A Washington, DC, Building

All a swabby knew of this building back in the 1950's was, it was a Post Office that sat on the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Fourteenth Street and where the bus from the Pentagon stopped on its route in and out of town. The building was adjacent to the IRS Building and across the street from the old Smithsonian Museum. This particular, young, handsome swabby removed himself from the bus in front of the Post Office nearly every time he came into town and never paid much attention to the old, gray, marble building. The swabby had his mind on other things as he climbed off the bus, like a cold beer or an occasional movie. The last time he rode that bus was in the early 1960's when he flew in from Miami and visited the Pentagon on a personal errand. He remembered the times he waited on the cold steps to catch the bus. There were a few times after too many quaffs at the beer fountain the sailor missed the last bus to the Pentagon and waited all night, trying to make himself comfortable and catch a short nap or two there on the steps waiting for the first morning bus, the only person around at that time of night.

Now, the old swabby on wobbly sea legs sat in his chair and watched the boob box squawk away about this building that Donald Trump had acquired and was renovating it into one of his fancy hotels. Mister Trump was giving Greta Van Susteren a tour of the renovations from the lobby to the old conference room and a room of the hotel to the tower and up and down. Trump said there were nineteen floors, but having never counted them or didn't give a damn, the building always appeared   smaller. That was the first time the old swabby had ever heard exactly how tall it was and he still didn't give a damn. He did remember going by there early in the morning on a Greyhound Bus, snow about a foot-and-a-half deep on Inauguration Day of President John F. Kennedy. He was on his way to Baltimore to get out of town and the crowds and have a good time drinking some Rolling Rock and flirting with the girls on East Baltimore Street.

Greta cracked a joke about the view you would have from the new hotel of the IRS Building, just what a person would want to see, and they both laughed. Trump's laugh was more of a chuckle, while Greta cracked up.

The Post Office building was the headquarters of the mail system back then. Hell, thought the sailor, he didn't even know that. He actually went into the lobby one time to drop off a letter to someone somewhere, but that was the furthest he got to actually seeing the inside and he wasn't very impressed by what he did see.

When Trump gets his renovation completed and opens up the new hotel, is when the old sailor will be impressed. Now, if he could only afford a room for a week for old times sake.