He's a lumberjack
And he's O.K.
He sleeps all night
And he works all day.
                                       John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin,
                                      Terry Jones, Eric Idle, and (not pictured) Terry Gilliam

Here's a link to the entire lyrics of the Lumberjack song.

Back in the 90's I was working out of the Republican National Committee building for Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. As happened nearly every day, I had to go to the Capitol to meet with the Speaker.

The RNC building is about three blocks from the Capitol, and the last third of it is across the Capitol grounds which is generally pretty pleasant.

On the east side of the Capitol is "the plaza" which used to be a parking lot for employees who worked in the Capitol building. In fact, you could cut through the plaza in your car to get from the House office buildings to the Senate office buildings.

Over the years the plaza has been closed to through traffic, then closed to almost all parking. By the time of this story, barriers had been set up at both ends and you had to be cleared in by a uniformed officer.

So, I was walking up - literally - Capitol Hill and, as I did almost every day, walked across the plaza.

I was stopped by a Capitol Policeman who told me I had to walk in the marked cross walks. These were white lines drawn on the pavement which had been wholly and totally ignored for years.

I whined, and muttered but walked where I was told.

I was still muttering when I showed up in the Speaker's office the occupant of which asked me what was wrong.

I told him about the new crosswalk rule and asked him why, when there was virtually no automobile traffic, this new rule had been imposed.

Smoke curled up out of his ears. Calls were made. Details were provided. Staff scurried.

It was determined that Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott had instituted the rule.

Control of the Capitol building is divided between the House and the Senate. It divides exactly down the middle of the building in the center of the Rotunda.

The Speaker and the Majority Leader figured out what had happened: The Senate-side Capitol cops had decided that it was dangerous to have people crossing the plaza willy-nilly and it would be a good idea to make them use the cross walks.

Senator Lott agreed and did a Captain Picard, saying, more-or-less: "Make it so."

The Capitol police decided it was silly to impose such a rule covering only half the plaza so they told all the cops to enforce it.

The Speaker gave the police about a half hour to get the situation appropriately resolved and decided to send someone out to cross wherever they wanted and see what would happen. After doing pirouettes across the plaza for about 15 minutes, I came back into this office and reported that the situation had been resolved and individual liberties had been restored.

                      "Dividing Line"

(Office of the Curator, U.S. Capitol) ____________________________________________________________________________________