1.20.2009
Jan 26, 2009 · 5 minute readI woke up at two. And three. And four, at which point I finally got out of bed. The idea was to meet up with Stacie, Margee, and Tracy at the Smithsonian art museum as early as possible, as we were convinced that the Mall would fill up pretty quickly. By half-five, I was crammed into a Red Line train on the DC Metro heading into the city, along with everybody else. I got out at Metro Center, coming out to go down 12th Street and join the others.
Only the police had sealed off 12th. And 11th. And 10th. And all the streets as far as the eye could see. To add to the ever-growing sense of panic, the mobile phone networks were down; there was no way I was going to be able to contact the others. I trudged back to Metro Center looking at the prospect of spending the day by myself...when the day's sense of serendipity saw me bumping into them by chance. We still can't believe our luck. Together at last, we headed as far as we could; police were telling us to go down to 7th. When we got there, they told us to go to 3rd. There were rumours circulating that the police had shut down access because they were being overwhelmed, that they'd let us in at 7am, or that they wouldn't let anybody else in at all. Nobody had any definite answers, but they did have new rumours.Bonnie: Are you on the Mall? There's been people out there all night living in a cardboard city!I'm not sure what drove our decision to move from 3rd. Maybe we got tired of waiting, or were suspicious that the police would hold us there and not let us in at all, but whatever was behind it, we started walking again. And how we walked. We walked in a huge circle around the Mall for two and a half hours, trying to find a non-ticketed access point. A pilgrimage around the Capitol Building, the Library of Congress, the Supreme Court, and back again until we finally seemed to be on the right path (along with several thousand others). (the part where I desecrated the Federal Building has been exorcised from my official history. Transparency? My excuse is that the Bush Administration was still in charge, so I don't have to divulge the details) Eventually, we found an entrance to the Mall itself, near to the Washington Monument. Filling our gloved hands and our shoes with chemical warmers, we stood and waited. I'm still not sure how to describe the atmosphere. It was wonderful, though - many races, many nationalities, many creeds, all here to usher in the next era of the American Presidency. And to add more fuel to the idea of an 'Obama Cult', obviously. I don't think there was any getting around it, though. He's become as important to the African-American community's journey as MLK, after all. I saw old women in the crowd on their Zimmer frames, adamant that they were going to see him pronounced President. And if he does supplant Che as icon of choice, well I think that's a win for everybody, really. Then they started to come out. I was amused at the cheers for Carter; I think he may end up being rehabilitated in the decades to come. Conversely, I felt a little sorry about the booing that greeted a frail George Bush, though I wasn't sure if it was simply because of his son, or whether people were recollecting Barbara's comments during the Katrina disaster. However, I felt no remorse about the booing, the singing, and the chanting of "O-bam-a!" when the son came out. Yes, yes, perhaps it wasn't the opportune time for it, and the cries of "Hey Hey, Na-Na, Goodbye!" weren't in the spirit of the occasion, but Bush has managed to do so much damage to the country and yet he's never really had to face a hostile audience before. So, I think he needed to hear it as much as the crowd needed to yell. Getting out of the Mall proved to be a far harder task than we initially envisaged. It took us four hours to escape, walking all the way down to the Capitol and standing on the frozen reflecting pool. A couple of police officers came over to us, said "How often can you say that you stood on the Reflecting Pool of the Capitol on Inauguration Day?" and joined the group on the ice. It was that sort of day; people were so friendly to each other. The National Guard was out in force, but they weren't armed (the snipers on the roofs, however, definitely were). The other thing of note was the merchandise. It was incredible; I think that part of the grand plan to pull America out of recession is through the selling of things that have Obama's face slapped on them. Everywhere you walked on the way into and out of the Mall, there would be people selling their wares: t-shirts, mugs, keyrings, posters, programmes, pens – and more. The prize of the day had to go to Pepsi; not only have they changed their logo into one that resembles the Obama 'O', their new advertising campaign echoes the electoral slogans from the Democratic camp. And in final attempt to co-opt the branding of the day, they handed out thousands of backpacks on the Mall, emblazoned with "HOPE" / "JOY" / "OH BOY" with the date of "1.20.2009" printed along the bottom. That's the refreshing taste of Pepsi, official drink of the Obama Administration, or so the advertising tells me. The day ended on a bit of a down note, as Stacie's car needed a jump-start to recharge its battery, causing us to be exposed to the bitter cold for longer than we intended (and more importantly, completely screwing up my friends' schedule for getting home), but it didn't spoil the day for us; we were there when history was made. Totally worth all the cold sores splintering across my mouth.
Me: No. We're hoping that the police will let us through soon.
Bonnie: (pause) Oh. Good luck.
