The Inauguration
Mom, sis, son and a guy I grew up with came down from NJ to the DMV to stay with me at my landlady’s house to attend the inauguration of one Barack Hussein Obama as President of the United States. My landlady’s other housemate, her college buddy, also went with us.
We were up after 4 a.m. and arrived via the Metro Yellow Line onto the National Mall, just west of the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum, about 5:30 a.m. We sat down on pieces of cardboard. It was freakin’ cold, with temps only in the teens. And we all were layered like cakes.
I’ve never in my life been in a crowd that large and packed in. I admit to being a little nervous. My cheap little MP3 player has an FM radio, so I tuned to WTOP 103.5, to stay up on what was going on and repeating the news to the folks around us. I think they appreciated it.
My friend and I finally had to walk around to keep warm, ‘cause our feet were numbing. In between, I managed to get video of Samuel L. Jackson, D.L. Hugley and some guy I believe was a correspondent for the Daily Show.
All that was forgotten once the ceremony started and Barack was finally sworn in as President at around noon. I recorded from the nearest Jumbotron screen the swearing in on my little camera as well as his inaugural speech until the memory on my SD card was full.
After it was over, it took us about two hours to get back to the L’Enfant Plaza station and onto the train back to Virginia. A few folks jumped the line that most of us formed, leading one woman to yell, “Now Barack just spoke about responsibility!”
I’m feeling a bit wistful as I write this. I should have been covering this event for some media outlet somewhere. I guess this blog will have to do.
I do believe, however, if Barack Obama is elected to a second term, I will be covering this as a journalist. If not, I will watch the second inauguration on TV.
