DC Diary- Fonzie's Jacket

I meant to blog about Day Two of our 2010 Christmas Family Trip to Washington, DC, yesterday, but getting lost on my way back from a cinema curtailed that effort, so I am writing about it tonight.

Day Two was actually Tuesday. It was far and away the busiest day of the trip, which concludes tomorrow. We saw four Smithsonian museums in one day. One of the highlights was the American History Museums, which contains lots of pop culture and athletic memorabilia in addition to historic items like the counter from North Carolina A and T students sit-in in Greensboro, NC (the Gate City opened a Civil Rights Museum to honor the four men involved earlier this year).

Since the '70s sitcom "Happy Days" was considered subversive by my late father Mehmet Gokbudak at the time, I have always had a special place for The Fonz. My father really detested the phrase "Sit on It!" which Henry Winkler's character uttered quite frequently. To my Turkish father, this was a sign of how Americans had no respect for their parents or elders.

While researching this piece, we found out that The Fonz was meant to be a secondary character but much like George and Elaine on "Seinfeld," he simply took over. There is now a web site called "What Would the Fonz Do" which makes fun of the "What Would Jesus Do" adage that fundamentalist Christians have utilized to the point of redundancy.

Another item on display at the history museum which caught my eye was the leotard of Olympic gymnast Nastia Liukin, since I am a gymnastics fan. The pink leotard had an American flag and an emblem from the 2008 Beijing Olympics, in which Liukin won an individual gold medal.

We discovered from researching this piece that according to her Twitter page Liukin was spending the holidays with her family in Vail, Colo. (we hope they weren't driving her crazy) and that she has apparently been dating another gold medalist, figure skater Evan Lysacek. I must profess that even though Liukin, 21, is 19 years younger than me that I am a tad bit jealous (must be my ethnicity!).

My family and I also saw the ice skates worn by another gold medalist Brian Boitano from the 1988 Calgary Olympics, but as the makers of "South Park" have suggested there is apparently some question about his sexual orientation, but irregardless of that he would be too old to date Liukin too!

My night with the family concluded with a dinner at the Commonwealth Gastro Pub where I had a $13 lamb burger. Other menu items included a $12 grass-feed burger and a $13 uncommon burger_ none of us could figure out what that was!

We will have more on the zany Day Two of the DC trip on our other blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time."

We conclude this portion of the DC Diary by congratulating my friend Turkish-German modern dancer Nejla Yatkin, who has resided in both Washington, DC, and New York in recent years, on the tenth anniversary of her dance company NY 2 Dance.