Thursday Night at the Cafe: A Walk Past Old Western High

Here's a short video shot last month while I walked to Georgetown Hospital to visit a friend. I turned a corner and there was the legendary old Western High School, now the Duke Ellington School of the Performing Arts. Western is indeed legendary in my family since my parents met there and my aunts and uncles all went there.

I've heard many stories, from my uncle blowing up the chemistry lab to the day when my quite-reserved mother, sitting near the front of the class, dropped the entire contents of her purse on the floor, spilling (dozens, hundreds, thousands - the amount changed over the years) of pennies she'd amassed at the bottom of her purse all over the English class floor (I seemed to have inherited the same gift). The dreaded Dr. McPherson, who was apparently a pre-Potter version of Delores Umbridge, was quite horrified by the interruption, my mother was quite terrified by the incident, and my dad jumped up from a nearby desk and came to her rescue, scooping up all the pennies and kindly returning them to her under the dreaded stare of Dr. McPherson. And, as the story goes, that's how it all began.

Fortunately, at least for me and for my Brother the Methodist, it turned out rather well.