The Thursday Ramble: Vandals and Good Kids

A week ago, I stopped for a walk at Jones Point Park, or as it is known locally, the troll park because parts of it are under a massive bridge, and trolls live under bridges in fairy tales. It is kind of a special place for us, we were married in the Park ten years ago next Friday. 

Two senseless acts of vandalism angered me. 

First, in the south west edge of the park, near were Hunting Creek empties into the Potomac River there is a raised wood walkway. About half of it is closed, because someone lit a fire on a wood walkway and burned into the underlying structure. What kind of an idiot lights a fire on a wood walkway? The park is maintained by our chronically underfunded National Park Service, this has been closed for a couple of years, on the endless list of repairs awaiting funding. 

The second is even more disturbing.

The park is located at what was the original southern - most point of the District of Columbia.  DC was originally ten miles, by ten miles, a square standing on end, and this was the bottom point of that square.  The first cornerstone, the first boundary marker for our national Capital is between the Lighthouse and the river.  We were married standing in that spot. 

The stone, almost 235 years old, is still in place. It sits at river level, and the ground around it has been filed to raise it above flood level. The marker was covered with a bronze and heavy plate glass cover. It has been that way for decades. There to be seen, protected from the weather and people wanting to chip off a corner of the stone. 

Vandals have broken the cover, smashing down the very heavy bronze structure, breaking the very thick plate glass. What a senseless act of destruction. It will cost thousands of dollars to repair, and while waiting for repair this monument of our nation's history is exposed to harm.  

For both of these I suspect bored teenagers or young adults.  I remember being bored at that age, with little money, and no idea what to do with my time. But I never destroyed public property or historical artifacts.   

Thinking back some of my contemporaries did a few senseless things. Smashing rural mailboxes, spreading cow manure down main street (the person who did that admitted it on his deathbed a few years ago.) I guess I was always the good kid. I like it this way.