It’s 6:21 a.m. on a Tuesday. I just woke up on the floor of a dingy Greyhound bus station 5,966 feet from the very step where our next president will take the oath of office. As I shake out the cobwebs and dust off the salt residue tracked in from the outside sidewalks, I struggle to find a row of outlets to charge my phone. If you haven’t been to a bus station, consider yourself lucky but know there are charging stations for your various electrical needs. Out of the possible 20 sets of holes in the wall, 18 are taken. I scramble to jam my Samsung-issued prongs to suck at the power teat for as long as I can. Little did I know, this would set the tone for the next 12 hours as I navigated my way to listen to a 35-word sentence that ended up being botched anyway. But the real kicker is that I didn’t even vote for this man. This is why I did it…
I do solemnly swear to always be a participant, not a spectator. I have never been one to settle for events, funneled through a network lens. This zest of mine is usually limited to sporting events, not political milestones, thus adding to the obvious and not-so-obvious allure of the 20th day of this particular year.
I had no prior intentions of trekking out to D.C. until the Sunday before. The news stations were deep into their buildup of Tuesday’s inauguration. CNN seemed to be screaming at me to go. Call it 21-year-old idealism, or whatever, but I was absolutely magnetized by the whole event. A few hours later, CNN won, and I was on my way to the capital city.
I arrived early Monday morning, and made my way to the taxi stand. A man greets me and asks if I need a cab. I say yes, and he walks me to a pickup truck. This is not a usual taxi, nor a taxi at all. No city markings, no fare meter above the dashboard. I’m either going to be kidnapped or have a pleasant, informative ride to my destination. Pause. It was the latter.
He said there is such a high demand for taxis with all the visitors to the city that they are using any cars they can get their hands on. He then points to a row of ten unassuming cars parked facing the wrong way down the one-way street. “Secret Service,” he said.
I paid him the ten bucks that he may or may not have arbitrarily set as the price of admission for a ride with a strange man.
I take a test-run of the parade route down Pennsylvania Avenue as the grandstands were being constructed. A few blocks from the White House, a banner hangs off the balconies “WELCOME MR. PRESIDENT! THANK YOU MR. PRESIDENT.”
I easily make my way to the National Mall and park myself under the Washington Monument (This will not be the case tomorrow).
To my right: the White House
To the front: the Lincoln Memorial
To my back: the Capitol
To my left: a Filipino woman struggling to find the words to ask for a picture.
I take a picture of her with her arms spread out parallel to the grass. You can barely make out Lincoln’s face above hers.
She then asks me to point out where we are on the map. I’m not from D.C., but coupled with my grasp on basic American knowledge and from watching Forrest Gump a few times, I point to the frozen water and tell her it is called the Reflecting Pool and so forth.
She thought the Washington Monument was going to be a statue of Washington himself.
I quickly learn not to sit in one place for an extended period of time. I averaged about one photograph per three people that walked by. One was a group of high school girls from Virginia (they’re school must have started with a “W” because they all made a “W” with their hands. And I’m assuming they weren’t George W. fans.)
I take another picture of a New Hampshire woman and her adolescent son. Instead of telling him to say “Cheese,” she says, “say Obama.”
I overhear a man still ranting about Sarah Palin and John McCain. “Those two in the office,” he said. “Now there’s the end of days. Thank God she lost.”
I take another picture, but hear the man a minute later. “If this was McCain, I wouldn’t be here.”
Also in the background, there is a replay of Jamie Foxx imitating Barack Obama on the giant screens set up to watch the inauguration.
It’s now 6 p.m. on the Monday night leading up to the inevitable, but still underestimated, pandemonium. Despite the already gathering crowds, I notice something completely foreign to large concentrations of people in large cities-people just seemed to be in a good mood. This phenomenon cannot be understated.
Strangers are shaking strangers hands after they trade-off taking pictures for each other. People are saying “sorry” when they bump into you. People are talking about politics and interacting with the inescapable presence of history surrounding them.
Now comes the day we have all been waiting for. This brings us up to the blue-tile bus station. I unplug my phone after ten minutes of charging, grab a walking map of the area, and walk into sheer bedlam.
Passing over highways filled with people echoed the typical world disaster movies. I quickly learn that no one knows what is going on, not the police, no one. I am a non-ticket holder who wants to get to the National Mall. I’m told to go eight different ways before I decide to cut my losses and blaze my own route. I decide to walk over as many blocks possible to avoid being cut off by the barricaded parade route.
Three hours and 40 blocks later I arrive at the scene. I enter parallel to the Washington Monument and work my way up to halfway between it and the Capitol steps.
All this walking, all this cold weather, all this elevated blood pressure, it is now time for the president to take the oath.
I gather myself, as I am about to witness history…
I look up at a giant television screen, and there it is. The same exact view you got from your warm living room.
But I get to say I was there.
Daniel Salomone can be reached at [email protected].
