The Beauty of Freedom- Part 2

Recently I was giving a tour to a family who was in DC visiting. What was really interesting about this family was that the father was from Germany and he moved to the US in the 80's for school and has been here ever since and is about to take his citizenship test which I think is really awesome.

Towards the end of the tour we got to a part that I was a little unsure if I should include or not. Personally it is one of my favorite parts of the tour so I went for it and showed them and man am I glad I did.

You are probably wondering what this could possibly be. Well I will show you.

Ronald Reagan's statue in the Capitol Rotunda 

This is Ronald Reagan's statue in the Capitol Rotunda. It was one of the newest statues in the State Statuary Collection. After Reagan's death, California withdrew one of their other statues and replaced it with Reagan.

I know what you are thinking, "Ok, that's great but what is so great about that? And what does that have to do with a man from Germany?" Great questions! If you take a closer look at the statue, like the one below, you can see a strip of stone is different from the rest. See the picture below.

Ronald Reagan Statue base
(side note: I added these arrows using Skitch on my iPhone)

This isn't an error or an artist trying to throw in some texture. It is something way more awesome... It's a piece of the Berlin Wall! Literally a slice from the Berlin Wall! 

I explained this to the family on my tour and stood back and watched the German man's face. I watched as this tall, strong man fought tears and for the ability to speak. He told me I had no idea what the significance of that was, how great a day it was when that wall came down. 

He was moved, I was moved because he was moved, it was a beautiful tour. Beautiful... like freedom.