A quick inauguration post before the day is over
There are a lot of images from the inauguration I'd like to share, but it's late and they deserve more brain space than I have available at the moment. But here's one, and (maybe) my favorite, and the rest are details.
I went down to DC, because I wanted to be there for this, not just view it online. I wanted the crowds, and crowds there were in abundance. This means that I did not, in fact, see much of the inauguration, other than the few pixels on a rather distant and angled jumbotron when the people in front of me moved in a way that gave me a little view.
But I'd walked down there with friends and some strangers, including a young man from Uganda, a young woman from Canada, myself from (although not all that recently) Australia, and stood in a group of people so thick that we linked arms to hold on to each other as the waves of movement shifted our footing. We smiled and laughed with the strangers who were all pressing and moving, and for all of the sheer density of humanity, people seemed to be in good spirits and patient with the common condition of crowding. Besides, it helped with the cold.
While I'd joked, through the early part of the ceremony, that it would be considerate if the people in front of us could stop being so tall as it was terribly troublesome for those of us behind, the folks who could see did make an effort to call play-by-play for those of us who could not. In the tide of the audience I ended up behind one of the tallest people in our little section, so at the moment that the crowd yelled and cheered as Barack Obama stood to take the oath, almost all I could see was the orange coat of this middle aged man ahead of me, and not much else, pressed as close as I was.
I could, however, see the young woman ahead of him, more than a full head shorter than anyone ahead of her. She tried leaping to catch a glimpse at all, getting into a rhythm to raise each leap higher, but she couldn't see over the others, even at the top of her jump.
So the man in front of me said something to her, such that she stepped closer to him, and then he reached out and put his hands under her elbows. I put my hands to his back and brace my feet. "I've got you, you can lean back a little." I said.
He lifted, I steadied him, and she stretched up her neck. She could see over the crowd, a little, at the moment that Barack raised his hand and started repeating the oath of office.
So that's what I was doing at the moment the oath was taken, and it was worth it.
I went down to DC, because I wanted to be there for this, not just view it online. I wanted the crowds, and crowds there were in abundance. This means that I did not, in fact, see much of the inauguration, other than the few pixels on a rather distant and angled jumbotron when the people in front of me moved in a way that gave me a little view.
But I'd walked down there with friends and some strangers, including a young man from Uganda, a young woman from Canada, myself from (although not all that recently) Australia, and stood in a group of people so thick that we linked arms to hold on to each other as the waves of movement shifted our footing. We smiled and laughed with the strangers who were all pressing and moving, and for all of the sheer density of humanity, people seemed to be in good spirits and patient with the common condition of crowding. Besides, it helped with the cold.
While I'd joked, through the early part of the ceremony, that it would be considerate if the people in front of us could stop being so tall as it was terribly troublesome for those of us behind, the folks who could see did make an effort to call play-by-play for those of us who could not. In the tide of the audience I ended up behind one of the tallest people in our little section, so at the moment that the crowd yelled and cheered as Barack Obama stood to take the oath, almost all I could see was the orange coat of this middle aged man ahead of me, and not much else, pressed as close as I was.
I could, however, see the young woman ahead of him, more than a full head shorter than anyone ahead of her. She tried leaping to catch a glimpse at all, getting into a rhythm to raise each leap higher, but she couldn't see over the others, even at the top of her jump.
So the man in front of me said something to her, such that she stepped closer to him, and then he reached out and put his hands under her elbows. I put my hands to his back and brace my feet. "I've got you, you can lean back a little." I said.
He lifted, I steadied him, and she stretched up her neck. She could see over the crowd, a little, at the moment that Barack raised his hand and started repeating the oath of office.
So that's what I was doing at the moment the oath was taken, and it was worth it.