Reflecting back

Now that I've had some time to catch my breath, catch up on work, and reflect on the inauguration, I'll add one final posting. If you are more into pictures than words, you might want to jump directly to my picasa site, which contains two albums of photos (some already in this blog, others not) and a short video clip of the crowd reaction as President Obama took the oath of office.

Gail Collins of the NY Times accurately characterized the inauguration as "Woodstock without the mud." It was about as friendly and mellow a crowd as I've experienced (and this from someone who has lost count of the Dead concerts he's attended). Imagine two million people jammed into a small area and zero arrests. Everyone seemed to recognize that they were both witnessing and participating in history; contented smiles were everywhere.

We were walking down to the Mall before the inauguration ceremony, a solid mass of people filling a four-lane city street from curb to curb, when we encountered concrete barriers requiring us to funnel through a narrow opening. There was no pushing or hassling, no anguish, and (somewhat surprising) no one in uniform trying to maintain order.

There were uniforms everywhere, but they were largely grinning and enjoying the day along with everyone else. When we went to the Metro station in suburban Maryland to ride downtown, there were local police and FBI standing around, but they were friendly and joking around with us. There were police from all over: at one Metro stop the patrollers were wearing uniforms of the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit.

It wasn't just the uniformed presence that came from all over. The port-a-potties on the Mall (and, as the Washington Post observed, the area was "flush" with facilities) showed labels from all over the Eastern U.S. The day after the ceremony, we took our 15-year old niece to the D.C. Greyhound station for a ride home to Pittsburgh. While waiting with her in the packed station, we talked with folks who had traveled by bus from Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, even Los Angeles to be there. We heard a lot of "greatest day of my life" and "I only wish my dad had lived to see this day."

And we promised each other we'd all come back in four years for his second inauguration.