Reply #19: A similar story...

[tango-tee]

...although I never came in such close touch with the real "power brokers".

In 1983 I was invited to spend a week with a friend's parents in Washington, D.C. I can't remember the name of the condominium complex where they lived (not the Watergate), but there was no way to make it even as far as the building entrance unless it was by the residents' invitation, since there was a boom across the driveway. The lobby itself looked like a posh hotel setting; at the time we arrived there was an Admiral getting his mail, and assorted other - obivously monied - folks were milling around. All very well-behaved, hushed and civilized. The hallways throughout the building were covered with carpet so thick I nearly fell flat on my face.

My friend's father was an attorney and lobbyist, who invited us to dinner with some other people at Andrews AFB Officers Club. I have never before or after been so ill at ease in all my life, whether at the apartment or at the club. The phony air of gentility, the excellent manners, the banter, the restrained laughter as if on cue... in short, *everything* made me long for a breath of fresh air, for people who say "shit" and "damn" instead of "golly-gee". Perhaps I judged the situation incorrectly, being young and naive, but my gut feeling was that so much was only a veneer, and that by scratching the surface a lot of ugliness would have been revealed.