Thoughts on today

As I walked my weekly dog customers today, a little early so I could watch the inauguration coverage, I was praying, and really getting worried, irrationally worried...about someone trying to kill Obama today, and/or all the people gathered to watch. That has been my biggest fear. That some crazy either right wing fundamentalist or some other group who is against freedom and good in the world will try to kill him.

As noon passed and I was finishing up my last walk, no calls came (I dont have a radio in my car) no text messages, so I assumed all was well.

I got home as fast as one can going up Peachtree Industrial around lunchtime... fixed a quick sandwich and settled in to watch history being made.

Some thoughts:

Aretha...Im sorry- and I am all for putting some soul into a song. But, all your wailing and screeching did not do justice to the song nor the day.

I hope they had more porta potties than the 5,000 CNN was reporting last week.


OK, the griping out of the way....

I wish Id gone now. To be in that historical place, surrounded by all that energy as people of all colors and ages came to celebrate being an American (been a long time since we actually wanted to celebrate that!) and to watch a page being written in the history books...wow, I can only imagine what that was like.

Loving the way Obama interacts with his girls. Including his main girl, his wife Michelle. So much love, lots of humor...I think she and their daughters will keep him grounded and laughing through his years as President.

His speech. These are some of my favorite excerpts:

"Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America: They will be met.

(*THIS* IS how a leader speaks...how a leader gives hope and confidence back to a nation who has lost both.)

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord."

(Love the hope over fear part. Hope always trumps fear. )

"What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them -- that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works"

(YES!The time has come to change the way we do things.And I believe Obama can do it! He doesnt seem to be the type to tolerate BS. Now, yes, theres a part of me that says yeah, he says all this today but once he gets to working with the Congress and Senate, he will either give up in the face of their stubborness or he will not get anything done. And I personally know what happens to people when you start to change things theyve done for years. They rebel.)


"As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals."

In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

"Let it be told to the future world ... that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive... that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it]."

America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested, we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back, nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

This speech stirred me to tears. Both for the history of the 1st African American president, but also because there was so much hope, and "take charge-ness" in it. Leadership.

I had a thought today after watching it. **This** is the kind of leader we need right now. Not some false machismo filled swaggering cowboy and his posse...but a strong confident intelligent calmly focused man, who is willing to roll up his sleeves and get down to business. And, he has no time nor patience for bullshit!