sitting at home on the computer watching CNNlive streaming the Presidential Inauguration. I'm in nothing but a pair of boxers and I'm drinking a cup of coffee. Somewhere deep inside of me, something yelled "um, excuse me, earth to ashton...yes? THIS IS HISTORY IN THE MAKING, WHY AREN'T YOU SOMEWHERE EPIC?!" I started to reason with laziness by thinking "welllll if I was still in Richmond I would totally have made it up to DC for this." Fortunately, I cut myself off before I wasted another moment and diverted my attention to a google search query of "san diego obama inauguration events" A couple results suggested balls and parties I could attend tonight, but I REALLY wanted something to go to for the big moment. Then I noticed that the Malcom X Public Library, a meer 10 minutes from my apartment, was playing the event over a big screen projection and would have refreshments available.
sold!
I do a quick mapquest and head towards my viewing party with the air of coincidence that I should be seeing this at a library named after Malcom X. The multipurpose room is full of chairs and the big screen is indeed big. There were no more than 20 attendees at 8:20am PST when I arrived. By 8:45, the place was swarming with people; young and old, black and white, male and female. Everyone was buzzing with excitement and I couldn't help but engage the woman sitting next to me in conversation. She was equally as anticipant and it soon came to my attention that she was, along with the half dozen other nicely dressed middle aged folks around me, one of San Diego's City Council members. What?!? I totally played it cool, and we were so busy expressing opinions on Rick Warren and Dick Cheney and the like that I never even thought about bringing up some grievances I had with the system(The post office being whack, The ghost bike memorial being removed, Charging for trash removal).
Anyways, back to the topic at hand, The crowd was easily 100 people, and at least 2 classrooms of seventh and eighth graders managed to come in just minutes before the actual ceremony began. Everyone went wild anytime the Obamas or Bidens came up on screen, and we all took great pride in waving FORMER president george w. bush away towards that big cattle ranch in the land of no-one-cares. I was captivated by Obama's speech(and downright impressed he managed to memorize that whole thing!) and found comfort in his strong, yet gentle words expressing his ideas of what we, as a country, can do to lead the world towards a new age.
The Malcom X Public Library would continue to party until 7pm tonight, with a different ethnicity of food being served every hour(I believe Mexican, Ethiopian, Soul, and Indian were a few courses on the menu) and there would be an open mic on the stage for anyone who wanted to share some words to do so. Truely a democratic community in it's finest capacity, sharing food, knowledge, and friendship for all those willing to accept.
Also, starting at 4pm the library will begin conducting interviews with anyone interested that will be edited and conformed into a dvd that will be a part of City history for future citizens to enjoy if they find themselves wondering what we were doing on this day and how it all felt.
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Ashton- thank you so much for sharing this. I am so glad that you were able to celebrate in such an interesting and epic way - and talking with the council member! that's so awesome! I am impressed and proud. It's a new day in America! I've got a few newspapers (from November 5 and yesterday) that I plan on keeping for a long time.
keep up the awesomeness (which comes so naturally to you). love
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