Inauguration

On Tuesday, Sabrina, and my buddy James and I were lucky enough to be in Washington, DC for the inauguration. (It wasn’t luck in the sense that we took a wrong turn and ended up in DC where something huge happened to be going on, but rather that we were lucky enough to be able to go). It was an amazing day. I wanted to just try and send out some of my thoughts and highlights to anyone interested. Lists always works for things like this, right? They are much easier than trying to recap the day in a narrative form. That would take actual skill.

One note: I have no way to describe the amount of people that we encountered on Tuesday. I read estimates of 2 million but honestly there is no way to describe being among this number of people so if sometimes I use thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions I am using them interchangeably. The bottom line is: there were people everywhere.

- Happening upon the Presidential motorcade going by on Monday afternoon when we were doing a trial run through DC. Did you know you have to wave to President as he drives by so that Secret Service can see your hands? Me neither, until now.

- Getting up at 5 AM Tuesday morning. My cousin’s fiancé Kevin got up to drive us there. This was such an awesome thing for him to do considering he wasn’t going into the city and actually had the day off. (Kevin may or may not be a conservative. If so, then this act is exponentially more selfless).

- Entering DC in the dark with thousands of others at about 5:45 AM with absolutely no idea which direction to go. It was a bit confusing and intimidating as the streets were packed with people going all different directions. Plus it was dark, we had no map, and our plan in general lacked a certain amount of foresight. Luckily there were also thousands of policeman, military personnel and volunteers giving directions and advice along the way. No one ever made us feel bad for asking a question even when the answer was obvious. They even said, “Good morning” as you walked by. I thought this was amazing on the part of these people. It made getting to the capitol much less stressful.

- Walking on a closed down underground thruway with tons of people. It felt like a movie. We walked out up an exit ramp and ended up a block from the Mall.

- Getting on to the Mall and just seeing hundreds of thousands of smiling faces already there and waiting. It was 7AM and freezing.

- Camping out in front of a jumbotron. Looking one way and seeing the Capitol glowing in the morning light and the other way the Washington monument. Humbling.

- At about 8 AM the powers that be replayed the MLK Memorial concert from two days before. This got the crowd going. There is nothing like a million people singing “Shout” at the tops of their lungs. We have a video of it. Amazing. Also “American Pie” was another hit in the crowd. Good thing Garth Brooks didn’t sing all of the verses.

- Being in such a big crowd for so long can be daunting and patience testing. Not this crowd. Everyone was courteous, polite and just genuinely happy to be there. For all the people around us, it rarely seemed claustrophobic or intimidating.

- Lots and lots of colors.

- My second favorite part of the day. A couple in front of us had brought their two young children. When Obama gave his speech they each put a child on their shoulders so they could see the screen. The kids were young but I presume their parents wanted them to be able to say, “You were there. You saw this.” When the speech was over the husband turned around, tears in his eyes and kissed his wife.

- During this speech you could have literally heard a pin drop on the Mall. Millions of people just listening. The only sounds were the speakers and the occasional affirmation of the overall message.

- Before leaving the mall, James Sabrina and I just running around trying to get as many pictures as we could.

- My favorite part of the day. The reverend Joseph Lowery’s benediction. Here is a transcript and here is the video but the best part was these lines that he said in closing:

Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow when the red man can get ahead, man and when white will embrace what is right. Let all those who do justice and love mercy say amen. (Because if you haven’t heard two million people say “Amen” in unison, well then you haven’t lived.)