Dimes in the Parking Meter

The view from the estate of Mount Vernon in Virginia has not really changed since the time of George Washington. The Potomac River looks the same, and there is little to no development on the Maryland side of the river, due to the extraordinary historical efforts of the Mount Vernon Ladies Association to preserve the view. https://www.mountvernon.org/preservation/viewshed/

I certainly cannot count the number of times in the past three decades, I have had the privilege of visiting the estate at Mount Vernon, most recently this past week for “An Educator’s Evening.” This is a lovely annual event hosted each year in December by the estate for teachers across Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia. It was my first return to an in-person event at Mount Vernon, since December, 2019.

This year, I attended with several colleagues as well as others I had not met before the evening, as part of our group. As we gathered for a reception, following a fascinating and engaging presentation about the role of women in the 18th century from the perspective of a character actor playing a young Martha Washington, our group made small talk over who had been to Mount Vernon before, and who was visiting for the very first time. The group had a mix of both.

We were standing under a life sized mural/map of the estate, which showed the wharf and the river, and naturally, my mind went back to the late spring of 1990, and my first visit to Mount Vernon.

As I have shared in other posts, I was working my way through college as a performer and wait staff on a dinner cruise ship. The company owned two nearly identical 600 passenger vessels, docked at Pier 4 in SouthWest Washington, D.C. One of the ships made two daily trips to the wharf at Mount Vernon. My future husband was one of the captains of the vessels, and often took charge of the Mount Vernon trips. Sometimes, I worked the Mount Vernon cruises, especially if chartered by a group for lunch or dinner, as was often the case.

A conversation which began under the life sized map in the conference center on a beautiful, foggy December evening in 2022, and continued a little later as we made our way to the mansion on a candlelight tour, with the perfect view of the Potomac and Maryland shoreline still in tact after centuries, turned to how I ended up with the riverboat job in the first place, as a commuter college student in Virginia and living with two beautiful roommates in Silver Spring, Maryland. https://beyondmudpies.org/2025/12/08/kensington/

I told the story of the popular and “old-school” bulletin board, located directly outside of one of my English classes. I often stopped by the bulletin board to check out what might be going on. Part time jobs. A school event in the student union. Writing contests. Scholarship opportunities. Study abroad.

The large bulletin board with its’ flat, silver thumbtacks and myriad of flyers, all trying to out-do one another, was the 1989 version of social media.

Something new grabbed by eye immediately around Thanksgiving of the fall semester: An audition notice by a river cruise company looking for singers to be in a Christmas show on the Potomac River in Washington D.C. Oh, and you have to wait tables too, in the fine print.

3 p.m. on Friday. Pier 4. Washington D.C. No phone number or anything.

I had no idea where Pier 4 was located, had never auditioned for anything before, and had only driven into D.C. once, so the whole thing was a bit of a gamble.

Armed with a little accompaniment cassette tape, and dressed in the best outfit I could dig out of my closet; a black and white, long sleeved, checkered romper with flared pants, and high heeled shoes, I somehow made it through D.C. traffic, found Pier 4, and managed to parallel park my little “college car” at a vacant parking meter.

Geez.. I thought, standing on the Southwest D.C. sidewalk. I don’t have any change. Maybe I have a dollar or two, but that’s not really going to help me right now. Oh well… I had almost lost the nerve to go through with it anyway.

But, I was already there. On time, no less.

Oh, fine!

I literally dug out some dimes from under the seat, and dropped each coin in the slot, hoping they would buy enough time. I flipped the little turn-style of the meter on a wing and a prayer, walked onto the gated pier, past a couple of rope lines, and down to the entrance of the ship, where several other young people were waiting. Someone greeted our group and led us up some stairs, and then over to a metal gangplank.

As my foot crossed the threshold between land and sea, I nearly tripped on a slightly elevated safety bar on the deck. Oh.. this is a real boat, I thought, in the exact same moment our guide called out cheerfully: “watch your step!” Timing is truly everything. I should have worn different shoes.

Our guide opened the door to the climate controlled deck, and the sight took my breath away. I promptly forgot about the shoes.

The deck was set up and decorated for the dinner cruise that evening, with the late afternoon sun shining through the windows and perfectly illuminating the holiday centerpieces, candles, glasses, silverware, and colorful cloth napkins exploding out of each glass.

Another audition group was just finishing up in the center of the deck, around a band set-up and under stage lights.

My nerves were getting the best of me at that point, between the near fall off the gangway, the minor worry that I had not put enough dimes in the meter, and trying to figure out how I was going to drive out the city and back to Silver Spring in the dark, on unfamiliar roads. Besides that, those who had just finished auditioning were really good, and had selected far better- suited audition songs than the one I had prepared.

What did I know about this. Very, very little.

All of a sudden, it was my turn. I handed the director my cassette tape, got up on the microphone and the instrumental version of Amy Grant’s “Tennessee Christmas” started playing. I made my way through the song and then it was just quiet. They called another name, and asked me to wait. I took a seat in one of the deck chairs and tried to be patient, all the while checking my watch and wondering if the D.C. parking people really enforced those meters on the hour.

I don’t fully remember exactly what happened after that, but I remember it was all a little surreal, as the November sun was starting to set over the river, in the late afternoon. I was hired on the spot, handed a rehearsal schedule, a uniform, a training schedule, and another cassette tape to start learning the show.

Either the audition went better than I thought, or… no one wanted the job and they were desperate.

I guess I’ll never really know, but I would quickly come to learn that all the work of running a restaurant on the water including constantly watching your step in high heeled shoes, and learning how to perfectly set each table with genuine silverware, holiday centerpieces, and exploding color napkins in the glass water goblets you had to haul upstairs from the galley in groups of 24, after each and every cruise, was the real work of the gig. I think the performances were just a fun enticement to keep us all there.

What I do know is that the song and that audition changed my entire life.

(See blog post: What are you doing New Years Eve)

In addition to the Christmas show which featured songs like: Sleigh Ride, It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, Mister Santa and Santa Baby, I sang “Tennessee Christmas” with the band about 8 times a week through the entire month of December, 1989.

I never want to hear this song again, I remember thinking at one point. But, I would like to actually go to Tennessee sometime. Never been there. One of my roommates and I would make our first trip together about a year or two later. That’s another story for another blog post.

Somewhere toward the end of the Educator’s Evening, 2022 as we were walking back to our car and past the Mount Vernon Inn, where my husband took me to dinner on our 2nd date in the late spring of 1990, my group asked me to sing “Tennessee Christmas.” Please sing it! No one is here, and we’ve never heard that song.

Standing on the sidewalk in the December cold and fog, just a few weeks away from another Christmas and incredibly grateful to be back at Mount Vernon for the first time in several years since a global pandemic, I looked around and thought: “why not.” I sang a little bit. It was quite imperfect without the starting note and without music, but the memories all came flooding back like the Tidal Basin after a summer rain storm, and inspired a blog post. Just for a moment, I was 19 years old, standing on a different sidewalk at just about the same time of year, and putting dimes into a parking meter instead of turning around and going home.

I decided to make a recording the following night, in a throwback to the quarantine recordings through the use of YouTube music and the Voice Memo feature on my phone.

Here is the first time I have sung “Tennessee Christmas” in its’ entirety, in nearly three decades.

/Tennessee Christmas (Cover) December 2022

To my husband of nearly 29 years and to our five children, all of whom are nearly “grown and flown,” I’m so glad I put the dimes in the parking meter. To the lifelong friends I met while working on that ship over four years, some of whom might be reading this blog post, I am forever thankful for our beautiful, Potomac River memories.

Merry Christmas to all.