Today I went to the National Mall. I saw the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial (I was kind of disappointed in that they never mentioned him helping < Kirk & Spock defeat Genghis Khan ), as well as all the war memorials (WWII, Vietnam, Korea). As I walked through all the memorials to the major 20th century wars, I wondered if there going to erect a memorial to every war fought by America during the 20th Century. It's only fair, after all. So what about a memorial for the Grenada War (the war to save partying medical students from the tyranny of comical Communist dictators), the Persian Gulf War (the war to save tyranical Arab religious fundamentalists dictators from tyranical Arab secular dictators) or the Cola Wars (the war to keep America from constantly having a choice between "the Real Thing" and "Pepsi Generation").

Then I saw the Great Ronnie Parade. Actually, I was about thirty yards from where the hearse pulled up, the casket was pulled out, and put on the caisson. It was pretty rocking. They had a DJ set up playing all those great 80's tunes (like Frankie Goes to Hollywood's "Two Tribues" or the Ramones "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg") while the crowd hit beachballs around and danced. When the hearse came by, the "Let's Get Ready to Rumble" Guy said "Let's Get Ready to Rumble" as the entire crowd started chanting "Ron-nie! Ron-nie!". Then when his pall bearers got out of their limos to help remove the casket from the Hearst, the DJ blasted "Enter Sandman" and when the casket was actually lifted from the hearst, the crowd was rocked out to "Don't Fear the Reaper."

Actually, none of that happened. As you probably know because they probably played all the footage over and over again. It was actually kind of weird. Everyone was just kind of standing around waiting, talking to each other and trying to stay cool when a couple of cop cars went by. Then some more. Then some limo's and everyone began to realize that the whole thing was about to happen. Everyone kind of watched, applauding when Nancy stepped out, then applauded as the caisson went by. Luckily it never quite hit Princess Di level where people were openly sobbing and throwing flowers. The poor horse that was riderless with the backwards boots kept on freaking out and tried to walk the other direction from the capital building.

And the coolest part? I saw Merv Griffin!