ARA Hill Days is an event that happens every March. Every year in January, I think "maybe they won't make me go this year." Then, every year, I agree to go and have a great time, hoping fervently that they let me come back again next year.
I am a fickle soul.
For the past few years, I've made this event a great deal more enjoyable by taking the train from Vermont to DC rather than flying. I suppose it is a testament to how intensely I despise airports and their great companies that I would rather spend 13 hours on a train than face their rampant classism. The lack of humanity (not to mention mere civility) at any airport across this country leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth, a frown on my face, and a cramp in my aching neck. I have never witnessed a single kind act performed by a single airport employee to any other human being. (Except once, when Seth's dad got us into the crown room.)
So in order to avoid all of this I spend a perfectly comfortable 13 hours each way, enjoying the view, the cafe car, and the friendliness of the conductors. ("We're not yelling, just educating" said the conductor to the man sitting beside me who got on without a ticket or reservation.) I enjoy the relative silence of a train. CNN is not being blared from flat screen TVs at 15 foot intervals, I am not reminded every five minutes to be cautious because the threat level has recently been raised to orange. (A phenomenon that seems to happen every time I fly. How recently has it really been changed? Is this a scare tactic?) I reflect without delay on the blizzard that is raging in Vermont, as the scenery slowly changes from massive boulders, pine forests and overflowing tiny young rivers to flooded drainage ditches, deciduous forests, and a flatter, subdivision-bespeckled-landscape to City! Business! Sidewalks! - the heart of it all.
When I arrived in DC, this year, Dad picked me up. Our hotel was out in the burbs so I couldn't take the Metro like I did last year. We had a bit of trouble finding each other. ("I'm standing right in front of Union station, I see the Postal Museum to my right, three flags, then a roundabout, then the Capitol in front of me." "I'm on Massachusetts Avenue, I see the Postal Museum to my left, three flags to my right. I don't see the Capitol, I don't see Union Station.") I was getting worried that we might be replaying a previous incident involving Dad, DC and I, where I was standing under a missile in the atrium of the Air and Space Museum (with McDonald's to my left) and so was Dad, and yet we were a $65 cab ride away from each other.
The next day we were scheduled to meet with several Senators, Congressmen, or their aides, to discuss issues facing the automotive recycling industry. I asked Dad what we were supposed to be talking about this year. ARA wanted us to discuss the Right to Repair bill which will be introduced in the House and the Senate. Dad also wanted to discuss the repeal of the 1099 law and the EPA's attempt to classify used oil as a hazardous waste.
I was so nervous. Last year I felt like I had a pretty good handle on what I was supposed to say, and got into Senator Leahy's office and completely choked. This year I did not even feel confident before hand that I understood the issues.
The next morning ARA had a black Suburban waiting to take us down to Capitol Hill. We went first to a constituent breakfast with Sentator Brown from Ohio. By breakfast, I guess they meant free coffee, and we met with a few aides (one of whom, to everyone's surprise, uses Car-Part.com regularly!) We waited over an hour to talk to the Senator and were almost late for our next appointment. The Senator made it clear that he drives a Dodge Charger made in the United States by union workers.
Rand Paul, obviously, is the new tea-tottling freshman Senator from Kentucky. Because he's a freshman, he has a temporary office set up in the middle of the Russell building courtyard, while they wait for other offices to be remodeled and divvied up. There was another meeting in his only conference room, so we met with his aide in the cafeteria. I suggested to his aid (who had previously suggested they were very interested in helping small businesses) that even though the Right to Repair bill will be sponsored by Senator Boxer (D - California), the bill protects small businesses from potential monopolies by the manufacturers, supports competition and growth and basically supports the American dream. He wasn't sure, "knowing the Senator's ideology" if he'd be interested in supporting such a bill. One can only presume that the Senator's "ideology" allows him to help small businesses as long as that entails deregulation that will also help major corporations, but not so far as regulations which will only help small businesses (and, of course, the consumer). Or perhaps the Senator's "ideology" prohibits him from supporting anything supported by Democrats, regardless of its impact on small businesses, which he claims to care for so deeply.
Next up, Senator Leahy's staff, the meeting in which I so embarrassingly had nothing intelligent to say last year. Even though I continue to make a fool of myself in the senior Sentator's office, his staff member, who is the same every year, continues to seem pleased to see me and my Kentucky based company. I had previously requested that Dad do most of the talking this time, and I would jump in with some effects on Vermont, if the mood struck. This seemed to work really well ... we should probably do it every year. We also did it in Representative Welch's office, and between my Vermont meetings I managed to suggest that a) they pay for repealing the 1099 provision by counting up the fraud it would have perpetrated and the lost productivity it would have caused - (I am 75% sure that everyone knew that I know it doesn't work that way - ha ha it was a joke ha ha) b) that if oil becomes a hazardous waste everyone in Barre will throw it away instead of turning it in, and it will all end up in Lake Champlain, and that c) it is completely dangerous to drive from Barre to Burlington with the check engine light on, a LAUGHABLE notion to come out of the mouth of this Auto Recycler's daughter, who has driven so many cars with the check engine light on that she doesn't even notice when one turns on (to Seth's utter dismay). Lobbying has a devastating effect on integrity. I can see that it would be dangerous to do it very often.
The day went swimmingly and I can't wait for next year.
We had been told that the black suburbans would be waiting for us "at the fountain in front of the Capitol." As we walked towards the fountain, we realized that a line of black SUVs sitting in front of the Capitol was not a helpful thing to be searching for. Dad declared that they must sell more black Suburbans in DC than in the entire rest of the country!
That night we went out to dinner and I had my very-first-ever green beer. It was considerably less exciting than expected. I should have gotten a Guinness. Dad and Cindy and I walked around the trendy little shopping district our hotel was in, and wandered down to the banks of the Potomac, where the sun was setting and a piece of driftwood was floating idly by. A sense of peace and nostalgia filled me. I was suddenly transported to the banks of the Ohio, in Rabbit Hash, and the pure, luxurious peace of sitting in the dirt watching tiny waves lap at your feet and logs float slowly by. Southern rivers are set apart in my imagination. Different from lakes, different from oceans, different from the shallow furious rivers of New England. These mighty rivers are something all their own, and will always make me long for home.
Later on in the evening ARA was hosting a "Monte Carlo Night" where we could gamble with fake money. Dad played blackjack. I've never played before, so I watched for a few hands and then joined in. It was fake money after all. We were playing for fun. It was all about fun and learning, and then they announced that at the end of the night the top six people with the most "money" would get a free night at the hotel with free breakfast in the morning. Within a few minutes, I looked over and Dad had already gained a
pile of $2500 chips. I was looking forward to breakfast. He did win a prize, but we discovered that it was good for a weekend night anytime during the next year, and dinner. That made it completely worthless to us. We should have known there would be a catch.
This morning Dad dropped me off at Union Station, and soon I'll arrive in Montpelier where Seth will be waiting at the train station to take me out to dinner. (How romantic!) Overall I've mangaged to make an entire trip without anyone suggesting - even on Capitol Hill - that the businessman with the thousand dollar suit should be allowed to tread on a dirty red carpet while the rest of us are denied such luxury and attention, or be given a complimentary meal while the rest of us starve. That their 2-3 pieces of luggage should be carried for free while the rest of ours (which cost $25 apiece) are left on the tarmac because the plane is "overweight."
Shocking, I know.
