Monday the 19th

One day until the Inauguration of President Barack Obama. Two days until I could go home to my family and friends. At times I couldn't tell which I was more anxious for. But every time I thought of the world that we live in and the life that we share on this planet, I felt I could wait one more day for my homecoming. For too long, the United States of America has dictated its agenda to the world, pushing developing countries to progress into the modern Western world at lightning speed (when our own progression through that process had moved at a snail's pace). And we were surprised, even offended, that the seismic shifts we forced led to violence of all kinds, to wicked and irresponsible leaders (many of whom we handpicked). Again, we've dictated our agenda, seeming only to dialog with those who were certain to agree with us, and if they didn't, we turned on them with a "Screw you!" When I thought of these things, I knew I had to be on the National Mall the following day.

I took my time waking up—I don't really refer to it as "sleeping in" any more. The latter phrase, to me, implies being asleep in bed past ten o'clock, and I can't do that any longer. Once I was up and around, I went to FirstWatch: The Daytime Café for breakfast. Then it was back to the apartment for more grading of journals and essays from my group of seminar students. I graded and glanced now and then at CNN, which I had on at low volume. But then CNN suddenly completely absorbed my attention when they replayed Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech from 1963. What a powerful piece of oratory! Of course, it had a lot of resonance that day, as it was Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the day before the partial realization of that dream. I wept.

During the morning I spoke a couple of times to Tiffany in Phil Roe's office. Dr. Roe is my 1^st District's new Representative in the House. Through the help of some kind folks in the Tri-Cities (Jeff A. and Amanda W.) Congressman Roe was giving my group and me 11 tickets to the Inauguration, and by arrangement with Tiffany, I was to pick up the tickets at the Congressman's office on the Cannon Building at one o'clock that afternoon.

A little before noon, I left the apartment and caught the Red Line toward the city. On the way, I was listening to the DC NPR station. A local culture program was on, and the host was interviewing a novelist who writes crime fiction set in the DC area. The stuff sounded really interesting, so I decided that after I picked up the tickets, I'd go to the Barnes and Noble at the corner of E and 12^th Streets and pick up one of this guy's books.

I took the Red Line all the way to Union Station, where I got off and made my way past the Capitol to the Roe's Cannon Building. The line to get in was wrapped around the block, and word was that the wait was more than three hours. So I called Tiffany, who, aware of the lines of people waiting to see their representatives, kindly offered to bring my group's tickets out to me. What a relief! I thanked her and thanked her some more and asked her to pass on my thanks to Congressman Roe, and she was quite gracious. Although I didn't get to meet the Congressman, I figured I could do that some other time when I'm in the city, some time when I wouldn't have to wait three hours in the cold to get in.

So I had 11 tickets. And, counting myself, 11 people were in my group: Taylor, Holli, Nadine and Mimmi from ETSU; Kathryn and Simone from Martin Methodist College in Pulaski, Tennessee; Julie from Belmont University in Nashville; Tara from Guam Community College in Guam; and Marla and BJ from the College of Micronesia in the Federated States of Micronesia. As it turned out, Julie and Tara already had tickets, and Nadine had told me all week that she wasn't going because she couldn't stand the crowds. So, I figured I could use Nadine's ticket, and I called up two colleagues from ETSU, Jenny and Harold, who were in town and offered them the tickets Julie and Tara weren't going to use.

After I got the tickets from Tiffany, I walked to the Mall to meet Harold and give him the two tickets I'd told him that I might have. Then I began a meandering walk through the city, figuring I'd return via DuPont Station when I eventually reached it.

I saw the Barnes and Noble at E and 12^th and remembered that I wanted to pick up a book by that DC crime writer. That DC crime writer? I'd forgotten his name. I'd forgotten all the names of the books he and the interviewer had talked about. I went in anyway and rode the escalator up to the second floor. Directly in front of me was the Customer Service desk, so I walked up to see if they could help me. (Embarrassed by not knowing the name of the author or his books, I had flashbacks to when I worked at Cat's Records in east Nashville. I remembered standing at the counter while a woman stood across from me and said, "I'm looking for this song. I don't know the name of it or who does it, but it's something about love." Or my other favorite: "I don't know the name of the song or who does it, but it's got this bass line that goes b-bum-bum-bum, b-bum-bum-bum.")

As I was asking about the DC crime writer whose name and book titles I couldn't remember, getting a confused stare from the employee behind the counter, another employee came up and in a hurried whisper said, "There's a guy that looks like Bruce Springsteen back in the children's section!" My guy behind the counter got all excited and left me standing there, so I slowly wandered off in the same direction the two of them had gone.

It was Bruce Springsteen, sure enough! He and his wife and bandmate Patti. You can imagine how much I wanted to talk to him, but being who I am—and his being who he is and surrounded by security—I settled for taking up a position in front of a bookshelf where I could pretend to be shopping and still glance over at the Boss now and then. At one point Patti got a telephone call and walked away from the cash register to stand and talk not five feet from me. And when she and Bruce left, they passed right by within that same distance. That was cool.

What was also cool was that when the Springsteens were gone and I really looked at the bookshelf in front of me, there was the name of author I was looking for and all the books he and the interviewer had talked about on the radio.

Back at the apartment that night, I texted my group and asked them to pick up their tickets sometime between eight and ten o'clock. I had nine tickets left and eight promised (I'd committed to giving Holli two so that her sister could accompany her to the big event). And then a little before ten, Nadine showed up to get her ticket—to the event she'd said all week she wouldn't be attending. And so I gave her the last ticket, leaving me without, and went to bed.