David MacKinnon

Interview with David MacKinnon

Interview Date:  April 4, 2024

Interviewer:       Randy Norton

Transcriber:       David MacKinnon

Editor:                DianePlatt

This interview transcript is the property of theRuth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project.

Not to be reproduced without permission.

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                                                          STARTOF INTERVIEW                              

NORTON: This is Randy Norton. I am interviewingDavid MacKinnon today on April 4, 2024, at his home, 22 Seventh Street NE. Goodmorning.

MACKINNON: Good morning, Randy.

NORTON: Where are you from originally?

MACKINNON: New Jersey—Northern New Jersey.

NORTON: Whereabouts?

MACKINNON: I was born in Cranford, New Jersey, andthen we moved quickly to a house in a place called Tenafly, New Jersey.

NORTON: You can tell you are a transcriber.

MACKINNON: Right. [Laughter.] We moved into ourhouse there right after Pearl Harbor. I was maybe a year and a half old when wemoved to Tenafly and lived there until I moved here.

NORTON: Where did you go to school?

MACKINNON: Public schools in Tenafly. Do we wantto go to college?

NORTON: Yes, let’s do that.

MACKINNON: My undergraduate was in architecture atCornell University. It was a five-year course, so I was there from ’58 to ’63.Then I want to graduate school at the University of North Carolina in ChapelHill.

NORTON: You went straight there, straight toChapel Hill?

MACKINNON: Yeah. Straight from undergraduate. [Itwas] in Regional Planning for two years, and I graduated there in ’65.

NORTON: How did you get to DC?

MACKINNON: Well, a number of my classmates atNorth Carolina—we all were looking for local planning jobs. Urban or regionalplanning jobs—A lot of them came to the DC area. After I graduated, I went on aEuropean tour. I’d gotten a partial scholarship from Cornell to go look at allthe architecture that we studied about. So, I spent three months in the summerof ’65 touring Europe. When I came back, a friend of mine from graduate schoolhad moved to DC and had gotten a job with the US Public Health Service as aCommissioned Corps member. He said, “Why don’t you come here? I think I havesome connections for you if you are looking for a job.” I had no idea where Iwas going to work once I got back from Europe. So, I came here, and he said,“Well there’s a doctor up at NIH [National Institutes of Health] who’s lookingfor somebody, perhaps with your background in architecture and planning.” So, Iwent up there, and I had an interview with the lady and went home and said,“Okay, let’s see how this one works out.” I hadn’t applied anywhere else.

NORTON: You say you went home; you went back toNew Jersey?

MACKINNON: Yes. I was still in New Jersey. Myparents still lived in Tenafly. Then this doctor called me, and she said, “Whencan you start?” Of course, this was during Vietnam. I was actively—I shouldn’tsay this—but pursuing alternatives to being drafted.

NORTON: You were not alone.

MACKINNON: The US Public Health ServiceCommissioned Corps allowed you to consider that as your service, militaryservice. I didn’t have to wear a uniform, but I had all the benefits of goingto the commissaries, going to the clubs, whatever. The Navy Medical Hospital [nowWalter Reed National Military Medical Center] was right across the street fromNIH. It was very convenient. I was living up in Silver Spring at first.

NORTON: What did you do in this job for thecommission effort?

MACKINNON: I worked for one of the institutes,Child Health and Human Development. The institute was looking to build alaboratory building on the campus up there. They wanted somebody with anarchitecture background to help them develop the program with the doctors andthen to go out and interview architecture firms and oversee what they weredoing—which is kind of funny, but it was great because I got to meet a lot ofwell-known architects around the country and visited many laboratories aroundthe country—even  Puerto Rico—to see whatwas the best setup for NIH. I spent two years there, and then I was looking fora job downtown because at the time I was dating my wife.

NORTON: Jan.

MACKINNON: Jan. She was downtown because sheworked for Don Edwards—the congressman from California where she’s from. I waslooking for a downtown job because she worked at one of the house officebuildings. I applied to the National Capital Planning Commission, better knownas NCPC. They took me. So I moved down to 118 Fourth Street NE  to an apartment. We got married, and I spentprobably five years there working with various…

NORTON: At the planning commission.

MACKINNON: At the planning commission … workingwith architects who were coming in. Our job was to review all of the masterplans for federal installations in the five-county National Capitol Region andalso to approve site and building plans for individual buildings. The funnything here is that the building for the research facility at NIH then came tothe planning commission, and I had to review that building design.

NORTON: That you had…

MACKINNON: …That I had worked on with thearchitects in developing the program for it. I probably should have recusedmyself, but we approved it. It was a well known Boston architectural firm,which I can’t remember the name of right now. But they never built thebuilding. I don’t know if they couldn’t get the money or whatever, but theynever built it. That was kind of a funny series of events.

NORTON: So all of those years of your professionallife, and they never built it.

MACKINNON: Right. I like to think that I had aninfluence over who they chose as the architectural firm. It was probably theone that I wanted to have. I was only a young kid. I was 26, 27.

NORTON: Backing up just a second. How did you meetJan?

MACKINNON: Again, I think it was this friend ofmine from graduate school who lived here. I was trying to think of how thisactually happened. I’m not sure I can really remember, but as I mentionedbefore, a number of my classmates from North Carolina moved to Washington. Somelived in Fairfax, some lived up in Montgomery County, some lived in DC. Theywere going to have a Halloween party, a costume party. I had just moved downhere … this was in ’65, probably October ’65 … I’d just moved in. I talked tomy friend Denis Hazen, and he said, “Well, I have a friend who knows ofsomebody that you could take to this party.” It was Jan. She was living up inAdams Morgan at the time, and she had a car. I did not have a car when I firstmoved here. I was taking the bus from Silver Spring to NIH every day. So, Isaid, “I’ll cook dinner if you come up and drive us to this party, which is outin Fairfax.”

NORTON: Who is this you’re saying to?

MACKINNON: To Jan.

NORTON: To Jan. Okay, she’s the friend who wasgoing to…

MACKINNON: She was the friend of a friend, I meanit’s a little complicated because Denis knew somebody named Kincy Potter, Ithink, and Kincy and Jan had gone to Rutgers together in graduate school andwas here. I think that’s the connection.

I called her. She said, “Yeah, I’m game.” So, she droveup. She had a Chevy Malibu convertible. I gave her dinner, and we got out tothis party. I went as a moving box. I had so many boxes of stuff in my place. Iput this big one over me, and that was my costume. I can’t remember what shewas. That’s how we met. She probably should never have let me have another date,because we got out to Fairfax and another one of my friends [who] lived only acouple of blocks from me in Silver Spring said, “Well, I’ll drive you back soyour date doesn’t have to go back to Silver Spring and then back downtown.” So,I said, “Oh, that sounds good. Is that alright with you?” Later on, I found [out]that Jan had no idea where she was or how to get back to where she lived.Anyway, that’s a strange story.

NORTON: No, it’s a good one.

MACKINNON: Everybody has their different ways ofmeeting. But that’s how we met, and then we dated off and on for almost twoyears, I guess, and decided to get married in the summer of ’67. That’s notwhen we were married, but that’s when we decided we’d get married.

NORTON: Then moved into 118 Fourth Street?

MACKINNON: Right.

NORTON: How long were you there?

MACKINNON: Just two years because we bought thishouse in the summer of ’69, right after the riots when prices were ideal.

NORTON: At that point.

MACKINNON: I mean, we weren’t making great salaries.I was a GS-7 or 9 or something. At the time she was working for a congressman.I think together we each earned maybe 12 or 13 thousand dollars each.

NORTON: Together, right?

MACKINNON: No, each. We were okay financially tobuy a house. My parents were willing to give us five thousand dollars for thedeposit, which today … you’d never get that. We moved there, and then boughtthis house here which we thought was on the fringe of redevelopment or whateverthey called it.

NORTON: Right, well Seventh Street Northeast, yes.

MACKINNON: I worried that she would be able towalk to her job.

NORTON: At the Congress, yeah.

MACKINNON: But it worked out. When we moved herethe trees were little, tiny, diminutive things on the block, and now they’re inthe second generation of new trees on this block, or the third or the fourth orwhatever.

NORTON: Before I go on, what do you remember aboutthe riots?

MACKINNON: We were living on Fourth Street at thetime. Fourth Street is one-way going south.

NORTON: It was, even then, right?

MACKINNON: It was. It’s funny. There was a youngcouple also on the block. We had a little porch on the back, on the secondstory of this house. We could see this young couple. They dressed hippy-like,and they would sit out on their little balcony. Well, they skedaddled. Theyleft during the riots because people were driving down Fourth—constant trafficfrom further up Northeast because H Street was on fire, as was Seventh Northwestwhere a lot of the fires were.

I was working at NCPC [National Capital Planning Commission]downtown. She was working, of course, at the Capitol. I was in the NewExecutive Office Building at that time. NCPC was in that building on 17^thStreet [Northwest]. We overlooked Lafayette Square from our offices. You couldsee the smoke going up from various buildings that caught on fire.

I believe they let us all out of work early. Figuring thebuses would be impossible—this was before Metro—I walked home because it wasn’tthat far. I was walking up the Mall, and people were racing across. Touristshad no idea what was going on. They were just ambling around on the [National] Mallwhere all these people were racing across. Cars were driving on sidewalks toget out of town because everyone was panicked.

And then these hippies left town. We stayed. In fact, on thesecond day, another one of my graduate school friends who lived over inAlexandria called. Their neighbor was a United Airlines pilot and had a smallplane. He asked us, “Do you want to go up in the plane today and look at theriot situation?” We said, “Oh sure.” At this time there was a curfew in thecity at six or seven o’clock. We went over to Alexandria, and then we drove outto a little airport which was down beyond…

NORTON: Was it Bailey’s Crossroads?

MACKINNON: No, beyond Andrews Air Force Base.

NORTON: Oh, so it was out in Maryland.

MACKINNON: Yeah. I forget the name. We went up inthis plane, and it was like [seeing] an industrial city. All the smoke. Godknows whether he was allowed to fly where we were flying. We had our tour. Thenwe came back.

When we were driving in, we were beyond the curfew, and aNational Guard stopped us as we were coming down A Street, to get to FourthStreet. He said, “You know there’s a curfew.” Jan said, “The President hascalled this a day of mourning, and we live here, and get out of our way.” Theguy backed down. It was an interesting time.

I guess a year later, the people who owned our buildingdecided to renovate various apartments during their [free] time, at night andon weekends. They renovated the apartment below us and the apartment above, butnot us. They stepped through the ceiling of our bathroom when they were doingthe one upstairs. We thought, “We’ve we’d had enough of this. Let’s get out ofthis apartment.” So, we started looking for houses. I think it was DaleDenton’s firm that steered us around. We found this place after looking at someother places which were in not-so-great condition. This house was pretty good.They had renovated a lot of things. A lot of it is still the way it was[laughs].

NORTON: When you got here?

MACKINNON: Yeah, right. I made some improvements tothe house. We moved here.

NORTON: At some point, I think you’ve told me thatwhen you moved in, you were about the youngest folks in the neighborhood, andnow you’re the oldest.

MACKINNON: Right. I think I’m the oldest. I’m notsure, maybe the psychiatrist—a woman doctor a couple doors down—might have acouple years on me.

NORTON: What was the neighborhood like when youmoved in?

MACKINNON: There were a number of older peopleliving in the block. There was a young family of African American people acrossthe street in this tiny little house. I don’t know how they ever lived in it. Alot of younger people were moving in. Probably taking advantage of the price ofhouses on Capitol Hill at the time. This house was $34,000. If you extrapolatefor inflation, $34,000 today would be about $288,000 now. But these houses aregoing for over a million dollars now, which is absolutely ridiculous. I thinkit’s a reflection of the real estate folks that permeate the Hill.

NORTON: When you were both working, how much didyou interact with the neighborhood? Would you sit out on the front stoop, goout and walk and all that?

MACKINNON: Yeah. In fact, across the street therewas a guy who worked for an Iowa congressman. I don’t know what thecongressman’s name was. He was sort of the mayor of the block. He would sit outthere at night with his beer and smoke. His name was Jim Locke. He took care ofthe block. When he died, a metal plaque was placed in one of the tree pits infront of his former house with a dedication to him. It’s still there, which iskind of funny. I think it was very sociable then. People socialized. Evenbefore we had kids, we would have what they called progressive dinners. We wentto a different house for the different parts of the dinner. One for appetizers,one for the main course, one for dessert, and maybe one for drinks after.

NORTON: Was it all on the same block?

MACKINNON: More or less. I think there were theMcMahons who lived across the street and there had to have been [another] fouror five of us [couples] because not many more could fit in those houses fordinner. We may have gone maybe a block or two away. I don’t know how long thatlasted. I probably still have some of the liquor from it. [Laughter.] I wasn’tmuch of a liquor drinker. Neither is Jan. Then we started having kids, all ofus. There were lots of little kids on the block. The kids would play out on thesidewalks.

When we moved into this house there was one of theselittle Safeways on the block.

NORTON: On this same block?

MACKINNON: Yeah, right. Right in the middle of theblock two doors down from us. There was a Safeway. We thought, “This is great.We don’t have to get in the car to go shopping.” That lasted three months. Thenthey closed it. There were a series of little Safeways on Capitol Hill. Therewas one where the Latter-day Saints church is now down in Southeast on Seventh.There was one across from Eastern Market where the health building is, andthere was one up here on Eighth Street with a rooftop parking lot.

NORTON: They were all Safeways?

MACKINNON: They were all Safeways, yes.

NORTON: I remember the one that had rooftopparking briefly was the second coming of Shelton’s Market Basket. Yes

MACKINNON: Shelton’s Market, right…that sponsoredone of the races one year for the Capitol Hill Classic. Yeah. It was great.Today we now have a crop of little kids again on the block. But they don’t goout. They’re not outside. They’re not doing anything. I think they’re allinside working on their phones or playing computer games or whatever, but youdon’t see them.

NORTON: Even in the nice weather, you don’t seethem.

MACKINNON: Yeah, you don’t see them like it usedto be. Steve Kinsley who lives two doors down here moved in maybe a year or twoafter we did. He used to have a bench out on the sidewalk, and he would sit outon his bench. Of course, he tied it to the fence so that nobody would take hisbench. He had a bench out there. He would sit out there. We would sit out thereand chat or whatever. The kids would be running up and down on their hotwheels. They didn’t have skateboards, I don’t think.

NORTON: They were those plastic tricycle kind ofthings.

MACKINNON: Yeah, right, right. In front of thatSafeway it was all brick paved. So, that was their play place. They used tothrow tennis balls against the wall, because the Safeway, when it closed, itbecame a professional photography studio for a long time until they took thebuilding down and built two big townhouses there, three-story, four-storytownhouses.

NORTON: Do you remember roughly when that was?

MACKINNON: I was trying to think. I think that wasin the 90s. Each floor of the house came on a flatbed truck. [Using] a bigcrane, they would stack them. They were all pre-fabricated basically in afactory and brought and put up … Those houses, they were in the mid-hundreds ofthousands of dollars when they built them, now 2 million dollars or somethingfor one of those houses because they have elevators, and they have rentableunits in the basement. It’s been a change. There isn’t as much sidewalk space,so to speak. But you really don’t see these kids out. Some of them are preteen,teenage, but they seem to stay inside a lot, which is unfortunate, I think.

NORTON: Since we’re now talking about kids, youand Jan had three kids, right?

MACKINNON: Right.

NORTON: Rebecca, Timothy, and Emily, right?

MACKINNON: Right.

NORTON: When was Rebecca born?

MACKINNON: Rebecca was born in September of 1972.She was adopted because, you know, birth control pills back in those days weresuper strong. They hadn’t perfected them very well. It really messed up Jan’sreproductive system. We figured we couldn’t have children. So, we opted foradoption. That’s how Rebecca came to us. [Laughs.] Then we went to Mexico Cityon a vacation. We always say that Timothy was the child of a Mexican gardener[laughter] because suddenly we found ourselves pregnant with Timothy in 1975 … wellin ’74 because he was born in March of ’75. Then we had Emily in ’78. Then wesaid, “That’s enough.” [Laughs.]

NORTON: So, you have kids. In my experience,things change when you have kids.

MACKINNON: Well, yeah. The size of the house wasone consideration. This house has got three bedrooms and a bath and a half. We  put an addition on after Timothy was born,because we were tired of having all the of the play stuff in the living room,and the kitchen was really pretty small. So, we filled in the dog leg and thenadded a room on the back. Fortunately, we had a large enough lot, because ourlot goes back much further than any other one on this row of houses. So, wewere allowed to put [on] an addition.

There were times when we considered, “Well, how can weexpand this house.” We could put another floor on top. Or, the house next doorwas being rented at the time, and with Steve Kinsley who was two doors over, wethought maybe we could buy that house and split the two floors so one of uscould have access to one floor and the other could have the other floor. Wethought about all these possibilities.

NORTON: Isn’t it funny how everybody around heredoes that. They have these fantasies about how you’re going to get more space.

MACKINNON: Right. What we ended up doing involvedour middle bedroom. At first, we had the two girls in there and Tim in the backroom, which is really small. It’s maybe ten by ten or something like that. Wehad the larger front room.  

When the girls were getting tired of being on top of eachother in bunk beds, I said, “Okay, I will split our bedroom into two sections,two sort of private sections.” So, I built a cantilevered bed over the otherone and divided it up so one of them had the bay window and the other one hadthe other window. It worked for quite a while. And we squeezed ourselves into themiddle bedroom with a queen size bed that about filled the bedroom. That’s howwe solved that problem.

NORTON: How did your activities­­—yourneighborhood activities—and everything else change when you started havingkids?

MACKINNON: We then had babysitting issues, so thatled us to the Babysitting Co-op. There were childcare issues even though Janhad moved from working for a congressman to working for the DC budget office. Whenwe adopted Rebecca, she immediately stopped working at the Budget Office. Atthat time, I was still working downtown at NCPC. So, there was a cooperativeplay group over at the Baptist Church at A and Sixth [Northeast]. Did your kidsget in that? Were your kids’ ages at all the same as our kids?

NORTON: My kids tend to be a little bit youngerthan yours, but Emily was roughly the same age as our oldest.

MACKINNON: Okay. That’s what they did. The motherswould alternate duty so that one day Jan would have all the kids, and anotherday Lorie Garrison would have [them]. I don’t know if she’s involved [in theOverbeck Project]. They lived on Fourth Street Southeast. That was that. As wegot more kids …

I changed jobs in ’73. I was getting tired of theplanning commission. I didn’t have any confidence anymore in the director who Ithought was sort of an idiot. I’ll not mention any names. I did what mostpeople would not do, I advised the Civil Service Commission, which is now theOffice of Personnel Management, that I was looking for a job in the federalsystem because I was already in the federal system. NCPC is a federal entity.

Lo and behold, some people over in the Pentagon werelooking for people with planning backgrounds, architecture backgrounds, becausethey were dealing with the closure of military bases which involved planningwith communities on what to do with the properties. So, I went over there andinterviewed and got a job in ’73. I moved to the Pentagon.

Of course, this was still when people were really volatileabout defense issues. During the Vietnam time we went and marched with theprotest marches downtown. I remember in one of them we were carrying candles.By the time we got to the Treasury building, we put all our candles on the wallof the Treasury building, the lighted candles.

NORTON: With the melted wax or whatever it was.

MACKINNON: Right, right, exactly, yeah. A lot ofmy friends said, “Are you crazy going to the Pentagon?” [Laughs.] I said,“Well, it’s not a defense job like you think. This is working with communitiesaround the country, helping them transition from a defense economy to adifferent kind of economy.”

NORTON: How long did you stay there?

MACKINNON: Thirty-seven years.

NORTON: Is that where you ultimately retired from?

MACKINNON: Yeah. It was called the Office ofEconomic Adjustment. It started back in the 60s when they had to close somemilitary bases around the country. There were several rounds of closures ofbases. Then there was the downturn in defense contract spending which affectedlocal communities around the country. I traveled a lot. At least once a month,maybe for a couple of days.

NORTON: How did you get to work when you startedover there? There wasn’t any Metro, I guess.

MACKINNON: No. Actually, when Jan and I wereworking downtown, we biked to work. We started taking the bus, and then we gotinto biking. This was when miniskirts were very popular. It would have been inthe late 60s or early 70s.

NORTON: Early 70s, yes.

MACKINNON: Jan would ride in her miniskirt downthe Mall on her bicycle and get all kinds of comments, shall we say. [Laughter.]I never did. Obviously in inclement weather, you took the bus or something toget there.

NORTON: You would ride your bike over to thePentagon?

MACKINNON: Oh yeah. I rode my bike to the Pentagonfor that whole 37 years, unless the weather was really bad , really cold orsnowy or icy. I would cross the 11^th Street Bridge or the MemorialBridge, when they were redoing the 11^th Street Bridge sidewalks.

NORTON: You mean the 14^th StreetBridge, right?

MACKINNON: I’m sorry, 14^th Street.You’re right to correct me. Now I go across the 11^th Street Bridgesometimes on my bicycle. Yeah. I had a rule that I would bike if it was above22 degrees or the wind was less than 12 miles an hour. Crossing the river was areal challenge in the cold, cold winter with the winds coming down, even if itwas 30 degrees it would freeze this side of your face [right side]. I wore allkinds of … What did they call those things?  Balaclavas—those head things that just theeyes and the mouth show up. Yeah.

NORTON: You were a lot tougher than I was duringthat time.

MACKINNON: There were a couple other guys in ouroffice that biked. Occasionally, the director of our office biked in from FallsChurch where he lived. Another guy lived further up Northwest, and he wouldbike in, but not as much as I did. It was great. It only took a half hour. Youcouldn’t do it any faster on the Metro. Before I biked over there, I would takebuses. You go down here and take the 30 something down to where the Air andSpace Museum is, and then you transferred to a bus that went over to thePentagon, and back.

NORTON:Going back. You now have kids. In terms of childcare, there’s the cooperativeplay school.

MACKINNON: And the Babysitting Co-op for nighttimegetaway [laughs].

NORTON: What do you remember about the BabysittingCo-op?

MACKINNON: I remember the tickets.

NORTON: That would be the little scrip that had ahalf hour on it, yes.

MACKINNON: Yeah, yeah, the little scrip, right,right. We collected them more than we used them. It was interesting going todifferent people’s houses, taking care of different people’s kids. After awhile we kind of gave up on doing that because we had so many excess scrips.There was something you could do with the excess scrips. You couldn’t sell themfor money.

NORTON: Those of you who hoarded the tickets weremaking it a problem for the little economy that they had.

MACKINNON: I suppose, I suppose, yeah.

NORTON: After playschool, where did your kids goto school?

MACKINNON: They went to public school because Iwent to public school. Jan was very supportive of public schools having gone tothem in California—Los Angeles and Hollywood—where she was from. So, they wentto … well, let’s see. Rebecca went to Edmonds. I can’t remember where it was.Over in the Northeast somewhere.

NORTON: Like D Street or something like that[Ninth and D Streets NE].

MACKINNON: Yeah. She first went there—that wasbefore Peabody. Then they all went to Peabody, they went to Watkins, and theywent to Hobson.

NORTON: All three of them.

MACKINNON: All three of them, yeah. In terms ofhigh school, that’s a whole different issue. By that time Rebecca was very muchinto acting.

NORTON: After she had finished at Stuart Hobsonthen, yeah.

MACKINNON: Even before that. She’d been in CHAW[Capitol Hill Arts Workshop] things and over on the other side of town. Iforget what that was. She was in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory withJohn O’Brien at some theater over in Georgetown. She was interested in going toDuke Ellington, I think at the time because of her performing arts interest.She also sang. But we were concerned about the academic exposure that youwouldn’t get at Duke Ellington. Looked at Wilson. Those were the only placesthat you would think of going. That was before the school up by HowardUniversity was formulated as an academic school. [Benjamin Banneker AcademicHigh School]

NORTON: I’m trying to think.

MACKINNON: You have the same problem I haveremembering some of these names. It is quite a while ago. She ended up going tothe Field School, going to private school. We did [that] with all three kids.When Emily was finished in ’96, I said to the director, “You know, this cost usabout $100,000.” Of course, today that would be nothing. If you went to theField School today it would probably be $50,000 or more a year. In those days,I think it was $6,000, because when Rebecca went to UMASS [University ofMassachusetts] for college, UMASS was cheaper than Field [in terms of what you werepaying] for out-of-state tuition for a state school back then. We’re talkingabout the 90s.

NORTON: Did you all have—before high school—didyou all have questions or concerns about the public schools? Was there anyquestion in your mind as to whether you should send your kids someplace else?

MACKINNON: No, I don’t think so. Jan, when shewasn’t working, she was working with … I think this was pre-cluster … she wasworking with the kids over at Watkins on an enrichment program for arts—culturalkind of stuff—when DC Public Schools had nothing like that.

NORTON: Right, Veola Jackson always tried to finda way to do it.

MACKINNON: Right, right. Veola Jackson found a wayto do anything [laughs]. She’s a legend with us old-timers. It was never aquestion about that. Veola developed a good solid [education] so that peoplewanted to send their kids there (the Capitol Hill Cluster School)—even peopleout-of-boundary would be sending their kids there when they could do [it].. [No,there was no question.]

NORTON: Do you remember anything about when theCluster was formed? There was a certain amount of a flap around then. I don’tknow if you remember anything about it.

MACKINNON: I read about that when I wastranscribing some other [Capitol History Project] interviews, particularlySharon Raimos’ one, probably. Jan would know. As I say, I was traveling so muchthat I wasn’t that much involved. Although, I was aware that we had a lot offundraisers, and there was always this question of the not-so-well-off familiesversus the well-off families on Capitol Hill as to what kind of fundraisingthings we should have. People had different ideas about that. That’s when therace started, the Capitol Hill Classic race started somewhere in that period.As I’ve mentioned before, Shelton’s grocery store funded some of the earlyraces.

NORTON: I know Jan talked about it in herinterview about the founding of the race. I think it was ‘82, ’83, somethinglike that. Early 80s. I think Shelton’s was the first sponsor.

MACKINNON: Yeah. I don’t know if I still have thattee shirt, I know it was yellow with red writing. I used to keep those teeshirts. Now they’ve become painting shirts for when I have to paint a room, Iuse some such shirts. I still have a number of them.

NORTON: They’re classics, however.

MACKINNON: Yeah. I got involved with the race, thefinish line. Running the finish line of the race for several years, I don’tknow how long.

NORTON: Do you remember … were you there rightfrom the beginning doing the finish line or pretty close to the beginning?

MACKINNON: I think so. Hard for me to put a stampon it because my kids were going to the Cluster Schools from … it would have tobe from ’77. I don’t know if they had pre-K then, but from kindergarten atleast, and Rebecca would have been in kindergarten in ’77  when she was five. They were all going thereuntil the late 80s, I guess. No, no, late 80s or early 90s.

NORTON: What do you remember about the CapitolHill Classic race?

MACKINNON: It kept getting bigger and bigger. Itwas a frenetic thing to get organized. Getting people to help, volunteering, theplanning meetings, and being there early to set up the finish line … becausethere were these different lanes that people had to go through. You had tocount them almost by hand as people came across … the time stamps and all thatsort of stuff.

NORTON: I remember hearing that if somebody wentin the wrong lane it screwed everything up.

MACKINNON: I never ran it myself. I wasn’t much ofa jogger. I used to jog a little bit. That meant running down East CapitolStreet to the Capitol, around on the terraces on the west side of the Capitol—when you could do that—then coming back. That’s about all the jogging I did. I rodea bicycle to work every day, ten miles there and back. I figured I was gettingenough exercise. People convinced me that I should do some jogging too. I didthat until I took a bicycle trip to Provence [France]. That would have beensometime in the 2000s. Our luggage was stolen, and my sneakers were stolen aspart of that. So, I didn’t buy another pair of sneakers. and I didn’t jog afterthat [laughter].

NORTON: The handwriting on the wall.

MACKINNON: These decisions are made on stupidhappenings.

NORTON: Do you remember any unusual stories aboutthe Classic or anything that you remember being particularly interesting orunusual?

MACKINNON: My memory’s not great on all of that.It’s like when my kids get together, and they talk about growing up. I say, “Ohreally? That happened? Oh, I don’t remember that.” There’s a lot of stuff Ithink … parents are unique in that you just kind of park [thoughts] somewhereback in your brain cells that say, “Don’t open these anymore.” [Laughter.]Certain things, of course, you remember, but about the race, not particularly.It was fun. You always wished it wasn’t going to rain. They’ve been extremelylucky over, what, 30 years, 40 years that they really haven’t had a washout.It’s been kind of chilly sometimes.

NORTON: They had some rain, but not likeyesterday. Any other memories of fundraisers and stuff for Peabody or theCluster or anything like that? Other than the race, do you remember?

MACKINNON: I don’t know if this was a fundraiser.We had one over at what used to be the Children’s Museum in Northeast. I think itwas more a sayonara for Veola Jackson. The only reason I remember that isbecause when I transcribed Sharon Raimos’ [interview], she talked about that alot. I remember getting in a costume. I was a clown or something. That was abig event. Didn’t we also have some potluck suppers or something like that?

NORTON: That’s probably right. It sounds right,yes.

MACKINNON: I think they tried to do a jazz concertat one time.

NORTON: That’s right. See what you do remember?What other sort of neighborhood [happening], particularly with your kids, didyou get involved with? I know you mentioned the Arts Workshop, CHAW.

MACKINNON: And Cub Scouts.

NORTON: How did you get involved in the ArtsWorkshop?

MACKINNON: Rebecca was involved. I think she wasthe only one of [our] kids that got involved with the Arts Workshop. I don’tremember what year the Fantastics came out.

NORTON: I have my little list, and unfortunatelythe Fantastics was put on several times. I think the one you’re talkingabout was November ’84, something like that. Does that sound right?

MACKINNON: Probably. She would have been…

NORTON: That would have made her made her what,eleven, something like that?

MACKINNON: Yeah, something like that. I think shehad the lead role in that as I recall. They did it somewhere with a staircase,so it may have been in the CHAW building while they were renovating it, I’m notsure.

NORTON: They did some over at Christ Church parishhall too.

MACKINNON: I remember that because Steve Johnsonmentioned [that] when I was transcribing his interview, which is also helpfulin jogging my memory. She did that, and then she was in Oliver. She andJohn O’Brien were buddies, although I think John is maybe a year younger thanshe is. I’m not sure.

NORTON: I know she was in— and I sent you apicture—she was in Music Man too the year before Oliver. She was oneof our—Linda [Linda Norton] and my—little family along with Toby and AliceJane.[DP1] 

MACKINNON: Yeah. I don’t know if she’s the onethat roped me into being in Oliver, because I was in Oliver. Iwas one of the leering street people or whatever. I had to sing. It was a duetwith Rebecca, or somebody. I’m not big on singing. I was in the choir atCornell, the chapel choir, but never really in any musical productions. So,that was a challenge. I remember people who went to that performance said,“Gee, I didn’t know you could sing,” I said, “Well, everybody who did things atCHAW had to learn to sing.” Steve Johnson talked about that extensively in hisinterview.

NORTON: Sally [Carlson Crowell] would recruitanybody.

MACKINNON: Right. I don’t know if Rebecca was inother ones. Then Parker Jane recruited me for the production of Peter andthe Wolf. I played clarinet in high school and college orchestras and bands,and things like that. But I hadn’t done anything after that. So, he had hislittle chamber orchestra for that production. The clarinet is the cat. The catplays in a lot of the parts. It was a real challenge because I have a B flat clarinet,and the music was written in another key. I had to transpose in my head while Iwas playing  from the music. That was a realchallenge. [Laugh.]

NORTON: Anything else you remember about the ArtsWorkshop?

MACKINNON: For me, no. Tim or Emily may have takenart courses there, but I don’t remember exactly.

NORTON: Now.

MACKINNON: Cub Scouts. That had to be in the earlyto mid-eighties as best I can remember I was looking at some photographs—fortunatelyJan put some dates on the back of them–of Tim in his Cub Scout uniform. Jan wasa den leader. She had six kids here. Of course, Tim, Jonathan Kinsely, andother kids. Roberta Blanchard’s boy was, I think, in her den.

NORTON: Eliot?

MACKINNON: Eliot, yeah, and a couple of others. Wehad to buy a bigger car then. We had a Volkswagen—they call them a Golf now,but it was a Rabbit at the time. With three kids in a Rabbit, there’s no roomfor six little boys. We didn’t want a minivan. We looked at those and thought, “Oh,no way, I’m going to have a minivan,” so we bought a Dodge Colt. It had threerows of seats so there was enough room for Jan and the six kids in that car.

NORTON: The whole den.

MACKINNON: The whole den. I was the pack leader.

NORTON: Where were the pack meetings?

MACKINNON: They were over at St. Peter’s. Thatpack was being headed by Merle Van Horne. He asked if I would help him. Well,turned out that he wanted to turn it over to me. I said, “Well with all mytravels and stuff, how am I going to do this?” So, Howard Moody lived here, andhis son Aaron must have been in Jan’s den, he agreed for us to be co-packleaders. We did that for, gosh, I don’t know, three years or so while they werecub scouts. None of them went into Boy Scouts as far as I can tell. That wasfun at St. Peter’s.

NORTON: Why do you say it was fun?

MACKINNON: I am not a practicing religious person,even though I was raised Episcopalian. After college I didn’t participate inreligion very much. A lot of the parents thought I should do more praying andstuff at these meetings, and I was not going to do that. I think there was alittle bit of tension there with some of the parents. Howard and I took thekids to camp one time for one week.

NORTON: Which camp?

MACKINNON: Goshen, I think, down in Virginia.

NORTON: Down in Virginia.

MACKINNON: Yeah. That was an experience, I tellyou. [Laughs.]

NORTON: Why do you say that?

MACKINNON: We all met somewhere out in Virginiawhere the bus was. All these parents brought all this stuff for their kids.They said, “Oh, by the way, here’s a bag of medicines, because my son has thisand my son…” I thought, “Oh, my lord.” [NORTON laughs.]

NORTON: So, now you’re the pharmacist for thewhole pack.

MACKINNON: Right, right. For various allergymedicines or whatever. When you get down there, they send your group to somecampsite up in the woods somewhere. You have to walk and carry all your stuffup there. The first night some kids were getting very homesick. You’d bringthem down to the central building with a flashlight through the woods at night,if they had developed a cough or allergies. Then some of the kids wanted todisrupt all the games. So, we had issues like that. It was quite an experience.None that we would do again—[laughter] we had that experience.

NORTON: Before I go, leaving school. A couple ofquestions. Why Field? Why did you all pick Field out of all the other possible[schools]?

MACKINNON: You’d have to ask Jan. In terms ofeducation, I would rely on her to make decisions on that. Field probably wasless expensive than a place like Maret. We didn’t want to send them to aCatholic school like St. Albans (St. Albans is an Episcopal school), where someof the kids on the Hill were going then. Probably interviewing the director,Mrs. Ely [Elizabeth C. Ely], we were impressed by her philosophy. It was veryinformal. They were in two little townhouses over above Dupont Circle. Hadhardly any recreation space but a paved [area], would have been a parking lot,I suppose.

NORTON: Blacktop….

MACKINNON: …Blacktop area. The way they were teachingwas good, we thought.

NORTON: As I recall, Jan ended up working for theCluster, or how did that work?

MACKINNON: Jan’s educational background is inpolitical science. She had a master’s in political science , as well as later amaster’s in library science. I guess, when Bob Boyd was running for the schoolboard, he asked her to co-chair his campaign. It was successful. At that point,Emily was in school, and she felt she could go back to work. He asked her to workfor him in his office.

NORTON: Bob Boyd asked Jan to work for him?

MACKINNON: Right, Bob Boyd. It was from ten totwo. Fit the school [hours]; kids would be at school so she could be home whenthey came home from school. She did that … gee, I don’t remember how long BobBoyd served.

NORTON: That would have been downtown then at theschool board office there.

MACKINNON: Right.

NORTON: Which we all in the public schools wouldcall downtown.

MACKINNON: Which Veola Jackson would say, “I toldthose people downtown!” [laughter] “I need such and such or I don’t want suchand such a person on my staff!” [Laughter.]

NORTON: And that was that, right?

MACKINNON: Right, exactly. Veola knew how to getthings done. Jan went back to graduate school in the late 80s in Maryland.

NORTON: This was library science?

MACKINNON: Library science. I guess she decidedthat was an avenue of education that she was interested in from her experiencesworking with Veola and working with Bob Boyd. I think she was also doing assessmentsof school buildings around DC at the time. They were trying to cut back on theschool buildings. Maybe while they were developing the Cluster.

NORTON: But she ended up—I know—at some pointgoing back to work at the Cluster.

MACKINNON: Right. When she got her master’s degreein library science, she then went into the school system and was a librarian atHobson, I think first, and then at Peabody. After Peabody, Jan was at theCapitol Hill Cluster School, well, for 20 years from about 1990 to 2010 whenboth of us retired—yeah, very much involved [there].

NORTON: While you’re talking about it, what do youremember about the Bob Boyd election? Do you remember it was…

MACKINNON: … It was close.

NORTON: …It was very close. I used to always sayhe was Landslide Bob.

MACKINNON: Right, exactly. I don’t remember muchabout it other than there were probably a lot of phone calls made. A lot ofprinted stuff disseminated or mailed. I don’t think I was involved. Again, thatwas the period when I was probably doing a lot of traveling around the UnitedStates at various military bases and communities.

NORTON: Did you all get involved in local politicsbeyond that or beyond Bob’s campaign?

MACKINNON: No. Not for city council or stuff likethat, other than voting for people.

NORTON: Do you remember any other sort of fundraising?We’ve talked about the school fundraisers …   Do youremember any CHAW fundraisers, because they were always trying to raise money.They would have the Christmas Revelry and that sort of thing.

MACKINNON: I do have a recollection of them, but Idon’t think I would have been involved, again because—I was not a nine to fiverat work. I was an 8:30 to 6:30, 7 or…

NORTON: However long it took.

MACKINNON: Yeah, right. That’s the time youactually got work done, when the other guys left or the other staff peopleleft.

NORTON: What about kids’ sports? Did you getinvolved in those at all?

MACKINNON: That was another thing that Jan did alot with the kids. Tim was very much into tennis and baseball growing up, sothere was a lot of going back and forth because there were no ball fieldsaround Capitol Hill. You had to go up into the Northwest to various parks forthe games and the practices. Our car got more mileage just crossing town, goingback and forth. My wife coached softball at Watkins on the field there–theycalled it the glass field because there was so much broken glass on the field.

NORTON: Broken glass. It’s now quite fancy, but itwas not back then.

MACKINNON: Oh yeah. It’s quite fancy now. Theschool wasn’t that fancy [then].

NORTON: Was that for Rebecca or Emily, or both ofthem?

MACKINNON: Now you that you bring it up … Socceron the Hill. I think all of our kids did Soccer on the Hill—Tim probably morethan the girls. I was not a coach. Again, I’m not very much into sports myself.

NORTON: That didn’t seem to stop people fromasking you to be involved.

MACKINNON: I know, I know. I think I was on thesideline cheering them on saying, “No, go after the ball. Don’t stand outthere. Go kick that soccer ball.” Tim went to Gonzaga first for high school. Hecreated so much fuss with the staff over there that they kicked him out when hewas a sophomore, halfway through. That’s went he went to Field.

NORTON: I don’t mean to pry, but what sort of fussdid he…

MACKINNON: As I said, he was into baseball andtennis. He used to play with another kid whose name escapes me for the moment.They were pretty good at playing doubles. He wanted to do that at Gonzaga andhe couldn’t get on the teams. He got frustrated. He kept challenging some ofthe teachers over there on religious stuff. Then he also got involved with someof the kids who lived in the projects just north of Gonzaga and encouraged themto play some havoc with the ball teams or something like that.

I remember going to one of their auctions over there.

NORTON: At Gonzaga?

MACKINNON: At Gonzaga, and that’s how we got ourfirst color television. We bought one there at a good price. That’s when hewent to Field. All of the kids did some kind of sports. I know Emily did fieldhockey when she was at Field. That’s about all I remember.

NORTON: You’ve also been involved with the locallibraries, right, for a long time at least?

MACKINNON: When I retired … I retired on AprilFool’s Day, 2010. I picked that day specifically. [Laughter.] I was wondering,“How can I get involved in volunteer stuff now that I’m retired?” I had a lotof music and artistic kinds of interests, but, I thought, “I’m not going to sitat home and paint or play my clarinet or something like that.”

It took a while for the Federal Office of PersonnelManagement to sort out money and all kinds of things. I got a buyout so there wassome money that I had to pay taxes on. But I split it between two tax years, soI was still on their rolls even though I had retired. Until they paid out mysecond portion the next year, I had to be on their rolls. That complicatedthings for my TSP, Thrift Savings Plan, for the federal government work—transferringthat to my IRA. It took them nine months to figure out how much I would be gettingas a retirement pension. They gave you a temporary one until they figured itout. OPM, the Office of Personnel Management. was overwhelmed with all thepostal worker retirements. It just took a while until all that stuff was sortedout.

I didn’t get involved [in volunteer work] until maybe2011. A good friend of ours, Sharon House—she was Jan’s roommate before we gotmarried—was working with the library book sales at the Southeast Library. Shesaid, “Oh why don’t you come and help us out with that.” “Well, okay thatsounds like I could do that. They have it once a month. I can handle that.”Then some of the other people there said, “I did this stuff at the Hill Center,and they need volunteers for gardening.”

NORTON: The Hill Center was already a goingconcern when you retired, or was it just getting started?

MACKINNON: No. Just getting started. I’m justamazed that I wasn’t involved or didn’t know about all the planning that wenton for the Hill Center in the early 2000s. Again, then I was travelling abroadwith my job. I was going to the former Soviet republics and to the Baltics andthe Balken countries with some NATO-related activities. That probably is why Iwasn’t really focused on what was happening here.

Another one of the volunteers, his name is BarryHarrelson, said he was working at the Hill Center with some of the docentactivities. He said, “We need somebody to do some of that too and to figure outa better way of doing that.” So, I went over there. Nicky Cymrot—we’ve knownNicky Cymrot for a long time but not sure how, because their kids are youngerthan ours.

NORTON: The Cymrots were involved in an awful lotof things.

MACKINNON: In everything, yes, everything. Ithought they owned half of Capitol Hill. They owned a lot of properties onCapitol Hill. It must have been Nicky who said, “We really could use people tohelp maintain the garden.” It just had been planted in 2011. Everything was newand young and small.

NORTON: This would be the garden at the Old NavalHospital, which is now the Hill Center, right?

MACKINNON: Right, exactly. I guess I’m assumingthat people know what the Hill Center is—as a transcriber, I know to go backand remind people what these things used to be. I started doing that[gardening]. They had a couple of volunteers trimming things or weeding. So, Istarted doing that. Then I started doing other things at the Hill Center.Pouring wine and beer for some of their concerts or events. Manning thereception room and things like that.

NORTON: What did you end up doing with the gardensover there? They’re very nice gardens.

MACKINNON: I’m the head volunteer for gardening.They have a contractor that mows the lawn and does some of the heavy work—likein February—all of last year’s dead stuff has to be cleared out of the garden.That’s too much for volunteers to do. So, that gets done. During the year theweeds grow over there in every one of the gardens. You have to maintain them.

Now the gardens have really matured. They’ve been growingfor 13 years, something like that. Everything is much bigger. The trees, the littletrees that were planted now are big trees, and they shade garden parts thatused to be in sun are now in shade, so that the plants die out that wereoriginally planted there because they were sun-loving. Things like that. Othertrees have been taken down. The great big tree in the front was taken down.That used to shade part of the garden so that the shade-loving pachysandra wasnow in the sun, and it all died out. We had to replant sections.

NORTON: Are you involved in deciding what’s got tobe planted in various spots?

MACKINNON: Oh yeah, along with Nicky. The peoplewho designed the garden, the Ohme van Sweden firm on Capitol Hill originallyplanned it. We try to maintain their concept of a series of rooms, which thegarden is. I’ve got maybe six volunteers that I can rely on. I’ve asked peopleto adopt sections of the gardens. I told them,“These are the things you have todo month to month. I’ll remind you. I do stuff, but you can help a lot bytaking care of …” Somebody takes care of the big wisteria plant because thatwould take over the building if not the whole garden if you let it. It’s becomea major volunteer activity from, say, late February through and almost untilDecember.

NORTON: What’s your background in gardening?

MACKINNON: That’s a funny thing you ask. I grew upin suburban New Jersey. We had a big backyard. My parents were much intogardening, particularly my mother … in the floral stuff. We had a victorygarden during the war and grew tomatoes, corn, and strawberries. Had to putnets over them so the birds wouldn’t eat them. All that kind of stuff. Mymother taught me a lot about gardening. Neither one of my brothers would touchthat sort of stuff. They would mow the lawn, but not deal with the plants.

When Rebecca was real young—I was working at that theCapitol Planning Commission—I thought about going back to school to get adegree in landscape architecture. I applied to some places out west. That wasbefore this job at the Pentagon came up—[landscape architecture] kind of disappeared.I guess I’ve always puttered around. I have my own little gardens here, andwhen we were living in an apartment. I had container gardens out on the backporch where we tried to grow radishes or tomatoes. I don’t know, it’s just beenan avocation, I guess.

NORTON: Obviously, you’ve got a talent for it.

MACKINNON: We got away from the library. Frombeing just a volunteer at the sales, [I moved on] to taking the donated booksand organizing them, and that sort of stuff. So, I got much more involved withthat as a core activity.

NORTON: This is the Southeast Library.

MACKINNON: Southeast Library. Now that it’s closed,we are doing [sales] up at the Northeast Library which had stopped having booksales. They had book sales maybe twice a year. We had them every month. So,we’re trying to do that now. We had a fantastic sale last month [March 2024].Garnered over $4,000 at two dollars a book. It used to be a dollar a book, butit’s two dollars a book up there. It was a dollar down at Southeast. But …that’sa lot of books. We had a mob scene, and it was a rainy day.

NORTON: Still doing it once a month, huh?

MACKINNON: Yeah. We’re trying to. We weren’t ableto in January. Our last sale in Southeast was in December [2023]. Then we hadto get rid of what was left. Fortunately, other friends of the library groupsup in Northwest came and took a lot of the books away so they could have sales.There were other organizations that wanted books … we just gave them to them.On the last day, we said, “You name your price. It can be zero. It can bewhatever you want to pay us for books. We need to get rid of them.” We got ridof them over the weekend. It was amazing.

NORTON: Anything else that you want to talk aboutwith the libraries?

MACKINNON: No. I’m sure when the library isrenovated, the Southeast one, that we will reconstitute the book sales there.

NORTON: We’re talking a couple of years, aren’twe?

MACKINNON: Yeah, yeah, if we’re lucky.

NORTON: You’ve also been involved with the CapitolHill Village, right?

MACKINNON: More driving people to shop, to doctorappointments, things like that. Hair appointments. All over. I did that a lotmore before the pandemic. I haven’t done as much lately with that, because wehave another house that I have to take care of. We have a house inChincoteague. We’re there—I would say a third of our time at least. Jan’s theremore than I am. She likes it down there, and she has a lot of activities downthere that she gets involved in. I can only do things that fit into myirregular schedule.

NORTON: That’s the way it ought to be when you’reretired.

MACKINNON: Right, exactly.

NORTON: Then you’ve also been in … and we don’toften get to plug our own group in these interviews … but you’ve been involvedwith the Overbeck interviews and oral history project. What have you been doingwith that?

MACKINNON: I think it started because Jan wasworking with Ruth Ann Overbeck, before she died, on some school-related things.They needed to transcribe some interviews that they had done, that she haddone.

NORTON: Ruth Ann had done.

MACKINNON: Ruth had done, yeah. So, Jan asked meif I would do that. At my job in the Pentagon, I was the writer and editor of alot of our publications. These were how-to guides to community leaders forvarious programs. I’m pretty proficient at typing. The godsend in my highschool years was taking touch typing as a course. When I was working in theDefense Department, I was just appalled at the lack of typing skills thatpeople my age and older didn’t have. They were still doing finger typing. Isaid, “Thank god that I learned how to touch type.” But at any rate, I said,“Okay, I’ll do it.” The first one was for Claire and Larry Davis who wereneighbors around the corner from us. So, I did that one. Then the next one—Ithink—was some woman who had lived on Capitol Hill forever. It just startedwith Bernadette and Jim [McMahon] across the street,  stewarding the project by then I guess. It wasreally easy. Just take the tapes over to me, and I’d transcribe them. I knowthat there are others who do that, but not too many.

NORTON: Oh. We’re very grateful for what you do.Thank you for your services, we tend to say to everybody.

MACKINNON: Yes. As a matter of fact, there weretwo that I did a while ago that have never been posted. So I’ve asked Elizabeth[Lewis] about them, whether she can research it. I still have thetranscriptions, so it’s not that they are lost. It was either that they didn’tget permission to post them, which was one of the cases. The other one I’m notsure. It was Nadine Winter. I’m not sure why it didn’t get posted.

NORTON: She would have been interesting.

MACKINNON: Yeah, she was. I think I’ve done like27 or 30 transcriptions (Mr. MacKinnon has done 35 transcriptions for the RuthAnn Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project), which isn’t [the largestproportion], I mean there are somewhere around 170 [interviews] in there [thewebsite]. Betsy Barnett, I know, but I don’t know the other person. I thinkthere are only three of us that do it now, aren’t there?

NORTON: I know you and Betsy, and I know there’sat least one other person who has done it. I think there may be a few othersthat do it, but not regularly.

MACKINNON: I also did this down at Chincoteaguebecause they were doing an oral history project with the library down there. Wefirst bought a house there in 2006—the wrong time to buy a house. But, we hadno intention of flipping it or anything like that. They were looking forsomebody to transcribe their interviews. So, I offered to do that. I’ve done itin both places a lot. I don’t do it down there anymore. I think they’ve droppedout of that activity. That was a challenge because of the accent, theChincoteague accent.

NORTON: I guess the real local folks down therereally do have an interesting…

MACKINNON: Oh, yes. The older people who havelived their whole lives there, they have very interesting accents. It’s veryhard sometimes to figure out what they’re saying. Yes, that was fun.

NORTON: I have pretty much gone through my, as Icall it, my outline or my cheat sheet. Is there anything else that you canthink of about the neighborhood or Capitol Hill?

MACKINNON: The neighborhood has changed a lot over55 years, actually more than that … 57 years, coming up. I don’t think it’s as diverseas it used to be, racially, which I think is unfortunate. It’s interesting totranscribe different people’s impressions of what was good and what was not sogood. What periods were bad.

NORTON: Different people have a different way oflooking at it, don’t they?

MACKINNON: Yeah, exactly. From the riots to—when ourkids were little, we would tell them, “You do not go below Pennsylvania Avenue.Do not go down to Eight Street below Pennsylvania Avenue. You do not go northof Maryland Avenue.” [Laughs.]

NORTON: But beyond that, your kids would wanderaround the neighborhood too.

MACKINNON: Unfortunately, my son as he got older …when did Sony Walkman’s come out? That would have been in the 80s sometime.

NORTON: Right, yeah.

MACKINNON: He was a night person. He would slipout of the house in the dark at night, listening to it [Sony Walkman]. He gotit stolen from him one time when he was walking around at 11 o’clock, 12o’clock at night when we were sleeping, and he was out just walking around.

NORTON: With the ear plugs in his ears so he was notpaying attention. [headphones, as ear buds hadn’t been invented yet]

MACKINNON: Right, exactly. It’s like people nowwith their phones and stuff. They’re doing their phone, they’re walking acrossthe street, and they’re tapping into their phones. They’re crazy, you know.

Obviously, there were very few restaurants back in the70s and into the 80s.

NORTON: Do you remember any that you particularlywent to?

MACKINNON: We always went to Sanpan, which wasover where, I guess, DC Taco is or someplace like that.

NORTON: Next to the Penn theater there.

MACKINNON: Yeah, right. Didn’t there used to be atheater across the street where the mini mall was built?

NORTON: Yes, and I can’t remember. That was beforemy time.

MACKINNON: There was a Ben Franklin store on thecorner.

NORTON: On the corner which is now the—I don’tremember, there’s been a lot of different things.

MACKINNON: Le Pain Quotidien, yeah.

NORTON: Quotidien, yes.

MACKINNON: That and there was a place on EastCapitol called Mary’s Blue Room which disappeared quickly. The Baptist Churchbought that and had a parking lot there for a while until they built the housesthat Stephanie Deutsch and somebody else live in. Then there was also Jimmy T’s.

NORTON: It’s still there.

MACKINNON: I never ate there. I don’t know why.Then there was Sherrill’s.

NORTON: Oh lord, Sherrill’s.

MACKINNON: Down between, what would that be … Secondand Third.

NORTON: I think you’re right. On Pennsylvania.

MACKINNON: Yeah, on Pennsylvania. Wasn’t muchelse, I don’t think.

NORTON: There’s the Hawk and Dove. Which is in thesame area there.

MACKINNON: Right, right, those kinds of places.And the Tune Inn. Yeah. I took my kids to the Tune Inn once and let them havesome of my beer when they were underage. But then, I’ve learned that thatwasn’t the only time that they drank beer or whatever, underage. [Laughter.]Now Eighth Street has become Restaurant Row. Even though they keep turning overand changing, particularly after the pandemic or during the pandemic. EvenPennsylvania Avenue. Oh, the other place we would go was the Chineserestaurant. [Young Chow] It’s across the way from the other Chinese restaurant [HunanDynasty] between Second and Third. It’s still there. In fact, we had aChristmas dinner there ; not this past Christmas but the Christmas before.Surprisingly it was good, still good. Also, there was a Japanese restaurant atFourth and Pennsylvania for a while that we used to go to when the kids wereteenagers.

Obviously, there have been major changes on the Hill. Notonly in housing, but in the kinds of services and other things. When I did DaleDenton’s interview, he was telling about the bad times in the 90s before theyhad the people that pick up trash and clean up things on the Hill.

NORTON: Oh right, I understand. They’re the folkswho wear the blue uniforms and everything.

MACKINNON: Right, right. When they were trying tostart up the BID [Business Improvement District].

NORTON: The BID, right.

MACKINNON: The BID, yeah. I never knew what that[the BID] was until I was working with the people at the Hill Center. I don’tremember it being bad in the 90s, but that’s when my kids were graduating fromhigh school and in college.

NORTON: That was also the crack epidemic. It wasrough around then.

MACKINNON: Fortunately, my kids, I don’t think,ever got into any of that stuff. I’m sure they experimented with various drugsand perhaps marijuana, I don’t know.

NORTON: Who knows?

MACKINNON: Now you don’t even have to buy it [marijuana]. You just sniff the air down at the park, at the Metro station. It’s reallygreat—I mean the transformation is great of those parks. They were not much ofanything years ago.

NORTON: Parks and playgrounds have gotten muchfancier than they used to be back in the day.

MACKINNON: Over at Peabody, Jan and I got involvedwith building the first jungle gym/exercise thing on the playground there. Theyhave since replaced that one. That was a challenge …working with various DCgovernment people as to what you could and couldn’t do.

NORTON: That may have been in fact what they weretrying to raise money for—for the first Capitol Hill Classic. I’m not positiveabout that.

MACKINNON: It may have been. I remember doing thatand helping put that thing together.

NORTON: I’ve run out of questions.

MACKINNON: I’ve run out of memories.

NORTON: Thank you very much. I really appreciateit.

END OF INTERVIEW

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