Well that’s it. D.C. is now a memory. Albeit a fond one. I am on the train back to New York, with Etta James playing in my ear on my iPod. I bet Barack and Michelle won’t care if they never here “At Last” for another year after last night.
It is quiet on the train. Everyone is probably as exhausted as I am after being drunk on Obama juice for the last few days.
I spent part of today walking from the Capitol to the Lincoln Mall. Although images on television showed the National Mall crammed with people for the swearing-in ceremony, it is not until you walk that area do you realize the enormity of it and just how many people were there. Was it really just over 1 million?
I wasn’t the only one with the bright idea to go out there today. The Lincoln Memorial was jammed and it was hard to get a photo of myself with the West steps of the Capitol behind me without a stranger in the background. The joy and happiness that permeated the area since I arrived in D.C. on Sunday was still present. I sucked it all in as I recalled yesterday’s ceremony.
Tomorrow will be back to reality. For just a few days it was easy to forget that we’re in a recession, that people are losing their homes at a record number, that new applications for unemployment are being filed at an astronomical rate and that we’re losing our service members’ lives fighting wars that bring freedom for those in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Good luck Mr. President.
