Bittersweet

My mother and I packed a lot of things into a day and a half. Unfortunately, seeing Barack Obama sworn in as the 44th President of the United States wasn't one of them. For all who asked that I take pictures, here's a sort of photo diary.


We started out around 5 a.m.,Monday morning,trying to get the first flight out to D.C. -- flying stand-by on my mom's employee passes. We made it, snagging the last two seats. We traveled light -- carrying no luggage, and stuffing only the essentials in our purses.

We caught the Metro train from National Airport, and, after detouring to the Pentagon station to buy special edition Obama Inauguration fare cards, made our way to our cousin Rosalyce's apartment in Southwest D.C. (just a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol). If you read the Star-Telegram article about Opal, in Sunday's paper, that's where she walked from to the Capitol.
http://www.star-telegram.com/news/story/1149945.html

Rosalyce is a graduate student at George Mason University, and didn't expect to share studio apartment with her mother Pam, Opal, and my cousin Dionne. They treated it like a big (LONG!) slumber party.

Mama and I with Pam and Rosalyce
Three generations looking forward to history being made. My grandmother Opal with Dionne, who was her companion on the trip

We caught the Metro to Ben's Chili Bowl, where we planned to meet Ralph. Unlike the future President, we had no chance of getting in, as the line wrapped aroung the restaurant and down the alley. Undettered, we did a little sight seeing, including meeting up with some costumed PETA demonstrators outside another popular spot, Busboys and Poets Restaurant and Bookstore. The atmosphere was charged, as throngs of people milled about, and street vendors (about every three feet or so) hawked their wares with shouts of "YES YOU CAN afford to buy ...." We finally settled on an Ethiopian restaurant, where two Our Mother of Mercy parishioners, Smitty and her son, Man, joined us. Before heading back to the Metro, we stopped to see the African-American Civil War Heroes Monument. Did I mention how surprised I was to find this neighborhood so revitalized and nothing like it was when I went to Howard University, near there, about 3 decades ago? Wow!

We took the Metro out to Prince George's County, Maryland, where my friend Darryl lives with his wife, Wyvette, daughter, Savannah, and son, Evan. Evan is my Godson! Darryl met us at the Metro station and took us to his home. where we spent the night. Wyvette and the children had scored tickets to the special inaugural children's concert, and were spending the evening in the company of Michelle, Malia, and Sasha Obama, enjoying the performances of Lil Bow Wow, Miley Cyrus, and the Jonas brothers. Getting to see Evan, after nearly five years, was the highlight of my trip. He's a handsome and smart 11-year-old now. My, how the time flies!

This is Darryl, we've known each other since we were twenty-something, when he lived in Dallas. The stories I could tell!!

At around 5:30 or so, Darryl and Wyvette fed us breakfast, before he dropped us back at the Metro station. Wyvette gave us small bottles of water and snacks to stuff in our pockets before we left. Fortunately, Darryl lives at the end of one of the Metro line, so unlike thousands of other adventurers, we had no trouble packing onto a very crowded Metro train and heading toward D.C.

I can't adequately describe the air of excitement. This was just inside the Metro station:


We had to get off a stop earlier than the ticket directions said, but we only walked about 7 or so blocks before we found the blue ticket line, and joined hundreds of other brave souls. It was around 7 a.m. at that point. So far, so good!
We quickly made friends with the people around us: a couple from Utah, who described themselves as the only Democrats in that state, and a couple from Wisconsin, who said that the cold (wind chill in the teens) felt like a fall day.
For hours we moved only inches at a time, with no one giving us updates or directions, and fretting more and more, as the minutes and hours ticked away. We were on the outside of the Capitol/Mall area, so we couldn't see or hear anything. Suddenly, at about 11:30 a.m., the line broke, and we were standing in an open area, trying to figure out what happened. There was panic, and shouting (at us) from a huge group of people who had somehow started a second line. People were threatening and pushing, so Mama and I got out of the middle of that mob as quickly as we could.

Unfortunately, it was too late to even find a television to see the inauguration. Also, we didn't see what became of our new friends. Later, I got a text from my brother J'uane telling us to get out of there and find a television, because he had seen a report that they had shut down the gates and weren't letting any other ticket holders in. Unfortunately, we received his message too late to really do anything, so we headed for the airport, and hopped the next plane back home.

So, despite having coveted tickets to the inauguration, we didn't get in. We waited for several hours, in sub-freezing temperatures, before discovering that we wouldn't. A police officer in the Metro station told us that it was reported over the police radio that some knuckleheads had charged our line, moving barricades, and, since security couldn't figure out how to rectify the situation, they just stopped letting people in for screening in our section.

As you might expect, we were very, very disappointed. However, my grandmother got in (after being given the runaround for several hours), and had an excellent seated view. She even got to see (and hand a letter to) Michelle Obama during a tour of the White House this afternoon. To top it all, Obama is president! God is Good!!!