The Green[e]house Effect: a Weblog

The Kids Are Alright

Pour yourself a glass of iced tea. Time for some nostalgia.

I hadn't remembered it until a day or two ago, but 10 years ago this summer, I spent a few weeks at the White House. I worked there as an intern through June and July, from an office in the Old Executive Office Building.

[Before you ask: no, I never met Monica Lewinsky. She worked there two years later.]

For most of the time I read scheduling requests for the turn-down pile, but I also got to buy lunch in the White House Mess, take in the view from the Indian Treaty Room, and bring my friends to the South Lawn for the Fourth of July fireworks. I can't say that I totally enjoyed the experience — I came out of it disillusioned, probably because I had such lofty expectations — but I wouldn't trade the experience for the world.

That summer I got to hang out with some of my best friends in the world — one was working at the fundraising arm of the University of Virginia, which put him within roadtrip distance, while the other two lived just a few miles on either side of me in northern Virginia. We spent more than a Friday or two goofing around Old Town Alexandria, making our way through the menu at the Capital City Brewing Company, or hanging out at State of the Union. The more I think about it, the harder it gets for me to believe I could forget it all for so long.

Sitting back and looking at the experience with a decade behind me, I'm amazed with how far we've come. Two guys still live up there — one had a hard couple of years, but got a law degree and landed a great job with a D.C. firm, where he still works today. The other gets a new job next week, when he gets sworn into the Alexandria city council.

The third has spent the last few months in Sweden, on a consulting assignment — just the latest chapter in his globetrotting saga, since he spent over a year in the late 1990s in Beijing. And I'm still working in politics — lobbying for trade associations and environmental groups, and having a couple of people asking about running for the legislature myself.

If it sounds like I'm proud of these guys, I am. We may be scattered to the four winds, but I have to say the kids are alright.

Posted by Greg Greene at June 25, 2003 01:05 AM