This is the Memory Palace.
I'm Nate D'Ameo.
By 1991,
the editors of the Berlitz Guide for Tourists to Washington D.C. were so certain that it would still be there.
That it was mentioned as a site one could see when visiting the city,
just as one could visit the monuments to Washington or Lincoln or Jefferson or the Vietnam War or the various museums of the Smithsonian.
The Capitol Building.
A traveler would find next to the White House by the wrought iron fence that surrounds it,
a camping tent.
And within it, they'd probably find a guy named William Thomas,
as he had been nearly every day of the previous ten years.
Since he first launched his protest against the United States government,
and what he saw as its many hypocrisies and mendacity,
and its continued possession of and reliance upon nuclear weapons.
Just a tent by the White House.
A few slogans painted on plywood.
Some literature to hand out if people wanted it.
I can't tell you precisely how many days he missed in his peace vigil in that tent during that decade.
Though I can put those days into a few different categories.
There were the times when he was in court or in jail.