“Why are you actin’ like you know where you’re goin’?” was a wife’s sassy remark to her husband inauguration morning as thousands of completely lost but thoroughly determined travelers, like myself, tried to find their way to the National Mall to watch the inauguration.
And NONE of us knew where we were going, no matter how much we thought we did.
Upbeat traffic herders in red beanies were our only beacons of hope, holding signs that said “Mall this way.” Their cheery attitude at the disgusting hour of 6:30 a.m. signaled a trend I noticed for the rest of the day. At a time I would regularly be grumpy and non-verbal, everyone was cheerful and excited – and it somehow spilled over. There was so much energy in the air that I couldn’t help but let the anticipation slowly melt away my resentment of the fact that I had woken up far too early and not gotten any caffeine.
It was all worth it. Once the initial “grumps” were over, I realized I was experiencing a once-in- a-lifetime opportunity. So were 1.5 million other people, but it became fun instead of dreaded.
I really blame the hot chocolate kid for making my grumpiness disappear. As my group and I were walking down Maryland Avenue, we passed a young teen boy selling hot chocolate in front of his house. I was so impressed by the level of entrepreneurship and enterprise that this young guy had, I couldn’t help but see hope for the future. Apparently that’s all I needed, although actually purchasing a cup of the hot chocolate might have helped even more.
After standing on the National Mall for the first two hours, I could no longer feel my toes due to the excruciatingly low temperatures of 30-something degrees. As a California girl, born and bred, it was miserably frigid.
But it turns out I didn’t need too much help. Between trampling all the foliage in the greater D.C. area and trying to find a “Hello my fellow American, my name is…” red nametag with Obama’s face on it, I didn’t have time to be grumpy or irritable. There was patriotism and a turning-of- the-tide feeling engulfing my senses.
The electricity in the crowds started early on. Around 8 a.m., the video footage from the Sunday concert in front of the Lincoln Memorial was played for us poor freezing people. This resulted in full crowd sing-a-longs to “Shout” and “American Pie.” You haven’t truly sung “American Pie” until you’re belting it with hundreds of thousands of your fellow Americans.
And those fellow Americans were packed in around me. The lady behind me had invaded my bubble so much that she somehow managed to keep pulling my hair. And if anyone in the middle ever needed to go to the bathroom, they fought their way out, parting people like they were parting the Red Sea. Not an easy task on either side, believe me – and it occurred only too often. As a result, I got to know the people around me in more ways than one.
Just over 92 percent of Washington, D.C. constituents voted for Barack Obama, according to the District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics Web site. That made this one very happy city, and that didn’t even include the numbers of people who traveled from outside Washington, D.C. to be there for this historic day. Everyone present genuinely wanted to be there, and they were ecstatic. Perhaps a little too ecstatic, considering the amount of “boo”s Bush got every time his face popped up on the Jumbotron.
Even the kids were psyched. One man put his young daughter on his shoulders so she could see the Obama girls on the Jumbotron. The five-year-old girl threw up the “rock on” fist in support before she was booed by the crowd behind her that couldn’t see the screen.
But my favorite moment had to have been at the end of Rick Warren’s blessing when he began to say the Lord’s Prayer. To my absolute shock and wonder, people all around me began to join in with his prayer, saying the words perfectly. I joined in myself. And we, representing the nation, lifted the Obama family up to the Lord in the way that we are supposed to pray — the way we were taught to pray. It was breathtaking. I hadn’t expected so much religion and spirituality to be present among the people of this celebration. Religion is still very clearly relevant.
Biggest laugh of the day: When the announcer said over the loudspeaker, “Ladies and gentlemen, please be seated.”
Yeah, right.
