Inauguration Day

"We arrived in Washington at Dawn. It was the day of Harry Truman's inauguration for his second term. Great displays of war might were lined along Pennsylvania Avenue as we rolled by in our battered boat. There were B-29s, PT Boats, artillery, all kinds of war material that looked murderous in the snow grass; the last thing was a regular small ordinary lifeboat that looked pitiful and foolish. Dean slowed down to look at it." - On the Road.

It's a different world today in many ways - little evidence of war material on display at Obama's inauguration despite wars raging overseas. Plenty of police from numerous agencies - D.C. Metropolitan, F.B.I., Homeland Security, U.S. Marshalls, Sheriff's, (not so) Secret Service etc. ... with very little evidence that anyone was in overall charge or that there was any organization or plan, or that that any of them really knew what they were supposed to be doing. Result was general chaos with over two million people pouring into the nation's capital for the most popular inauguration ever.

Much has changed in the world and in America when "a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath" (quoting Obama's inauguration speech), thinking once more of Kerouac and Cassady in the lunchrooms and diners on their way across the country.

We took the local MARC regional transport train into Union Station in the heart of D.C., hardly realizing how lucky we were to have got these tickets. From there we made our way through the crowds and all the various law enforcement agencies to the Washington Memorial a good way up the Mall, but from where we could look back down to the Capitol where all the action was taking place. We heard Obama take the oath of office and his speech over loudspeakers.

When he got to the line "So help me, God," and officially became the 44th President of the United States, there was predictably a huge cheer but also much emotion and hugging, tears and spontaneous "Halleluias" and prayers of thanks to God. Particularly moving to be amongst so many African-Americans for whom today has had special significance. But the significance is not simply for them, but for all of us - for America as a nation, and for the world. Perhaps, in the words of Van Morrison, "the healing has begun." At last.



My personal favourite soundbite from Obama's speech: "As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake." The choice between safety and ideals that seems of late to have paralyzed America in a kind of fortress mentality that has cramped liberty and in some ways cut the nation off from the rest of the world.

A final glimpse of the president and his family in the presidential motorcade as we prepare to hit the road ourselves once more...