Inauguration Day: Part IV (Choppers, Snipers, and CNN, Oh My [aka Soylent Green is PEOPLE!])

There we were, shivery but happy, and with a bit of breathing room before the crowd continued to flow into our little section of the Mall I will think of as Silver Ticket Land. The sun had barely risen, and the dusky, early-morning glow reflecting from the marble of the Capital building was unquestionably beautiful. To me, morning has always been a favorite time of day, one of quite reflection on what the day may bring, and as I stood next to Lil and the gang, I knew that, whatever the ceremony might hold in store for us, it was going to be a quite a show.

As Lil had indicated in Part III, I did a quick recon, and the restroom situation was quite ugly, and that is all I have to say about that.

If you can imagine, we were standing surrounded on both sides by the great museums of the Smithsonian Institution. On our right was the American Indian Museum. To our left was the towering National Gallery of Art. The Air and Space Museum and the Natural History Museum were also nearby. And on top of each of the roofs of these repositories of culture were teams of camouflaged military snipers.

It was actually kind of cool to see them up there, but at the same time, a sobering reminder that perhaps not everyone here today was in a celebratory mood. I could imagine the eyes of the snipers staring through their variable-magnification scopes at any one of us. And of course, common sense will tell you that for each sniper we could see, there were many that were hidden from view.

Helicopters.

Yes, there were birds in the air that day, despite nonsense spouted by the fine anchors of Fox News (you don’t really want to know, but if you do, look up the Fox claims that there must have been UFOs over Washington, as no aircraft were anywhere nearby).

Most were civilian helicopters, probably news choppers, but a few military models were hovering in the cold, clear air on one errand or another. The best chopper to see, it turns out, was the one taking George W. Bush away from the levers of power forever. This was Marine One, a VH-71 Kestrel. Everyone I saw was cheering and waving at the low flying bird as it traveled over the Mall, and no one knew at the time that we were screaming and shouting for the outgoing president. However, it still is nice to think back to the moment I waved at Bush as he left town for good. Was he squinting and giggling? I doubt it.

CNN

It stands for Cable News Network, not Communist News Network, and yes, they were there. I only point them out in particular as about 100 feet from us was a CNN camera on the tallest boom ever, to get, no doubt, some long shots of the many, many people packed into the Mall. Which brings me to…

Soylent Green

Fooled you, didn’t I? There were no bulldozers, and no Charleton Heston as a riot policeman unwittingly helping to make the masses of the angry future into nutritious and delicious staple foods. But the people! I have never before, and never again expect to see such a sea of humanity in one single space as I did that day. It “blew the mind.”

Our Spot

Looking back, it still amazes me that all of us were bonded in unity to see Obama and Biden become sworn in as leaders we could finally look up to as Americans. And that alone was worth a few shivers.

Dane