Karl Klockars

Let’s start this off with a by-the-numbers representation of my remembrances.

1:  Lost scarf presumably left at Fatheads in Pittsburgh.

$9 and change:  Spent on long underpants in a mall outside Hagerstown, MD.

$200:  Spent on one one hotel room in Pittsburgh, used for just over 12 hours.

$300k:  The presumable cost of all the Inauguration tickets on the free market.  6 tickets times (I heard) $50k per ticket.  We had a brand new McMansion in our hand and we just wanted to witness history.

1.8 Million:  New friends made on the morning of January 20th.  Made many more close, close friends on the Metro ride to the mall.

I could sum up the minute-by-minute experience of a still-blurry Inaugural road trip, but it wouldn’t ever be able to convey the real feeling of a cold January Washington morning.  I could put up all 600 pictures I took over the course of those 4 days, but it still wouldn’t get across the depth of emotion that being there imparted.  Plus, a whole bunch are blurry and some I don’t even remember taking.

If there was one notable standout moment, it would be the instant that a couple million people around one place in time, and millions more watching at home or on the internet, all having a collective experience together feeling the same lightening in their chest when they realize that one person is no longer running the country, and a new person is.

It helps to realize that up on the Jumbotron screens, just moments after watching President Bush shuffle his way onto the Capitol, seemingly scowling and certainly ready to leave, it cuts right to Obama inside the building, all set to assume the mantle of command and appearing humble, sober, studious and appropriately awed by the experience.

The whole morning was only partially a celebration of what is hopefully to come.  The other half was a celebration of survival.  That somehow we’d made it through the last 8 years, and no matter what happens next, it’s hard to imagine it being worse.  Of course, the whole world’s finances are currently collapsing around us as we speak, and the 40,000 people who lost their jobs today certainly aren’t cheering anyone on right now.  But I think a lot of us chose to put all that aside for one afternoon, and just concentrate on once again feeling good about the country and just one decision it collectively made.

Remember in the movie “Unforgiven” when English Bob is discussing the differences between Queens and Presidents (and goes on to discuss how one would feel when holding a weapon on a President vs. a Queen which probably got the scriptwriter a friendly visit from the Secret Service, or at least a file opened on him)?  I thought of that when we were watching the collection of former leaders of the Free World filing in.

They may be a mixed up, fake-smiling, gladhanding group of collective liars that don’t have much nice to say to or about each other, but say this about them – they all come from us.  Just a bunch of yahoos and yokels that got enough people to show up and put a check mark on a piece of paper for them.  And they get to lead the country around for a while and fly on a plane that’s pretty much all theirs, and eat whatever they want whenever they want.

It was a day where we did a lot of walking, not much eating, plenty of drinking, a little dancing, and a lot of mental filing-away of things for later.  Things to tell the kids a few decades down the road.  Newspapers have been saved with maps to point out how close we were (and we were really, really close) and reciepts and tickets and other such souvenirs have been set aside for placement in scrapbooks.  Sushi has been eaten to attempt to clear out the road grease from too many Combos and pork rinds and sausage muffins.  And all of these collected words and thoughts don’t come close to being able to really put across the wholeness of just being there.  We ducked out of the Grant Park rally because we didn’t trust our fellow Chicagoans to be cool and relaxed.  I’m glad that not for a single second did I consider the idea that being surrounded by a couple million people was a bad idea this time.

When I was a kid in grade school, nothing drove me crazier than being told I couldn’t know something.  That there was a secret or a rumor or a story that no one would tell me because I wasn’t cool enough.  That probably laid the seeds for my desire to be in some form of journalism, the job where for a certain period of time before you tell the people, you know something they don’t know.  You have a secret from the world until you get it across to them.

On January 20th, I felt like I was at the heart of the biggest secret I’d ever seen.  I felt like I was right up front as the proverbial witness to history, and that there was nobody else around.  That being there was my secret, my experience that no one else could share, regardless of the numbers around me.  I was up front and right-of-center, and didn’t have to share it with anyone.  And it was nice.  And now I’m trying to share it.  And not doing a terribly good job.  Maybe the secret is too big, or I’m just not at a place where I can step away from the whole thing yet.  Which is fine.  This whole disjointed collection of half-formed thoughts and slightly coherent references and images isn’t quite what I want it to be.  Perhaps in a couple years I can quantify it better.

But for now, I’m content to try.  I think that’s enough to start.