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May 13, 2023

About the Susan Anne Carter Plaque near the Smithsonian Castle

“Dear PoPville, I saw your 2014 post asking if anyone knew about the Susan

"Dear PoPville,

I saw your 2014 post asking if anyone knew about the Susan Carter plaque near the Smithsonian Castle. You are right. It was a memorial to a friend of mine who was killed by a car while riding her bike home from work that December in 1993.

I designed the plaque — the "wheel" is a Buddhist Dharmachakra or Wheel of Law whose eight spokes represent the Buddhist eight-fold path (right view, right resolve, right speech, right actions, right occupation, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. — i.e., the sum of the Buddha's first teaching after enlightenment). More than you wanted to know!

I designed the plaque but the woman who killed my friend had it fabricated and affixed to the wooden base and a friend of mine helped get permission from DC to have it installed. (That's a long story. Making the plaque was a condition for settlement of a lawsuit and I was the executor of Susan Carter's estate.) Susan Carter worked at the Department of Energy as a computer programmer and lived in the 2400 block of 20th St. NW in DC and was an avid biker, although more of a pleasure biker than a racer. The plaque was still there a year or so ago but had slipped to the base of the pole. The wood was more weathered and cracked than in your picture. But it was still there."