So now I was in line (about 5:10am) and looking at nearly 3 hours until the gates opened at 8am. There was not too much to do but talk to the other people in line and harbor an increasing concern over how my feet were going to fare, as the cold continued to slowly make its way past the soles of my boots and through the "smart wool" socks I was wearing. But the view was good.
By the time the gates opened at about 7:45am (15 minutes early), I had purchased a couple of those chemical heating packets and placed one in either boot up near the toes. This, of course, felt like I had two big heating packets in my boots, sans the heat, unfortunately. The chemicals never did their thing, and the smart wool should have been held back a grade. My feet were freezing and remained that way all day. Here's a picture of Chuck and Pam. They were ardent Obama supporters, and had come all the way from Los Angeles:
And Lucien. Not sure where he was from, but he was a former IBM IT guy, like I am now (well, contractor for same):
The line started moving, which was a tremendous relief. We all knew that getting past the gate just meant another 3 hours of standing prior to anything happening, but it was a relief to no longer be standing still, and to know that the day was progressing.
With all the conversation in line, the first 3 hours actually passed relatively quickly, and I would have loved to have stood with Lucien, Chuck, and Pam in the Yellow section the rest of the day, but when I got to the gate, I turned and walked back through the line and never found them again. There was a girl back there, maybe 20 years old, with her friend, and as I had been making my way steadily toward the gate the following scene had played out. A young guy comes meandering through the crowd repeating, "Hey, did anyone lose a ticket? Did anyone lose a ticket?" One of the two girls, at the time a little ahead of me, said, "Oh, yes! Thank you, thank you! Yes, oh thank you, you found it!" But literally seconds later another guy, an older guy maybe in his early 50s, pushes past me toward the two girls saying, "I think that's my ticket." The girl, now holding the ticket and ecstatic for mere seconds before this second guy wanted to take it from her said, "But, but...well...sir...I mean...how do you know it's yours? I lost my ticket too!" They moved out of the line to sort things out, and I couldn't tell as I moved further from them what had been the resolution, but I had heard the older man ask, "Is the ticket number 587034..." or whatever the number was.
You see, I had an extra ticket. A good friend was not able to go at the last minute, and other friends in DC for the inaugural never made it to the yellow line in time to pick it up. Once through the gate, you can't reenter. As I was about to go through the gate, I had a ticket that was going to be wasted, and a girl behind me somewhere who possibly needed one. I walked back to find the two girls. They were easy to find, maybe 100 people behind, still out of line, the girl who had lost her ticket crying, her friend trying to console her. My tickets were in hand, rubber-banded together. I said, "Did you give that man the ticket?" She lifted her head and said, "Yes," looking at me through tears and a bewildered look reserved for strangers asking painful questions. I hastily took the rubber band off, gave her the top ticket, and said, "Here, use this." She reached for the ticket cautiously, like I was kidding, and took it. It's hard to describe the look on her face, but it was worth losing my place in line, and losing Chuck, Pam, and Lucien, nice as they were. She didn't say 'thanks', and I didn't wait for her to. She stared at me with a look of blank disbelief, like I was an angel. It's the way it was, how badly people, especially the people who had arrived that early wanted to see this inaugural. I turned immediately and headed for the gate, hoping the police officers there might recognize me from my brief appearance a moment ago and let me in. They didn't have to, as the people at the gate recognized me even though I didn't recognize them. They said, "He was here before," and in I went. It occurs to me now, I didn't thank them either. I looked at them probably every bit as blankly, and dashed through the gate.
Once through the gate, and then through the metal detector (there must have been 20 or more of these inside the Yellow gate), I walked as quickly as cold feet and an enormous stone (the non-heating pads) in either boot would permit over to the Yellow standing section. I made a quick panoramic check for Chuck, Pam, and Lucien, and, not seeing them, made by way toward a section up front by the fence dividing us from a seated section reserved for the Tuskegee Airmen. That's where I stood for the next 5 hours or so, and saw our 44th president inaugurated. Here are several shots from that spot:
In addition to a decent view of the western porch of the Capitol and dais where all the action would take place, we had one of the many enormous TV screens just to our left. Until things got going, it displayed this slide. Not sure why it's the "56th Presidential Inaugural" but only the 44th president. A mistake?
The boys and girls choirs entertained us while the crowd kept coming and Don King paid a visit to the Tuskegee Airmen:
Our attention moved to the big TV monitor to watch the entrance of Michelle Obama, her kids, the Clintons (a "Bubba, Bubba" chant started up), the former President H.W. Bush, President Bush, and eventually, Joe Biden, other Bidens, and Barack Obama.
Finally, it was time to take the oath of office.
As you can imagine, over the course of hours of standing, I took a million shots of the same things. There was not much else to do. The people around me were all with at least one other person. Every now and then I barged into some conversation not intended for me. But I had lost my chatty friends of several hours, and the group I found myself among were much less so. So the above few photos represent a considerable trimming down from many similar ones. Thess last photos are from the inaugural address. I show you all that I have though remarkably similar:
The speech was actually, for me, a bit anticlimactic. I thought his Philadelphia speech was better, given at 30th Street Station, on Obama's historic train ride to Washington, a retracing of the train ride Lincoln took on the way to his inauguration in 1861. I worried a bit listening to it that he was using up some supremely good material in Phily which might be put to better use at the Capitol. But it was a good speech, and those who analyze such things, including some Republicans, thought it a very good speech. So there you go. But as I listened, I wanted it to rise more, to ask more. I wanted it to reach into our very Constitution, into our Declaration of Independence, into the great minds, the great events, the great mistakes, and the great righting of those mistakes, and with that backdrop show us ourselves in this time, and what we are called by that history and modern times to do now to advance the idea that is America, and to state it boldly and loudly to all at the Capitol that day, the hundreds of thousands on the National Mall, and the millions watching around the world. That's the speech I wanted. But, perhaps one day. I've always believed words matter, which is not to separate them from actions. But to speak is to act, quite literally, and in the larger sense to the degree it inspires others to speak and to act. I like this President so far, as he seems to possess the right amounts of oratory, pragmatism, and impatience. The urgency of now, as Martlin Luther King used to say.
But it was a great day. History. A black president. The peaceful transition of executive power. God bless this country.
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