A number of years earlier, I’d had a captivating discussion with one of my uncles one Christmas Day, learning of his experience during his junior year of high school as a United States Congressional House page in Washington D.C. The House Page Program, no longer in existence today, began almost two centuries ago.
From that introductory conversation I was smitten with the possibility that I too might be able to be a U.S. House Page. It felt like such an interesting and exciting adventure. It also felt like an opportunity to get away from my past and meet new people who wouldn’t be aware of any of my historical oddities. It would be a chance for me to start fresh and begin again with all I had learned about how I “should” be.
I began my introductory inquiries into the matter in the eighth grade, writing letters and making calls, with the help of my parents and others, to our Congressman’s office. It also helped that my family had the means for us to take a family trip to the District my ninth-grade year where we were able to meet face to face with our Representative.
After a number of years of correspondence and the lengthiest application process I had ever undergone up to that point, I was nominated by Congressman G.V. “Sonny” Montgomery and accepted by the House Page Committee to be a Page for the 100th Congress during the spring of 1988. I would get to spend the second semester of my junior year of high school walking the halls of Congress and roaming the streets of our nation’s capital. It was a dream I had wished and worked for. And it was coming true.
*Thanks for reading. Continue to next post Escape to D.C. continued. To read from the beginning please go to Why I’m Writing.
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