SeeSaw - Washington, D.C. CHAPTER 12 It was a manic summer when I decided to move to Washington, and nobody could tell me anything. Seems like that’s always the case when I make a major move! For one thing, I had no job or any prospect of getting one. But that did not stop me from renting an apartment in a Queen Anne townhouse on the best street in the Capitol Hill neighborhood through the brother of an old friend, Patric Dartnell in Fort Lauderdale. It had a view of the Library of Congress and the Cannon House of Representatives Office Building, and it was across the street from my favorite pub, Bullfeathers. Extremely conscious of first impressions, I made sure that I had engraved calling cards and a very proper answering service in the Watergate complex. Moving was not easy, however. You don’t make good decisions when manic, and my bad decision was surrounding myself with people whom I could not trust. As a matter of fact, I recruited the absolute worst people I could have done–workers at an auction house who did know how to load my U-Haul truck, but they also knew the value of my jewelry and they helped themselves accordingly. In other words, they were common thieves. My first year in Washington I would go around saying, “If I had what I had...”.A bi-racial couple agreed to help me drive the truck to Washington, and we delivered my most prized possession, a huge 17th Century heavily carved vestments chest from a church in Spain, to my friend Carol James for safekeeping, as there was no room for it in my new apartment. I had insisted on getting it on the truck first, sacrificing my living room furniture instead. So with one club chair and my antique bed, but no chest of drawers or night stand for my bedroom, I started keeping house on Capitol Hill. I was much more concerned about trying to collect my things than getting a job, so I flew back to Chicago to visit my auctioneer before even thinking about a job. I had placed my beautiful dining room furniture with another auctioneer to pay for an art deco dining room set that I had seen when moving. I ended up buying that set with an automatic telephone bid, and although my new apartment did have a small dining room, it was nowhere near big enough for an 11-piece dining ensemble. But my friend and rival auctioneer Chase Gilmore kept it for me and he arranged to ship it to me as a “side” on another truck that was Washington-bound. He also sent my new Japanese red-lacquered low table that I had acquired from his gallery. Upon coming back to Washington, I found out that my boyfriend was at Lago Mar in Fort Lauderdale, and nothing would do me except to go down there to see him. I barged into a meeting he was having with my old client, Selkirk, and he essentially told me to get lost so I went for a midnight swim in the ocean, but I could not drown myself. Instead I checked into a suite in the hotel where I encamped for a week until my friend Charlie Smith came over and persuaded me to check into Holy Cross Hospital’s psych ward. I stayed there for two weeks, where I managed to call Leonard Taylor, a diamond merchant, who had been my neighbor in Idlewyld. He came to my hospital room and I told him that I wanted to buy several lapis and diamond rings and earrings, that all of mine had been stolen in Chicago. I knew that thieves often mistook lapis lazuli for a fake stone, and the diamonds for rhinestones, so therefore I had collected only lapis and pearls or diamonds. He took me seriously until he ran my credit, then he realized that I was broke as a joke. They again put me on Haldol, which simply put me down for two weeks...it did not cure me of the mania. And, according to my neurologist, it was the Haldol that caused my current condition of olivopontocerebellar atrophy. It is a cousin of Parkinson’s Disease, and it’s responsible for my dysarthria (inability to speak plainly), focal hand dystonia (clenched fists), and muscular breakdown of my legs. I joke that I can’t talk or walk–the first things a baby learns to do. When I got back to Washington, I began to look for a job in earnest, but the only thing I found that fall were temporary consulting gigs. Finally after Christmas I signed on with a celebrity PR firm where I met Audrey Tilton, who was to play a significant role in my life. We discovered a mutual love for Southern cooking, and we made pepper jelly which I made for Christmas presents, in particular for my favorite Congressman, E. Clay Shaw, Jr. of Fort Lauderdale. He received it graciously, and he remarked on how much I had changed (I was into my Virginia country look then, with boots and jodpurs and riding jacket). Clay by all accounts did a wonderful job of representing his constituents in Washington. I moved out to northern Virginia, but I never stopped being his biggest fan. I also met Mal Johnson while working for the PR firm, and she became my most significant friend in Washington. She was the first black woman to be named a White House correspondent, and she moved into the Watergate apartment complex where she was often mistaken for a laundress. More important was that she was the first member of the Washington press corps to reach out and befriend me, unusual in the nation’s capital. Mal was a huge figure in the international women’s movement and was always representing the U.S. at international conferences. Through her I met Maya Angelou and Gloria Steinem and Briggite Bardeaux, who like her was an animal lover and feminist. She invited me to several important dinners like the White House TV and Radio Correspondents Dinner and numerous embassy functions. More important, she became my buddy who loved to go to shopping malls and movies. And I was always hanging out at her Watergate apartment, which had a great view of the National Mall. WORD COUNT - 1093
Posted on: Sun, 14 Jul 2013 08:47:44 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015