Author: Vic Socotra

The West Stone

If there is one of the cardinal Stones to see, this is the easiest and safest in the City. There is nothing particularly dangerous about Jones Point, and thee South Site, but it is hard to imagine 100 square miles of the original District of Columbia pressing down at you with a point that would […]

Banneker Park and SW9

(What remains of SW9 is a one-foot square sandstone block, extending about 18 inches above ground and probably about 2 feet underground. Image Loop202). So, leaving the history of the American Nazis behind (don’t worry, we will meet some of them again in our quest to follow the path of Major Andrew Ellicott) we head […]

Stones and Houses

The march northwest must have been something for those surveyors working for Andrew Ellicott. If you have ever worked the rich red clay soil of Virginia, you will understand something of the clinging, clawing nature of the vegetation, and the spiny tendrils of the tough vines that snake around everything and can make the rush […]

Assorted Stones

Ok- I left you in the bar at Joe Theismann’s Restaurant with a sense of contempt for the fraudulent SW2 Stone, a bogus paean to the original national monuments of the Young United States. I was too busy to get back to it yesterday, since I was wandering around great Baltimore, the Charm City, looking […]

The Bogus Stone

(The imposter SW2 District Boundary Stone, a blatant fraud in location and material. The cage is authentic enough, though.) The best thing I can say about SW2 is that there is a decent bar right near it. Joe Theismann’s Restaurant (1800 Diagonal Rd) is a fun sports bar, and recalls a time when there was […]

North By Southwest

(High resolution photo by Stephen Powers, 2015.) If you are going to go look at some of the Stones and get a decent sample, I have a recommendation for you. Do the ones of the Southwest Quadrant. Most of them do not have stories with a lot of depth to them. They just are what […]

The South Stone

Gentle Readers, I warned you I was going to get back to this. Stand by for Stones! “May this stone long commemorate the Goodness of God, in those uncommon events which have given America a place among nations. Under this stone may jealousy and selfishness be buried forever. From this stone may a superstructure arise […]

You Are Only Paranoid if…

I just startled myself when I typed the date. Jeeze, how the time flies. One minute you are wondering about whether the Stones are really cooler than the Beatles, and then you turn around and you are bitching about how puny the Social Security check is. So, no, I am not going to get to […]

Resolution

It is here. I had the usual disorientation this holiday season. I lost the day after Christmas- I think. Or it could have been one of the other anonymous days not fraught with significance. This one comes with the obligation to make resolutions to make 2016 a better year, with all the necessary improvements to […]

Phishing Expedition

OK, at dinner last night at the prestigious 1921 Room at the new Army-Navy Country Club we talked about the Stones of the District plans to nail the last unvisited stone- that being SE9. We didn’t know that a family member was in a really bad situation, but knowing wouldn’t make anything any better. That […]