Inauguration Day

I choose not to talk about politics here on the ol' blog, but I don't consider today to be a really "political" day. Rather, it's a historic day. And thanks to a freak snow storm, I was able to experience this day with Tim. We sat on the couch, curled up under our fluffy red blanket, watched the inaugural address, and allowed the emotions of the moment to wash over us. A few tears were definitely shed. It was very special.

A few hours have gone by since then & now I'm just waiting for the parade to start. And that, my friends, is an issue on which I can speak from personal experience. Ya see, way back in 1993 I was in the inaugural parade for President Bill Clinton. My high school band was chosen to represent the state of Oklahoma in the parade. We showed up a couple of days early which gave us plenty of opportunity to visit museums (the National Gallery kicks ass!) and pick up some commemorative buttons. The Bill & Al button is nice, but the button of Bill & Hill is definitely my favorite.



January 20, 1993 was a looooooong day. Full of a loooooooot of waiting on a bus. I have no idea how many hours we sat there in full uniform, starving & desperately needing to pee. I remember that I played Tetris for the first time that day on a friend's GameBoy. And I remember that we heard the inaugural address of the bus radio. Eventually they finally let us out of the bus & that's when we saw Carl Lewis, the Olympic athlete, because he was walking in the parade, too. When we finally started marching, we discovered that, unfortunately, some horses were allowed to march ahead of us & that the roads weren't, um, properly cleaned up behind them. But of course the thing I remember most was the moment when we finally marched in front of the presidential viewing stand. Forgive me, but I didn't play my picollo with proper gusto at that moment, but I think I can be forgiven. It was worth it. Unfortunately, Bill was posing for a photo with some Boy Scouts so I didn't get a great view of him, but I certainly saw Hillary. She was waving like mad! She seemed absolutely thrilled to be there. It was great. I'm sure the people who are in DC today have a pretty good idea of how she must have felt.