How about a staycation?

So Michelle Obama took a modest little vacation to Spain this month, but what I'm wondering is this: Has the first lady ever taken a vacation to Washington D. C.? Perhaps she would profit from a guided tour of the historic places that give so many reasons to be proud of the United States.

If D.C. is too pedestrian for Michelle's tastes, maybe a vacation to Boston, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, to visit places like Bunker Hill, Dorchester Heights, Trenton, Princeton, Valley Forge and Constitution Hall.

She might take in the military cemetery near Gettysburg, where President Lincoln memorialized the brave men who gave the last full measure of devotion so that government of the people, by the people and for the people should not perish from the earth.

These vacation spots might inspire the first lady to some pride in her country, beyond that derived from the presidential candidacy of her husband. But if vacationing stateside suits her not, she could go cosmopolitan: what about a trip to Normandy to see Omaha Beach and Pointe du Hoc? Or Italy to see Anzio. Who knows? Remembering how America saved the world from Hitler might stir even a Harvard Law grad to a touch of appreciation for the United States.

Larry Naselli

Elgin