Once Upon a Time on the National Mall...

Once upon a time I lived in Washington, D.C., which was the most extraordinary place I had ever lived. I was an undergrad, which isn't entirely relevant to the story except that it means I lived adjacent to campus and therefore about four blocks from the Lincoln Memorial. 

One day, a lovely lass on whom I had a serious crush told me that she and some other friends of hers and mine had decided to fly kites that weekend, and would I like to go with her to get a kite and join them on the National Mall? To which I responded: "Oh, I've got a kite we can use." And what I meant by that was this:

Because if you had the resources, wouldn't you, too, want to impress you crush with the most enormous kite ever?

So come Saturday, I show up looking like this:

And everyone was totally impressed just by the size of the backpack. My buddy S. came along, too, with a paraglider of her own. And right here, before we go even a sentence further, I have to tell you: S. and I have done this before. We've gone down to the National Mall and flown our paragliders as kites. We've done it during the Bush administration. We've done it during the Obama administration. And we've never gotten into any sort of trouble. In fact, about a week prior to this little adventure, we had been down there kiting our merry little hearts out, and a Secret Service agent pulled up (we know because he not only told us, he also showed us his badge) and asked us what we were doing, and when we explained, he said (and I'm paraphrasing here), "Neat! Carry on!"

So five of us were walking down to the Mall, to the fields between the Lincoln Memorial and the Potomac. Right here:

Kiting with a paraglider, if you've never done it and aren't in nice, steady wind isn't necessarily the easiest thing to do, but that doesn't preclude having a good time, and indeed a good time was had by all.

About an hour into this little adventure, a helicopter flew over the field we were on and then up the river. It was one that anyone who's lived is these parts would recognize as the sort that, should the President step into it, becomes Marine One. And because this stood a chance of being the admirable President Obama, I waved (whereas under the previous administration, I had made a habit of flipping the bird). And not twenty minutes later, a second one flew over, much lower, and I waved again and thought about how lucky I was to be living in the kind of place where you can at least pretend that it's the President flying over any old time.

It's not really all that long after when another helicopter flies over, again from the direction of the White House, this one small and white and recognizable as one of the Metropolitan Police choppers, and I start to wonder why DC airspace is so unusually busy on an unseasonably warm February afternoon.  I turn to my fellow kiters and say, "Say, guys, that's a lot of helicopters. Maybe we should get out of here. You know, just in case."

And someone says, "Just a few more minutes," and I acquiesce.

It's not more than five minutes before that helicopter flies over again, this time just reaching our position and turning back in the direction it had come from. "Hey, guys?" I say, " Let's go, okay?"

The thing about an enormous kite, though, is that packing it up is not an instantaneous thing. It takes a few minutes to fold it and roll it and stuff it in the bag, and by the time we've finished, a couple of MPD  squad cars have pulled right onto the field. I turn around and see two mounted police officers trotting towards as from the Lincoln Memorial, and believe you me, they don't often move these horses at more than an amble.

Maybe, I think, we can preempt whatever bad situation seems to be brewing. I walk towards one of the cruisers, and I hear one of the officers on his radio say, "We found them." Did I mention that it seemed a bad situation was developing? The radio-officer's partner turns to me and says in none too pleasant a tone, "What were you doing?"

To which I reply in what I hope is a disarming voice, "Oh, we were just flying kites. There's no problem, officer."

I can't say I'm thrilled when the response I get is, "Oh. No. There's a problem."

The mounted police have reached us by this point, and the officers in the second cruiser have gotten out, and while one officer radios in the important metrics on the pieces of identification that we've been asked to produce, the questions begin. What are we doing? What exactly does a paraglider do? It sounds like a flying device, but we say we weren't flying? And, most importantly, where is the motor? The trouble, it seems, is that we've shown up on the radar at Reagan National Airport, and someone, somewhere has informed these officers that there is photographic evidence of us taking off and flying towards the airport. Because we obviously look like some kids with a death wish. 

Around this time, the two Secret Service agents arrive in an unmarked, black sedan. We get to see their badges, too, and they have questions, too, all very much like the ones we've been answering. Finally, everyone with a badge decides that it's about time to look at the equipment that has been causing all this fuss, and so S. and I unpack the gliders. There's a dramatic unfolding moment when the glider goes from a rolled up little bundle to a spread wing, and in that moment one of the horses of a still-mounted policeman dances backwards and snorts, and the policeman speaks the most memorable line of the day. "Christ. You scared Custer."

Now the cameras come out. The Secret Service wants pictures of the equipment, including the empty backpack that they keep looking through to find the nonexistent motor and of us. MPD wants the same.  They start and the Secret Service follows with the request that in their photographs we please not smile.

I am trying, all along, to explain that we've done this before. That no one has ever had a problem with it. That it would be silly for us to show up on the radar with a kite that flies below the tree line. I tell the Secret Service agents that we talked to one of their own just last week. That last bit buys us a little cred, but they want a name, and I don't have one.

More helicopters fly over. MPD choppers and another Marine chopper, this one very low and the doors are open. The Park Police officer astride Custer turns to the bunch of us and says with some evidence of satisfaction, "That was the one that was coming to shoot you down."

The amount of action taking place diminishes gradually until we're just sitting in the middle of this field on a February afternoon that's growing rapidly colder as the sun begins to set with Custer and his rider towering over us and a police cruiser idling behind us. The others have left, and these folks seem to want to as well. Eventually Custer's rider admits that he's seen us over here before. Gee, thanks. Might have been helpful an hour ago. That's also about the time a father and his eight-or-so-year-old daughter come over so she can pet Custer. Not the best timing, dad. Can't you see we might be terrorists? Custer and rider don't seem to mind, though.

It comes to light after more waiting than I care to do (given that the wind is picking up and the sunlight has about the radiative warmth of a candle) that what we're here waiting for is a representative of the FAA to come and do whatever it is that such a person might do. Issue a citation for airspace violation is the best guess of the MPD officer. I don't know what one of these FAA representatives might look like, but every time a helicopter flies over, I imagine it landing in the field and someone hopping out with a ticket book looking very stern. Needless to say, this doesn't come to pass quite as I had envisioned.

It's about two hours after our initial detention that one of the MPD officers finally says, "We have all your contact information." Several times over, I think. "No point waiting any longer. Someone will be in touch with you." And that's it. We're free to go, and they're going, too.

We about walk out of the field as quickly as doesn't look suspicious in case Mr. FAA shows up late to the party. But he doesn't, and none of us ever hears from him.

Epilogue

Miraculously, none of us was placed on a no-fly list, even the non-American citizen who tried to hand an MPD officer his student ID when asked for identification. I'm sure, though, that somewhere there's a file with all the photographs that were taken, perhaps even including the ones they had of us "flying towards the airport." It's also occurred to me that the cost of this incident, in helicopter fuel and man-hours, likely exceeds the sum total of what I'll pay in taxes over the course of my entire life.