Inauguration Day -- by Randy

So in my last guest post I gave a short glimpse of what the "We Are One" Concert was like. Here are a few reflections on the Inauguration itself.

Steny Hoyer, my congressman, was inundated long before the election with requests for Inauguration tickets, so my mom and I had resigned ourselves to standing in the non-ticketed area of the mall. But just a couple of days before the big event I got a phone call from a friend who informed me that he had a couple of extra tickets, which meant that instead of being near the Lincoln Memorial (as I had expected) we wound up in the Silver ticketed section. Plus I had a fancy-pants ticket to keep as a memento.

We left the house at 5:15am and had a surprisingly simple time getting on the Metro and to the Federal Center station, where people with Silver tickets were instructed to enter the mall. By this time it was about 6am, which meant that although it was freezing outside we all got to watch a beautiful sunrise over the Capitol building. Quite inspiring on such a momentous day! Packed in like sardines, my mom and I made our way to the gates and waited for the officials to open the gates. There was a lot of joking, asking where people were from, taking pictures, and making cell phone calls.

At 8am the only scary moment of the day happened, and it wasn't really all that scary. The Capitol Police opened the blockade, and this mass of humanity moved, all at once, towards the screening area. I don't think I've experienced anything quite like it. In the past whenever I've heard news stories of people being crushed by a human stampede I've been skeptical. Surely I would be strong enough to push back a crowd rushing towards me, right? Not a chance. I was carried forward by the weight of the crowd behind me, and there was nothing to do but GO. Fortunately this crowd was good-natured, so there were no major injuries where I was, or anywhere else on the mall that day.

We were frisked at the security gate and then made our way to Third and Madison, where we had a good view of the Capitol. Even with tickets we were much too far away to see faces, so we watched the ceremony on the Jumbotron about 100 yards away. We made friends with the people standing around us, including a family that had gone to the Republican Convention, likely voted for John McCain, but still wanted to be on the Mall for Obama's inauguration. Mostly we just tried to keep warm, which wasn't easy because with the wind chill it was about 15 degrees. I have to say that my mom, a Californian through-and-through, was a trooper, although I do think that by the end she had lost all feeling in her feet and legs. Two years in Maryland have apparently thickened my blood, because while I was cold, I wasn't miserable.

The Inauguration Ceremony itself was a lot of pomp and circumstance, some of it memorable, some of it not. But what made the event exciting was the realization that an extraordinarily talented person was being put in office--a black man no less--at a time of tangible suffering for many people in America and around the world. Although I would have had a more comfortable view in front of my television, the experience of being among so many people of goodwill on such a historic occasion was worth the cold and the inconvenience.

Finally, an autobiographical note. I've been a political junkie since I was a young kid. In fact, when I was about 8 or 9 years old I was obsessed with even the most minor details of the Iran-Contra scandal. So it was something of a dream come true for me to be able to attend an Inauguration in person and enjoy all the pageantry and the grandeur of the mall. Inspiring for even the most hardened cynics.