[Paddlewise] Crossing the Anacostia

Two thoughts.

Crossing the Anacostia River on eastbound US 50, the John Hanson Highway, symbolizes leaving our Nation's Capital; leaving Washington is a happy, frequently joyous, experience --- despite the reason for the departure.  The Anacostia is not one of the more "Wild and Scenic Rivers" in Washington, although, through some serious and effective environmental intervention, it's getting better.  Still sick, and still progressing.

But it is not dead.  Most evenings during the last two warm weeks, the backwater swampy land on the Washington side has been raucous with orgiastic displays of critter-noise --- small frogs, I assume, in some ritualistic and natural acoustic display of their excitement about the coming spring.  Or something like that.  They've been busy on warm evenings, although, when winter has returned periodically, the critters have been quiet.  Probably pretty difficult to court when your lilly pad is frozen --- or at least it would be for me.

But it's a sign, even in the dark gloom of a Washington evening, that there's water and life and springtime down there in that black urban ooze, and that's a good thing.  It's a very good thing.

A second thought.

These are all night crossings of the Anacostia.  Dark night crossings.  My job in Washington was won at the price of giving up a good job on the banks of the St. Mary's River in St. Inigoes, Maryland.  That job allowed me to leave my office --- such as it was --- and carry a kayak across a deserted street to a sandy beach put-in.  In the daylight, after work.  I had daylight after work then!  Now I have darkness, and the primordial, noisy swamp on the margins of a high-impact city in which I have learned to tell potential clients that my firm "... will always exceed expectations" --- despite their expectations, we will exceed them --- and I can now do this with a straight face.  I am all about exceeding expectations, all about "brand", all about knowledge management and worldwide CRM and ERP and functionality assessments and other very important stuff, and I'm compensated well for my 12 or more hour days.  And I am very, very happy.

Except now my after-work contact with our waterways is a speedy, don't-look-down trip across a decaying bridge over a dark, critter-filled, partially destroyed river in the most important city in the world.  (Just ask us --- we'll e-confirm that for your people.)  And now I'm not sure the swamp critters aren't down there laughing at me.

Watch your options, paddlers.  You may actually get what you want, and then you're never sure about the frogs again.

Jack Martin




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