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The alarm blared as 4:40 a.m. flashed across the screen and I hobbled over to my heavy suitcase, stuffed with warm clothes for my upcoming adventure. The sun smiled over the mountaintops erupting in reds and oranges as Washington, D.C. flashed across the screen at Denver International Airport in bright red letters. We were boarding a plane that would take twenty students along with Mr. Barry and Mrs. Oswald on a new adventure.
The week spent in D.C. from Feb. 17 – 22 was not expected, at least personally, to be very influential. Learning about the government, seeing museums, walking around a big city. These events seem pretty usual and academic. But when flying on the plane home to Denver on Friday night, I realized that I was not the same person that departed on the early Sunday morning before.
The Holocaust Museum was filled with touching stories, horrifying history, and graphic photos and artifacts that cause you to be filled with pain but also rejoice that these people are being remembered. Dinosaurs, animals, the Star Spangled Banner, stamps from around the world, aircrafts, space shuttles, famous ships, ancient clothing, and mammoths make up only a few of the items at the Smithsonian Museums which include the Natural History, American History, Air and Space, and Postal museums. The Library of Congress, The Supreme Court, and The House of Representatives are sculpted with beauty and contain some of the most important parts of America’s history. The majestic Lincoln Memorial leaves you breathless as you gaze into Abraham Lincoln’s eyes and imagine what he could have been thinking. The Jefferson, Martin Luther King Jr., and Franklin Delano Roosevelt memorials perch in breathtaking stone, cold to the touch but warm to the heart. While these monuments, museums, and sights filled my mind with knowledge and wonder, they weren’t even the most influential part of the trip.
Crew 5 was typed across the nametag that sat in a plastic covering attached to a lanyard around my neck. California, New Hampshire, Iowa, Utah, Colorado, Michigan, Florida and Arkansas were only some of the home states to the seventeen other students in my group. Three of us were from Fossil Ridge High School but the rest were new faces. The first night, the awkward high school scene occurred in the room as our leader, Julia, pressured us into frightening conversation with students from across the nation but the next morning, it was if all of us had been friends for our entire lives. I have never laughed as much as I did within the course of those 6 days that I was in our nation’s capitol. The people that I sat by on the bus, argued with during debates, engaged in meaningful conversations with during meals, explored the neighborhoods of D.C. with during free time, and laughed with through everything, were complete blessings. They taught me so many things about politics but really, about life in general.
While the government makes very important decisions for our nation, many citizens of the United States decide to say bitter words against it without ever acting on their feelings. That week, as the youth and future of the nation, we were taught to be efficacious. Efficacy is having the ability to produce or achieve your desired result. As youth, we often believe that we don’t have a say in our country or the raging issues that plague the minds and lives of people across our nation. But after the week where we were faced with meaningful debates, directly questioned the staffers to the representatives of our state on Capitol Hill, and saw so much of our country’s history, I, as well as the other 200 students who were part of the Close Up program this week, now believe that we can be efficacious.
Feb. 17 -22, 2013, will forever be memories of days filled with laughter that made my abdomen ache memorials that sucked the breath out of me, beautiful people that will forever be part of my life, and the never ending desire to be efficacious.
