1.20.09

A defining moment in the history of this country. I'm proud, lucky, AND honored to have been able to be a part of such a momentous event. I guess thats one of the wondrous things about this campaign is that you feel like a part of what is happening, even if just as a witness, like myself.

I've been thinking for the last couple minutes and ya know what...I'm not gonna try to say anything especially profound or give some new kind of perspective. I'm just gonna write what I saw while its still fresh in my mind. If you're reading, "I was dreaming when I wrote this, forgive me if it goes astray." I was just happy to have my face in the place.

First things first, we got up at 3 am to get ready for this momentous event. Since I'm not really on eastern time yet (I refuse), it was really just like getting rest before a late party to me. So we got up, had some friends meet us at the hotel and got on our way to the Metro station. Early Bird Special. We got to our stop, L'Enfant Plaza, at about 5am and joined the huddled masses that were there. They were selling papers (Washington Post) there so altogether we bought at least a dozen. We wound up using the majority of em as padding to sit on during the ARCTIC morning.

Yes, I say arctic. We damn near froze our GD asses off out there. Not like I wouldnt do it again tho. Thankfully, they let us in the Mall early (maybe around 5:30am) and we took up a spot pretty much right on the corner of 4th and Madison on the Mall, right in front of a JumboTron. It was so cold, a group of folk right next to us just started breaking out into songs they knew. We were all dancing anyway just to be moving to keep warm. Theme songs like Good Times, some other new songs, the mental jukebox was in full effect.

But this is where it really got hilarious. They started getting people around them involved and it all of a sudden ballooned to like 15 people singing and dancing. Then they broke out into "The party ova here, aint nothin over there!" and point to a direction. And then some people in that direction would shout it back...but could never get enough people involved to be as loud as that group so that group would boo them. We were all cracking up. This went on for close to an hour. Anyway, during the entire morning, people would be shuffling about trying to get to the bathroom or whatever. So this group made a path but turned it into a huge Soul Train line. If you came through, you had to dance your way through or get booed. Hilarious! Some people didnt want to come through, so instead of the "Who's Next, Who's Next" chant that they were already doing, they turned it into "You Scared, You Scared."

They wound up doing that to the wrong dude tho...Imagine kind of a taller version of Carl Winslow. They did that to this dude, who didnt really look like he had any intention of coming through anyway, and he got this look on his face like "No you didnt!" and then starts doing like a Harlem shake BEFORE he even gets to the aisle and when he got there cut up a nice little rug up and down the aisle. My man did his thing. I. Was. Dying.

Needless to say, a lot of people got boo'd but more danced their way through. It was a real good time. I'll tell you one thing. Not only are Black folk resilient, but we can turn anything into a party if we want to. I'm REALLY glad those people were there. They made SEVERAL hours of bitter cold into such a good time, we barely even thought about the fact that we couldnt feel our toes anymore.

Fast forward another hour or 2, and we start seeing the primary audience, senators, congresspersons, etc showing up. Some of the past Presidents and First Ladies showed up as well. People cheered for the Carters, the Gores, and of course loudest for the Clintons. They booed President Bush and cheered for the Vice President's wife. But the Obamas? The place went bananas. Anyway, that and the rest are well recorded and will forever be shown and referenced in the annals of the history of this country.

And I was a witness. How ill is THAT?