THEY CAME before dawn, under a crescent moon, emerging up out of the Foggy Bottom Metro station like some medieval pilgrimage, their breath coming in plumes on the frigid air.
They could have belonged to the ranks of the numerous homeless in Washington, shrouded figures swathed in blankets, trailing fleece rugs in their wake, though the variety of headgear – balaclavas, aviators with large ear-flaps, beanies – belonged more to an Arctic expedition.
Their caution was justified. The weather in the icy dark of 5am when the first trickle of spectators began to arrive was officially 22 degrees, but with a wind chill that made it feel decidedly more minus. But nobody was complaining.
Courtney Thompson a registered nurse had come from Seattle. She and her friend Tiffany Dickman, both 32, had to go as far afield as Baltimore to find a hotel room and had travelled in from there at three in the morning. They were one of the early arrivals on the Mall. They had brought emergency blankets – which look like giant sheets of tinfoil – which they’d wrapped around them so they looked almost oven-ready. “It’s part of history,” Courtney said. “Barack Obama got me involved in politics. He came to Seattle and I was inspired to make a donation online. I’d voted before but he was the first to inspire me.”
Washington, DC has been gearing up for this moment since November 4th when Barack Obama was elected. Regarded more as a national treasure than a place to whoop it up, Washington has been determinedly en fete since. Everyone was claiming a part of this ceremony.
For the past week, the female cashiers at the Safeway supermarket in the Watergate complex have been sporting not only ranks of campaign badges on their chests like decorated generals, but topped it off for Inauguration Day with large hoop earrings and tiara style necklaces inscribed Mrs Obama (with a crown over the O), emphasising that this wasn’t just historically momentous, but a glamour event.
If you wanted an ersatz version of the inauguration you could have joined a few hundred bystanders at the dress rehearsal held at the Capitol on Sunday morning, January 11th in much more clement weather.
There were the bleachers, the bands, the music, everyone in full dress uniform plus the first family stand-ins – President-elect Obama played by staff sergeant Derek Brooks. But for most of the estimated two million people who thronged the Mall from the Lincoln Monument to the Capitol Building, there was no substitute for the man of the moment, or, indeed, the moment itself.
“I’ve got a crush on him,” Becky O’Dwyer confessed. She had a tricolour wrapped around her and though she hails from Dublin she’s currently a research fellow at the Cleveland clinic. But Obama’s election makes it easier to explain to her friends why she’s chosen to live in the US.
“It’s certainly less embarrassing than when Bush was in power.”
Eugenia Burfict, a disabled widow from San Francisco made the journey alone, although she needs a walker to get around. “Why am I here? Because Obama’s African American. Because he grew up in a biracial family. I know what that’s like. And because I’m 56 years old and he brings me back to the spirit of my youth – the 70s and 80s.
“People were dead before he came along – now look at all the young people supporting him. I was determined to be here. All I needed was enough pain medication to get me through the day.”
Andra Oakes, an inauguration day veteran, who had travelled in with a group of friends from Maryland, wanted to experience the “feel” of the crowd. She was a protester for the last two inaugurations.
“I remember being down with my sign in 2000, the year of the Gore debacle which read ‘We’ll settle the score in 2004’. I wormed my way to the front of the crowd and waved it at Bush as he rode past in his car.” There was, she said, a pall over the first Bush inauguration, a “churlish” atmosphere as opposed to the jubilation this time round. “In 30 years, I have never seen such enthusiasm. Not since JFK.”
By 10, when the ceremony started, the sun had come out and the crowds had thickened around the giant Jumbotron screens set up along the Mall. After hours of waiting the impatience in the crowd was palpable.
Colin Powell got a round of applause as did Teddy Kennedy but the first glimpse of Barack Obama – an aerial view of his motorcade – produced the biggest roar from the crowd which had swelled to almost capacity.
If the early stages of the day were carnivalesque – long cheery queues at the refreshment tents, loud good humour on the ground and a replay of Sunday’s concerts on the screens – by the time Chief Justice John Roberts mounted the podium to administer the oath of office there was a sombre mood in the crowd.
And when the deed was done – despite a fluff over the oath – an almost palpable sense of relief that finally, yes, Barack Obama had done it.