2012 National Memorial Day Concert

Stage at dusk.

Living in DC makes it easy to attend all sorts of National Thises and That’s, such as the Memorial Day Concert in front of the Capitol.  This is the one PBS broadcasts every year.  Half way into the event, the chief of police informed us all that the premises would need to be vacated, like now.  Tens of thousands of giddy spectators collected their blankets and picnics and headed for the exits—all because of a severe thunderstorm that was bearing down on the city from the northeast.  When the warning came, the sky was mostly clear and I was a little put-off by the excessive safety margin the chief seemed to be operating under.  But by the time the first wave of my fellow escapees had reached Union Station, the clouds began to burst with rain and gusts of wind sailing through downtown.  It was fairly dramatic how quickly it came, though it didn’t amount to much.  The problem is, you never know how direct a hit you’ll get from these eastern storms.  (They can hit with a frenzy, as we would see just a few weeks later, when thousands of trees were ripped apart or toppled by a massive Derecho storm that swept across a large swath of the eastern U.S.)  Nevertheless, the summer storms are great to watch and even a little spooky at times when the lighting is so close, the buildings around you seem to shake on their foundations.