My "Where Were You?" Moment

I never cared for current events. Tim talks about Reagan and the Cuban Missle Crisis, or the Iran Contra affair... not a clue. My dad was in the Navy for 30 years, and the depth of my knowledge about the military is taken directly from Top Gun. I do have a vague recollection of Reagan saying "Tear down this wall..." or something like that, but only because my aunt lived in Germany and sent me a chunk of the Berlin wall. It was only recently that I became interested in how our government works, I guess when I started working, paying taxes, and realizing how laws affected me, and my children. And I guess I can thank Ryan for getting me involved in the presidents. He is so interested in history, wars, and anything involving the presidents that I couldn't help be curious about it too. So now, years after missing out on historical references, quotes taken from famous speeches and having no idea what people were talking about, I'm trying to make up for lost time. I want to go to the museums downtown and absorb history, looking at it through the eyes of my children.


My parents had "Where were you when JFK was assassinated?" and "Where were you when the Neil Armstrong landed on the moon?" Up until now, I've been wondering what big event would lead to people asking "Where were you..." and this is it, the inauguration of Barack Obama. Unfortunately, I will have to answer, "Sitting on my couch." If I thought for a second we wouldn't lose one of the kids, or have one of them trampled in a stampede, or lose a toe to frostbite, I'd reconsider going downtown.... but we will all witness this historical moment from the warm comfort of our home, which many think is smarter but I can't believe I live 45 minutes from DC and am not going to be on the mall watching it in person.




A lot of people are making a huge deal that Obama is the first African American president. I don't pay attention to the race factor. I think he's a family man. I saw an interview with his wife and was really impressed that he called his girls and read to them over the phone, and talked to them at bedtime each night from the campaign trail. That really got me. And I thought well, if he cares that much about his own family and his children, he will definitely have me and my family's best interest at the heart of his policies. A lot of people might laugh that off and think how contrived that interview was, but I can't be that cynical. Listening to him speak (which a lot of people think is just fluff) I felt all those innocent ideals from childhood where you think you can be anything when you grow up, and one person really can make a difference, and people working together makes our nation great.


With a potential crowd of 2 million for the Inauguration, we ultimately decided to stay away. The media has done a great job of scaring the locals away. Roads are closed, bridges are closed, the metro stations don't have unlimited parking... ok, we get it, you don't want us down there! But, on Sunday for the Inauguration Opening Ceremony if you will, the crowd was projected to be only 500,000 roughly the size of the average 4th of July. My parents offered to come up and babysit Claire for the day so we decided to take Ryan and Katie down for the concert. What a day it was! We actually woke up at 6am and were the only ones on the metro when it opened at 7:30. I thought maybe we had the wrong day! It was like a ghost town! We were ready for the day: hats, gloves with hand-warmers, 3 pairs of pants, 3 or 4 shirts, scarves, and plenty of patience!

The capital building looked beautiful all dressed up for the big ceremony! We were standing as close as the best case scenario for a person who has a ticket for the swearing in... the average Joe Schmoe would be standing 2 blocks farther away probably cranning to see a glimpse on a jumbotron somewhere.

Looks like someone was slacking off in the security department.... there were rows and rows of these metal barricades stacked up along the streets. What are they waiting for? Aren't there a few hundred people to barricade?The first thing we had to do was stock up on our Obama gear! Ryan picked out a T-shirt and a few buttons for his collection, and Katie loved this hat! Everyone was high-fiving her all day. It was a very friendly crowd!

We had a nice little picnic while we waited for the concert to begin near the Lincoln Memorial. Not too crowded... we can handle this! But slowly the crowd began encroaching on our picnic space...

Ok, we're really packed in now! The crowd stretched past where we were (now standing... picnic time was officially over!) all the way to the Washington Monument. See me in the white hat??Right behind the pimp with the huge fur coat.
I was struggling to hold Katie up so she could see the jumbotron. She was just as eager to use the binoculars to watch this guy climb a tree near us (we were all waiting for him to fall out). Soon, she felt like she weighed a hundred pounds and I looked and she had fallen asleep! She lasted all day and then conked out right at the start of the concert!


Porta-potties as far as the eye could see!! A couple of funny potty stories that will make this day even more memorable for us... Just before the concert began, not during the 3 hours leading up to it, Katie had to go. She really had to go, and when Katie wants something, she's going to get it one way or another. So there she was in a huddle with Tim, blanket over their heads (very discrete) 3 layers of pants bunched up around her ankles squatting over a plastic bowl. No one was the wiser. And a little later on, just as Obama took the podium, Ryan was in the same position peeing into a Crystal Light bottle.

Barack Obama, Joe Biden and their families were being introduced. Finally, after 3 hours of being smooshed in the crowd, the concert was about to begin! Ellen was dancing and ramping up the crowd, Elmo was there leading us in a chant of "We Are One" until the number one came out in protest saying, "no, I am one!" It was very cute and the kids got a kick out of it. Jamie Foxx did an awesome and hilarious impression of Obama! We heard performances from so many people I'm wishing I'd have bought one of those souvenir t-shirts on the way out just because it had pictures of all the performers on it! And I had no idea that HBO held the rights to the show. I was fully expecting to get home and see clips of it on the news all night long.

It was amazing how quickly the crowd dispersed after the show. Where did they all go? The metro station. Yeah, didn't see that coming! So the concert ended at 4:15 and we got home at 7:30... a very long, exhausting day but worth all the trouble to have been part of history.