch the students heard from David Abshire who is Presidential Scholar. He is the Director of the Center for the Study of the Presidency, which is non-profit which does exactly as the name says. He was a quite affable guy. He poked fun at his age and lack of “with-itness”. Despite the age difference with the students he had quite a rapport with the students. They asked questions of each other. They pressed Mr. Abshire on his statements and answers and pressed them right back.

After lunch the students boarded the bus and headed to Baltimore, MD for the afternoon and evening. They were going to visit Kyu Rhee a doctor who runs the Upper Cardozo Community Health Center in Washington. The clinic is the largest community health center serving the underserved in DC. Besides being a St. Albans alum he has get this, a BS in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale, a masters in Public Policy with a concentration in Health Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and a MD from USC. This quite could be making bank at any hospital in the country and chooses to work with the poor and underserved in DC. He is opening a similar clinic in Baltimore and he took the students on a tour of the facility and the neighborhoods they serve. I did not go with the students on this trip because I had gone last year and other faculty members wanted to go. This guy is impressive and the clinic’s work is nothing short of miraculous.

I hung out at Politics and Prose bookstore and coffee house for the afternoon till the sun came out and then went for a swim at the outdoor pool on campus. After that I headed down to my softball game in Ancostia with the Ugly Mugs. There was joy in Mudville (literally because of all the recent rain) because the Mugs won 15 to 9 due to three moonshots of the Kais, steady defense, and efficient pitching of yours truly. The win puts us over the .500 mark for the summer. Many adults libations were consumed at the watering hole of the same team name. Numerous pepperoni rolls and mini-burger platters were consumed, the word gluttony comes to mind. Good times. Next week will be the last game of the summer for Pete, (sigh).