OVERHEARD: Rosslyn Does Not Equal Rosalynn

I'm introducing Overhead, something I've been wanting to do for a long time, ever since the early days of DCist. I've overheard plenty of things on the Metro over the years and I certainly did incorporate more interesting transit observations into various DCist posts.

My favorite, perhaps is when I overheard a Congressional press office intern from California working for a New York representative tell her friends that she was chewed out for pulling articles from the Los Angeles Times and not The New York Times. Her defense: "I'm from California. How was I supposed to know there was a Times in New York too?" (paraphrased)

Today, I took my sister out for her birthday lunch and was riding the Orange Line back into the District from Virgina when a male 40-something tourist wearing a "Got Freedom?" t-shirt (playing off of the successful "Got Milk?" campaign) exclaimed to his kids while the train was stopped at the Rosslyn station: "Typical. They named a station after Jimmy Carter's wife!"

I would like to note that there is a key difference between Rosslyn (that concrete jungle at the other end of the Key Bridge) and Rosalynn (former first lady): an "a."

In fact, Virginia's Rosslyn traces its name origin to the Collegiate Chapel of St. Matthew (commonly known as Rosslyn Chapel) in Scotland, one of many such 14th and 15th century chapels built in Scotland, many built during the reigns of James I-IV. If you have some time to waste for personal enlightenment, check out this comprehensive site for everything related to these chapels, the Knights Templar and Scottish Freemasonry.