Hello all. Well, we made it. It has been quite a surreal day, to be sure.
First, the obvious details. Yes, everybody is thrilled. Yes, it was pretty cold out there. And yes, I can now say until the day I die I was "there".
But let me just say this...no matter what the talking heads say, no matter what the video showed, there was nothing...NOTHING...that could capture the absolute sea of humanity in Washington today unless you were there.
My wife and I started out from our home in Annapolis at around 6 a.m. to head up to BWI Airport to catch a bus to Greenbelt metro. When we arrived, the lines for the bus were already long. It was quite amazing to feel the good feelings of joy and camaraderie among the well wishers, for all parts of the nation, gathering for this moment. It also felt good to hear all the political chatter among the faithful. I will no longer use the term "low information voter," because of the 2 million there today, the ones I heard knew their stuff. They knew about Barack, Joe, and even snickered over Blago.
A 30 minute bus ride down 295, and we were at Greenbelt Metro station...waiting in line again. The crush of people on mass transit today essentially disabled the ability of Metro to collect fares at many stations I was at today. It made me wonder why, in all the $150 million spent on this event, more money wasn't allocated simply to give everybody a free ride downtown. But people made the best of it. On one train, joyous attendees started asking where everybody was from. "We got...El Salvador in the house! Mexico in the house! Kentucky in the house! Maryland in the house!"
After a switch to the Red Line, and a delay due to somebody unfortunately falling a track up the line (later reports indicated the woman was safe and sound), we finally reached our checkpoint at Judiciary Square. Here is where it got interesting. Those with Purple Gate tickets were assembled 20 deep under the 3rd Street tunnel, marching, cheering their way to the gate. We joined them, and at about 11 a.m., we were told the gate was closed. Undeterred, many of us scooted around another block, and were in a huge crowd trying to get in.
Things got a little bit ugly at that point. Security yelled out over a bullhorn "Purple tickets only!" We all raised them aloft, as if to say, "Um, hello...we should be inside already!" Chants of "PUR-PLE! PUR=PLE!" went up.
We encountered people that had been waiting in this line since 6:30 a.m., and only minutes before the swearing in, they still hadn't gotten in. I felt bad for a mother and daughter who had traveled from California for this, and were only minutes away from being shut out. There was a moment I was quite fearful people might get crushed from the push of people towards the gate, but fortunately, that did not happen. One thing that helped...we had to make way for a 97 year old woman in a wheelchair, to get her inside so should would not miss this moment.
We finally cleared security, only to get there and find we had a view of the Capitol Dome and nothing else. No matter. We heard the oath, we heard the 21 gun salute, and everybody was remarkably quiet to hear the 44th President of the United States speak.
This part, in and of itself, was amazing. As the cheers went up during his speech, being close to the Capitol, we were the first wave of cheers, but as if on tape delay, we heard the cheers go up on the Mall, and heard them again further down the mall, probably as far away as the Lincoln Memorial two miles away.
That was the most amazing part to me. The feeling, 2 million deep, that this was finally our President. A President for all of us.
I'd post pictures, but I really don't have much to post. Again, you couldn't see anything, as close as we were.
But it was enough just to be there. And I will always that purple ticket to prove it.
That and a heck of a story about getting there.