Lauren Hale '09 and Katharine Toth '09
University Presidential Inaugural Conference
Highlights of the University Presidential Inaugural Conference included speeches by Colin Powell and Al Gore . . . and of course the actual Inauguration.
"All people fail, even leaders fail, every day. The important thing is to analyze and understand the failure and correct it. Take the blame and fix your failure and learn from it. Then bundle up this failure and throw it over your shoulder and don't look back. Look forwards and think about today and tomorrow; don't look into the past. Always look through your front windshield and not the back" ~ Colin Powell
The topic of Al Gore’s speech was fairly predictable. He talked about the global warming and the importance of saving the environment. In part of his speech he discussed the 3 thing he thought were the most important to focus on in the US today. These things are the Iraq War, economic recession and global warming. He claimed that if we reduced our need on foreign oil by utilizing renewable energy sources, all three of these issues would be resolved.
On the day of the Inauguration our morning started at 1am when we got up and put on all of the warm clothing we owned. We caught one of the last metros downtown and wandered around and ended up in a Starbucks that was packed full. A small mob had started forming at the first set of gates (~3am), so we went to join them. Eventually they let the crowd go to the second set of gates. Since we were a part of the University Presidential Inaugural Conference we got to go to the second set of gates before the general public. Then the waiting began. There was no place to sit, so we just stood there and talked to the people standing around us. The people in the crowd were from all over the US. Many were from the east coast, but there were some people from Oregon standing near us.
The gates were supposed to open at 7am, and about 10 seconds before 7am the crowd counted down . . . and nothing happened. We waited and waited and waited and the gates did not open. As we were waiting someone in the crowd passed out and an ambulance had to be called. There was a National Guard member on the other side of the fence and police officers in the building next to the street, and the crowd tried to get their attention so that maybe one of them could come help. No such luck. The person was fine and the ambulance eventually was able to make its way through the crowd.
As we were waiting, a guy climbed up in the tree nearby. Everyone referred to him as “tree guy.” He was loud and boisterous and lots of people started getting annoyed with him. When he yelled at the crowd for the third time people started booing. He was able to convey the little bit of gate delay info there was as he could talk to the National Guard member over the fence – people were thankful for this.
When the gates finally opened at 8:30, people started getting pushy. Every person had to empty their pockets and go through a metal detector. It was kind of like having 3,000 people all trying to go through airport security at the same time – it just doesn’t work. We made it through fairly quickly as we were near the front. Turns out the gates were only for the parade route, and people coming from the other side were able to walk right onto the National Mall. This was not well advertised as everyone we were with didn’t know it either – o’well. We got front row seats along the parade route and waited.
Lining both sides of the parade were military and police officers. In front of our section were State Troopers from Virginia. We figured they were way colder than we were as they didn’t have hats or scarves and some of them were not wearing gloves. Well, they did have hats, but they were the state trooper hats, not warm winter hats.
The inaugural ceremony was broadcast over loud speakers from NPR as we were too far away to hear it. We could see it in the distance as we looked down Pennsylvania Ave.
About 1 hour after the inaugural ceremony, the parade was supposed to start, but it was delayed because Senator Ted Kennedy had a seizure at the presidential lunch. We didn’t know this at the time, we only knew the parade was late . . . The parade started with police squads and ceremonial military regiments. Following them was President Obama. We could tell he was coming as there were three TV vans in front of him (blocking the view of course) and tons of people cheering. We were lucky enough to be along the part of the parade route that President Obama and Michelle walked; we heard later that they got back in the car and rode most of the rest of the parade route.
After President Obama walked by, most of the crowd started filtering out. About a half hour later Katharine decided she was too cold and went to seek somewhere warm to sit. The parade continued with citizens’ groups, marching bands, and floats. There were a couple of dance troops accompanying their schools marching bands and they looked like they were freezing. Since the parade had started late, they had been standing outside without winter attire for hours.
The parade was fun to watch, but we ended up leaving before it was over as we were freezing and we had a ball to get ready for!
~Lauren Hale and Katharine Toth