At the Gates of Obama’s Inauguration
I went through a host of hoops to get a ticket to the Obama inauguration, planning on doing a feature story and multimedia piece for the Charleston Gazette (W.Va.). Then, West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s office required the ticket be picked up either the Friday or Monday before the event. Trouble was we were coming into D.C. on a commuter train from Martinsburg, W.Va., the very morning of the inauguration. An e-mail and a plea to a dear friend who lives in the city sent him out in the frigid very early morning air of a gridlocked D.C. to pick up the ticket, then meet us at an equally gridlocked Union Station. I’d come with my wife, 18-year-old son, his girlfriend and three other of their pals. We split up as they were ticket-less. I headed for the “Purple Gate,” being one of the Slightly-Important People who’d nabbed an inaugural ticket. Right. Once I got to the gate, I joined thousands of other folk with purple passes. While hundreds of thousands of others made it through, the damn Purple Gate seemed to be letting in only a trickle. Then, the trickle stopped and the gate swung shut a half-hour before Obama’s noon inauguration. Well now. So I tried to make a little lemonade out of this lemony situation. Take a look at the result.
Very much worth the trouble! Thanks!
Thanks, Vic. It was most definitely a life experience. Doug