My Inauguration Experience

I arrived in Washington D.C. on a Sunday afternoon and the father of a friend of a friend of a girl I'd never met before picked me up at the Metro station and drove me to the apartment I would be renting for the three nights visit. He was very kind and friendly and showed me around the place, then left me to get settled in with assurance that I was only a short walk from where the bus would pick me up to take me to the nearest Metro station. He drove away and I was left alone in Fairfax, Virginia thinking everything was settled. I was going to meet other travelers from Omaha that night in downtown D.C. for dinner.

I unpacked and then went outside and waited. The bus never came. Eventually I walked back towards the apartment building and tapped on the car window of a hispanic man, and asked him if I was waiting in the right place. He pointed at a bench and I walked back. A few minutes later he pulled up beside me in an old Ford mustang. "The bus probably isn't coming this late on a Sunday" he said "Can I give you a ride somewhere?" Don’t try this at home, but I scanned him quickly to see if I felt safe with him. I did, and I got into his car and thanked him. I would later learn that his name was Jorge, a 13-year veteran of the marine corps, an employee at a large engineering firm, and a gentleman. “I’m not doing anything the next few days” he said, “and I have the day off. Call me if you need anything.” And with that he had offered me his card.

Not wanting to impose on Jorge, I tried riding the bus again the next day, but it still didn’t come. After waiting for almost an hour in the cold I thought about calling a cab but my cell phone was dead and I had accidentally packed my charger in the wrong suitcase. I had to be at the Hart Senate office by 4:00pm to pick up my ticket. It was only about 9:00am but I knew that time moved fast and using the Metro and waiting in line I could run out of time quickly. I walked a little along the sidewalk in the suburbs looking for someone who I could ask to borrow their cell phone and fished in my purse for Jorge’s card. He came and offered me a ride to buy a new charger as well. I bought him lunch and he spent the day with me in D.C., waiting in line to pick up my ticket at the Hart Senate building and then patiently shopping with me at the mall at a place appropriately named “Friendship station”.

After the inauguration was over I had to make one last trip to the Metro to get to Reagan National airport. My landlady, the girl whose apartment I was borrowing but whom I had never met, came to pick me up early in the morning. Just like everyone else I’d met during my experience she was kind and sweet and very gracious.

People are asking me what feels like a million questions about my inauguration experience.
"Did it feel historic?" Yes, very. I got goose bumps and cried when Aretha Franklin sang. "Were there mostly black people?" I don't know but I don't think so. There was no race out there. Just people. "Did you go to an inaugural ball?" No, I had tickets to the Garden State (New Jersey) Ball but I was too exhausted to attend.

The one question that no one asks is "Did you meet any interesting people?” That’s the one I want to talk about most. Because, you see, I met and chatted with tons of people but the ones who were the kindest, the ones who I leaned on the most and who offered me hospitality throughout my visit: Jorge, the girl whose apartment I borrowed at the last minute who got up early Wednesday morning to drive me to the airport, her father who directed me through my first trip to the Metro, picked me up and showed me around.....they were all Republicans. None of them had anything at all to do with Democrats or the inauguration. They were just citizens of the city who wanted to reach out and be a part of this historical event in the best way they could.

Am I proud of Obama? Of course. Do I have high hopes for him? I think anyone who can do what he's done can do almost anything. But the person, or rather people, I am most proud of is us, the American people. Both the Democrats who saw past race and came together to elect Obama and now the Republicans who can see past politics to offer their support in a time when our nation is experiencing perhaps the greatest surge of unity since before the civil war - just when we need it most.

I just finished reading this and I thought how can we ever unite the rest of the world if we don't have unity ourselves? Perhaps the greatest threat to our nation is not anything outside of us, not the Taliban and not war in the Middle East. It is partisanship and the idea that our values have to keep us apart. The solution - get to know each other, call on your neighbors.