On Aug. 9, 2012, a group of 56 senior citizens, with the Golden Age Club, loaded the big blue for a trip to our nation’s capital. We were all excited in that would have been, for some of us, our first time going to Washington. The trip was wonderful, just not enought time and the weather did not always cooperate in order for us to do everything that we wanted to do.

We got a chance to tour the White House, National Mall, King Memorial, our nation’s Capitol, Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum, the Arlington National Cemetery, the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, just to name a few.

Special thanks goes out to everyone who went on this trip, especially Alfred Jester, Shirley Gardner, Jimmy Thurman and the Mason Lodge 317 PA, for things done to make this trip easy and enjoyable.

One of our travelers, Dianne Parks, had a very emotional reason for her trip to Washington. Her father, Sgt. Benjamin Talmadge, was born and raised in Griffin and served in World War II. He is buried at Arlington and she had not been able to visit his gravesite since the first time back in June 1965. She ws given an escort to his gravesite, that was about a five-minute walk from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. She said this part of the trip made her very, very happy and was icing on the cake.

This was a wonderful trip; thanks to everyone involved.

JACKIE WILLIAMS

Site Manager/Council on Aging McIntosh Trail