The U. S. Congress: A Great Place to Be Stranded in D.C.

Some of you, I hope, have been to the nation's Capitol and even visited Congress personally. I have had the privilege of doing it numerous times. But until yesterday I had never had the opportunity to sit down with an elected lawmaker in his office on Capitol Hill. Congressman Peter Roskam, of the sixth district of Illinois, invited me to meet with him and his chief-of-staff, Stephen Moore. I enjoyed the visit immensely and will say more about it, I hope, in a future blog. Congressman Roskam is a serious Christian and a member of an Anglican Mission congregation here in the Wheaton/Glen Ellyn area. One of my best friends informed me yesterday that he was his youth pastor many years ago, which makes me feel much older than I think I am.

I was notified by my home office that all American Airlines flights were canceled out of Reagan National Airport yesterday, at least to Chicago. (Supposedly a 1,000 flights were canceled.) I was stranded and American was not answering their phones or helping passengers via the Internet. (It seems they just shut down and refused to help, which has not been my experience with this airline but then all the airlines are anything but efficient these days.) Anyway, I was stuck but I was in the right place. Congressman Roskam's travel secretary made a call to the Congressional Travel Office and within minutes I was on a United flight from Dulles to Chicago at 7:40 p.m. last night. My office in Illinois tried but with no success. A few minutes on the phone with the Congressional Travel Office and it was done. I was in the right place at the right time.

One other personal reflection. On Monday, at the Washington Nationals baseball game, my host Fred Barnes asked me if I recognized a man in a baseball cap who was dressed quite casually and taking a seat in front of us. He then told me this unassuming man was the Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. I have read a good deal about Benanke, both as a person and as the new chairman of the Fed. I personally think he is a great improvement over Alan Greenspan. Now that I know Bernanke can relax, and even wear a baseball cap in public and see a game with the general public now and then (he had a good seat, right behind the dugout but not a suite with the rich) I feel even better about him. Hey, he can't be all bad if he loves this game. "You can't beat fun at the old ballpark."