Solomon Jones: An eventful Inauguration Day in D.C.
I ATTENDED the inaugura- tion. I'd do it again, too, despite the fact that the blow-by-blow description of my inauguration experience goes something like this.
I ATTENDED the inaugura-
tion. I'd do it again, too, despite the fact that the blow-by-blow description of my inauguration experience goes something like this.
8:50 p.m. Monday
I arrive at 30th Street Station and park in the Cira Center lot, where spaces are plentiful because it's colder than a witch's. . .well, you know.
9:15 p.m.
I deduce that someone at Amtrak hates me, as evidenced by the fact that my train is 15 minutes late, and when it finally gets moving, there is a power outage. "Three hundred dollars for train tickets," says the woman next to me. "And they can't even get the train to run." I smile, but I do not respond for fear that Amtrak will exact vengeance.
Midnight, Tuesday
I arrive at Washington's Union Station, which is roped off and secured by Amtrak police. Outside, an enterprising, albeit inebriated, man has replaced the uniformed employees who normally dispatch taxis. America . . . land of opportunity.
7 a.m.
Having slept at a friend of a friend's DuPont Circle apartment, I bathe and put on a double layer of thermals (thanks for hooking me up with those, Mom). Then, in preparation for the long walk to the inauguration, I do the unthinkable. I don a hat.
7:30 a.m.
Cops and National Guardsmen man a checkpoint at Pennsylvania Avenue. I can't get through. The cops send me toward Constitution Avenue with my purple ticket, but when I finally find that street, it's blocked off.
8:30 a.m.
I'm directed toward a field in the shadow of the Washington Monument. Across from the Port-A-Potties is a huge TV monitor with Jon Bon Jovi singing "A Change Is Gonna Come." I start toward First Street and wonder when the right directions are gonna come.
9:30 a.m.
Having passed inauguration revelers bearing signs reading, "One Nation Under a Groove," I'm somewhere along the parade route. Vigilant state troopers from Georgia and North Carolina make crossing the street harder than crossing the English Channel.
10 a.m.
In my quest find to First Street, I make it to Fifth. National Guardsmen send me back to Seventh. There, I pass through a metal detector before going around a building, through a back street and into a section that says "Purple Gate." Celestial choirs sing.
10:30 a.m.
The crowd is so tight that a lady next to me says, "If people are gonna be this close, somebody should at least buy me dinner." A half-hour later, we all realize that we're facing the wrong direction. The security gate is the other way. The crowd turns as one.
11 a.m.
I join some folks in pushing toward the gate. A few feet away, a girl climbs a tree and yells to the cops, "Let us in! We've been here since 5 in the morning!" Caught up in her impassioned speech, I nominate her for president, right before I push my way through the gate.
11:15 a.m.
I'm in, but as I prepare to go through yet another metal detector, I look back and see that thousands of others aren't so lucky.
11:30 a.m.
The inauguration is a blur. I take pictures, crane my neck to see Obama, and cringe as people boo at every mention of George W. Bush. Before I know it, it's over.
1 p.m.
Along Seventh Street, hundreds of vendors line the sidewalks. T-shirts are $5, pictures are $10. On K Street, even the Postal Service is selling Obama memorabilia. Who says the postmaster can't get his hustle on?
5 p.m.
Thousands wait outside Union Station for the trip back home. Once I'm inside, I see thousands more.
How was the inauguration? It was cold, frustrating, crowded . . . and I wouldn't have missed it for the world, because watching Barack Obama take the oath of office was a vibrant demonstration of an incontrovertible fact. America is indeed the land of opportunity. *
Solomon Jones' column appears every Saturday. He can be reached at