As I write this letter, I sit here looking at an “Easter at the White House 1987”  Easter Egg Hunt souvenir booklet.

In that year, my loving wife (who passed away last year after 49 years of marriage) and I brought our three children to that event on the South Lawn of the White House.  They each got to search through the hay and came away with a souvenir wooden pastel colored Easter egg (two yellows and one blue, autographed by a member of the New Orleans Saints, Kansas City Royals and the Atlanta Falcons; one autograph per egg). Those eggs are still, after 39 years, on display in a curio cabinet in our living room. Such a fond remembrance.

On the news recently I saw a report showing that same lawn being prepared for a mixed martial arts event! The White House, America’s greatest symbol of elective democracy, has been turned into an abomination. The majesty and dignity of that building has been completely, and I fear irrevocably, tarnished.

I deeply love my country and all the opportunities it has afforded me. So please don’t consider me in any way unpatriotic when I say I would prefer to see England attack Washington, D.C., and burn the White House to the ground again rather than see what it has been turned into. 

This transformation, in all of its recent iterations, is such a travesty. I would hope that most Americans, regardless of their political affiliation, feel the way I do.

Raymond Wynne
Portland