I went to Washington D.C. on a 4-H trip for the “Citizenship Short Course” (August 14 – 19, 1977). The purpose of the trip was to learn how government worked and what it meant to be a citizen. Jimmy Carter was president. They put us kids from Wisconsin up at the National 4-H Center (Chevy Chase Section 5) for a few days. I had to write an essay to qualify. I’m sure the fact that my mother was the Little Butternut 4-H Club leader didn’t hurt.
We traveled by bus – stopping at historical sites along the way. The group made a visit to Capitol Hill. We were supposed to be cooped up in meeting rooms for days – attending sessions about this and that.
After a couple of days, I was starting to get bored and stir crazy. Another attendee, Mike Gargulak, from Rice Lake, WI, and I snuck out of the boring breakout sessions and gave ourselves a self-guided tour of the museums and monuments of Washington D.C. We didn’t tell anyone we were going! We were two 16 year olds in an unfamiliar city, unchaperoned. We went to the Smithsonian, Old Post Office, Air and Space Museum, and the Library of Congress. At the end of the day, we missed the last scheduled metro bus to get us back to the 4-H Center. It was getting dark, so we ran at least a mile back to our dorm.
Crazy as it may sound, we never got in trouble. I don’t even know if they knew we were gone!
