I was on a date with my husband this evening at a place in the East Village NYC that had no TV. Thursdays is our night out away from preteen hormones while our daughter is blissfully free of parental annoyance bonding with her college-age babysitter.
We savor these nights as does she ...
As my husband and I left the restaurant and began to stroll home, we passed the first restaurant that had a TV less than a block away. It's television was tuned in to CNN and people from the street had wandered in and were glued to the speech. I immediately hailed a cab home to watch the rest, but my husband, wanting to enjoy the beautiful evening, decided to stroll home.
He got home ... an hour later.
He said that every restaurant, bar and laundromat he passed had the convention on and an audience had wandered in or were standing in the street glued to Obama's speech. He stopped to watch the watchers, all rapt in awe. If you know the East Village you know there are a lot of bars and restaurants (and even laundromats) on each block.
He said it was amazing, inspiring to see. Glorious!
I wish I hadn't grabbed that cab. I would have loved to have savored the audience.
I'm no young thing. I have vivid memories in my life of many events that were so historic and compelling that all America stopped and stared in awe: from the dimmest recollections of Kennedy's Berlin speech to Kennedy's assassination to seeing Neil Armstrong walk on the moon to Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs tennis match (Don't knock it. It was a big deal for teenage girls who aspired to greatness) to 9/11. While that last I didn't actually see on TV ... I saw it from the West Village ... I recognized that too as a riveting media moment. Jimdotz said I should mention FDR's Fireside Chats, but I have no firsthand experience of what that meant to my parents, lovers of FDR though they were.
History was made tonight. The positive kind of history, the "Kennedy in Berlin", "Celebration of America"-kind of history. I think America saw its best self tonight and fell in love again. Yes, we are a narcissistic nation. It is our greatest weakness and our greatest strength.
I think the election is ours. Ours to lose maybe, but definitely ours.
I am confident that Americans will be stopped, staring at television screens in the East Village NYC as well as every other village big and small with that same "Celebration of America" ... on November 4th.