With a little help from my friends
Monday, January 19. The charter bus barreled down the snow-covered interstate, passing less fearless buses and semis – and even snow plows – on its way to Washington, D.C., for the inauguration of President Barack Hussein Obama. We’d left at midnight – about 55 of us on a trip arranged by Julia, a member of Women for Obama. Julia booked the bus and a block of rooms in a hotel 30 miles from the capital.
I was still on the bus the following afternoon when Angela, who I met at the first Evansville for Obama meeting in February 2008, called to tell me that she had tickets to the inauguration for my husband Brad and me. She had arranged with Congressman Ellsworth’s office to take possession of any unclaimed tickets and give them to dedicated Campaign for Change volunteers. Our tickets were in the Silver Section, the standing-room and final ticketed section on the mall.
After 15 hours on the bus, we arrived at our hotel and barely had time to clean up before we received a call from Ann, another long-time volunteer, who had arranged for a taxi to take us to the Metro station in 15 minutes. Ann led a dozen of us through the process of purchasing a round-trip pass for that evening’s Evansville Reunion in D.C., and an all-day pass for Inauguration Day, when lines for the passes (featuring Obama’s picture in honor of the occasion) were sure to be long.
The Evansville Reunion of Campaign for Change volunteers and staff was held at a restaurant near Dupont Circle, site of The Saging of the White House that evening. Ann, who misunderstood the technical details of saging (or “smudging,” in which a bundle of the herb is burned and the smoke believed to be cleansing), brought with her a can of McCormick Ground Sage dating back to the Nixon administration. As we walked back to the Metro station after the party, she sprinkled it here and there before passing the can to me. I flung it about, inadvertently sprinkling George Stephanopoulos, who was strolling behind us (and thankfully seemed not to notice).
Ann advised us to catch a cab to the Metro station at 4:30 a.m. on Inauguration Day, so I scheduled a wake-up call for 3:30 a.m., woke and bundled up, and, along with my husband and a few friends, was in a cab (called by Ann, who stayed behind to wait for others) and on my way to the station at 4:30 sharp. Within two miles of our destination, we were stopped by a line of traffic, so we walked the rest of the way in the freezing dark. Because we had already purchased passes at Ann’s suggestion, we were able to bypass the lines and board a relatively empty train bound for D.C.
When we emerged from Union Station near the Capitol, all was chaos. We were immediately confronted by masses of people wrapped in heavy coats and blankets, hawking Obama gear, forcing their way around roadblocks and past emergency vehicles, and trying to find their way through the maze created by a blocked-off mall and parade route. By asking officials and out of dumb luck, we found our way to the tunnel that was supposed to lead us to the Silver Gate. Thousands of people made their way through the long, dim tunnel, and it was a relief when we emerged into the light of day as the sun came up.
We followed signs until we came to an intersection clogged with people waiting for the distant Silver Gate to open. And there we stood. Over the next two hours, the crowd began to tighten. Some people pushed forward. Then, hundreds began to squeeze toward us, coming from the opposite direction in search of another ticketed area. I managed my panic by taking deep breaths and holding tightly to Brad’s shoulders.
Without warning, the mass moved forward. First we passed through a line of police who simply asked us to hold up our tickets. Then, as if possessed of its own intelligence, the crowd began to move sideways, to the left. We were forced into a narrower, pseudo-line and showed our tickets again before we were unexpectedly emptied into an open street and a dozen waiting security check-points. We were told to open our coats and hand over purses. I have been more thoroughly searched at a rock concert than I was for the inauguration of the first African American president of the United States.
And then we were inside, with a front and center view of the Capitol, plenty of elbow room, and a close Jumbotron, but still freezing, with no access to food or water, and another hour or so to wait for the big moment. We were drawn to the back fence of the Silver area by the strains of the Isley Brothers’ “Shout” and thousands of cheering people. Behind another fence on the free mall, the Washington Monument in the distance, people were packed like sardines. Each sardine was frantically waving a small American flag and jumping up and down to the “We Are One” concert on the Jumbotron.
It was quite the party compared to the mellow vibe on the Silver mall, where the screens were tuned to arriving officials and celebrities: Muhammad Ali, Jay-Z and Beyonce, Senator Ted Kennedy (cheers), Senator Joseph Lieberman (boos), John Cusack, the Rev. Al Sharpton, and many more. Though there were many boos, chants, and taunts when President Bush emerged, my husband and I did not participate, and wished it hadn’t happened.
If President Obama’s speech had not been captioned on the Jumbotron, those of us on the mall would have missed most of what he said. The speakers placed down the mall echoed distractingly and rendered the speeches unintelligible, so we were forced to read them. Students and staff gathered in Forum Two that day heard the ceremony better than we did. We didn’t even notice Chief Justice John Roberts flub the oath.
While I appreciated the president’s words, for me the high point of the ceremony was the musical performance by Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Gabriela Montero, and Anthony McGill. During the song, a flock of seagulls circled in front of and above the Capitol dome and flew over the mall, as if choreographed. While the president focused on practical concerns in his rhetoric, the birds and the song (John Williams’ “Air and Simple Gifts”) soared for him.
Soon after the speech, we began to look for a way out of the mall. After so many hours in the cold, we just wanted to warm up and find food – but so did two million others.
President Bush’s helicopter flew low over the mall as we tried to find our way out of the crowd. The trash was so thick in the streets it caught around our ankles. Mounted police patrolled the crowd. It was like a disaster scene as the helicopter flew far away beyond the horizon.
Getting out of D.C. was another adventure – one that would make this blog far too long. Suffice it to say that after walking many, many more miles on highways, through tunnels, and over bridges; losing, finding, and again losing our friends; being turned away from streets and Metro stations closed by design or overcrowding; and reaching a state approaching desperation, we met a kind police officer who told us where to find an open station. After a couple of hours and a very expensive cab ride from the end of the Metro line to our hotel, we were warm and fed, enjoying the inauguration celebrations on television in the lobby of the hotel with dozens of our “Obama friends.”
I couldn’t have done it without them.
And neither could President Barack Hussein Obama.
(You can view my pictures here.)
POST CONTRIBUTED BY: WENDY KNIPE BREDHOLD, writer in News & Information Services.