(President and Mrs. Barack Obama. Photo Credit: Bobbi McKenna)
"The Inaugural Ball," By Bobbi McKenna.
“We Suffered So Much, But It Was totally Worth It!” Alternate Title Suggested by Hilary McKenna.
When we got near the DC Convention Center, our taxi driver was stopped by police, and he had to drop us off on the wrong side of the building. Again, we got into line clutching tickets. Just when we were the next to go into the security tent, we were stopped because the powers-that-be had decided that they needed to get the glitches out of the bar scanners they were tryng to use to authenticate our tickets.
After lunch in Chinatown, we took the Metro back to Dupont Circle, walked more in the cold back to our hotel. Almost immediately, it was time to get ready for the Midwest Ball, an Official Inaugural Ball at the DC Convention Center. There were ten Official Balls scheduled, with several, including ours, at the DC Convention Center.
My friends Victoria Budsen, Executive Director of the Women and Public Policy and Policy Program at Harvard’s Kennedy School, and Ellen Wingard of Wingard and Associates attended the Eastern Ball at Union Station. We know that there will be heavy security, and we also know from past experience that we want to get there early so we don’t have to stand out in the cold for too long.
Eventually, a nice woman came to out to the rope line, and using a handheld bar scanner, attempted to scan the bar code on each ticket. The scanner worked rather badly, with many “scans” required before we (and more importantly, she) heard a beep. Eventually we got inside. We decided not to check our coats, which turned out to be a highly fortuitous decision.
A couple from outside Seattle took our photo in front of the Inaugural Seal, and then went inside.
I’d been told that our tickets would entitle us to seats at a table, but there were only a handful of tables on a dais off to the side.
There were a few rows of folding chairs (again off to the sides), and they were either occupied or being saved by people who were already seated for people who were yet to arrive.
I talked to a Secret Service agent who told me where exactly the President would stand when he arrived.
I figured, based on my own personal past experience, that the President would probably not arrive until ten or after so I wandered around for awhile. I met Erika Berrera, who works for Congressman Bruce Braley of Iowa, who had brought her brother to DC for the big events.
I headed back over to the spot the Secret Service Agent had pointed out to me in front of the Presidential Seal, and met Juan Lorenzo Rodriguez Quesada, a DC attorney, his wife, Inés Flores de Rodríguez, Sunita Shukla, Ph.D., and her husband Dr. Shrimant Mishra standing. I joined them and we all decided to wait there for the President to appear. Hilary showed up, and stood directly behind me. We settled in for what I predicted would be a long wait.
(Pictured at Left: Juan Lorenzo Rodriguez Quesada, a DC attorney, Sunita Shukla, and her husband, Dr. Shrimant Mishra. Photo Credit: Inés Flores de Rodríguez.)
A man named Antonio and his wife stationed themselves next to Hilary, and as the night wore on, the crowd grew. And grew and grew. In all, I stood in that one spot for over five hours. After a half hour, my legs hurt.
At the Mall I stood for five hours in the same spot, but at the Mall, I had been standing on grass and earth. In the convention center, I was standing on concrete with only a thin layer of carpeting covering it.
(Photo: Hilary and Bobbi McKenna in the crowd.)
Sheryl Crow was the headliner for our ball. She wore very high heels, and a short skirt, and she looked terrific.
“I don’t usually wear high heels and a skirt,” Crow said, “but I’m doing it tonight in honor of President Barack Obama.” A cheer went up.
She sang all the old favorites we love like “Santa Monica Boulevard” and “The First Cut Is The Deepest.” Secret Service agents started to multiply right before our eyes. One agent put out the Vice Presidential flag, and after a few minutes passed, the lighting over the seal went from normal to dazzling.
You know how experts say that in moments of intense emotion your mind goes blank? Well, that’s what happened to me.
I have no idea what anyone said except the VERY LARGE man who kept trying to shove my daughter aside so he could stand in front of her.
Every so often, I would look over my shoulder where Hilary should have been standing, and see the large man instead. He and I would exchange words, and I would reach back and pull her forward.
But other than his whining about people pushing him, I don’t really remember much of what was said.
I don’t even remember what Barack said.
I remember Barack and Michelle dancing, but I have no earthly idea what he said.
But I’m getting head of myself. It was midnight or a little after when the Vice Presidential flag was replaced by the Presidential flag.
The tension rose and then we heard “Hail to the Chief,” and there they were.
I had been very close to Barack in Denver on January 30, 2008 when we were in the thick of the primaries and working hard to get ready for the February 5Caucuses. But back then he had been a candidate who had only won one Primary, the one in Iowa.
Now, he was the President. I could see it and feel it. He and Michelle danced to "At Last," and then, he waved, and they were gone.
Hilary and I said "good-bye" to our new friends, stopped at the restroom, and then made a mad dash outside looking for a cab.
Lucky thing we hadn’t checked our coats because it was a mob scene outside the coat rooms.
The streets around the Convention Center had all been closed to vehicles so we knew we wouldn’t be able to get a cab close by. We ran toward the Renaissance Hotel.
Since we were one of the last Balls the President had attended, there were already hundreds of people standing there waiting in line for a cab and there were no cabs in sight. We decided to run to the Metro in China Town which was the closest Metro Station open. We ran up Ninth Street to “F” Street and then over to the Metro. We needed the red Line to Dupont Circle.
We bought our Metro passes and rode the escalator down to the tracks where there was a huge crowd waiting for the next train. One man told us that if we didn’t stand in the right spot, we might not be able to get on the train. He told us that he had just missed a train because the doors did not open close enough to where he was standing.
The train arrived and we managed to get on. Hilary even got us seats. Two stops, and we were there. Up to the surface, and then out into the cold. Until then, we had suffered a little.
(Now, I'm not a couch potato. I walk 4 miles a day almost every day for fun. But it’s either on an indoor track in Colorado or along the beach in Venice, California. This was neither.)
But running up Connecticut Avenue in 20°F temperature in formal wear and heels was the low point. It was six long city blocks uphill.
My eyes were watering my nose was running, my feet and legs hurt from standing on concrete and it was C-O-L-D! Remember, I’m a cold weather wimp. I never watch movies set in a cold locale or read any books where people are cold since I read “Ice Station Zebra” thirty years ago.
I have a naturally low body temperature, and I’m not supposed to get too cold. Well, I was cold. If I’d had any choice, I couldn’t have done it. But the only choice I had was to lie down on the sidewalk and that didn’t seem like a very wise course of action. Hilary wasn’t wearing hose so her legs were even colder than mine, which made her run faster. We passed the Rite Aid on the right at Florida Avenue.
“Come on, Mom, you can make it.”
Then a minute or two later, she said, “Mom, I can see the hotel.”
I started to laugh. “No,” I said, “a mirage.” I laughed harder, picturing the guy in the old westerns who is crawling through the desert, dying of thirst.
"It’s not really the hotel,” I sputtered.
We both became convulsed with laughter, and that’s how we stumbled into the hotel finally. I'd gone for 5-6 hours at a time with nothing to eat or drink. I'd stood for 5-6 hours at a time in good humor.
So here is a multiple choice moral of this tragic little tale:
a) Don’t send me on any mission that involves temperatures below 25°F late at night wearing heels and formal wear,
b) I don’t suffer very well,
c) If you can’t stand for 5-6 hours at a time, and run like the wind in heels and formal wear when the need arises, you may not want to go to the Inauguration.
d) All of the above.
But as Hilary put it that night, as we went into our hotel room: “We suffered so much, but it was totally worth it.”
