Tom's New Gig

 Tom has had a very busy week rehearsing a State Funeral, but since he's not able to share photos I borrowed via Wikipedia from President Reagan & Ford's funeral.  Apparently all involved rehearse them yearly as well as meet with the families annually to update any wishes they may have.  Throughout the week they went over all the intricacies and coordination that's involved in conducting such a thing.  It included two 3AM mornings so they could get into The Capitol before congress arrived to do their thing.  It all wrapped up Friday with a full run through beginning at the Capitol, to National Cathedral, and wrapping up with the coffin being brought here to Andrews Air Force Base to be flown to unknown whereabouts.  This particular funeral was for a made up person but they had family stand ins, photographers, press, etc. all totaling about 200 people.  Tom said they made quite a sight driving through DC in their caravan of buses and black SUV's escorted by policemen. I think it's all just fascinating.  The sort of thing you don't put much thought into...the kind of coordination and organization that must go into such a thing.  Some very long days but he was looking forward to doing something different....and this definitely is!