I live in Washington DC. Once in awhile, things happen here that don’t happen anywhere else, like terrorist attacks on the pentagon and the inauguration of Barack Obama. For both events, I was here, in DC. If I ever had grandchildren, or even children, I’d probably have to tell them I wasn’t actually down on the mall. It was damn cold, and you had to get there really early. Instead, I watched everything on my HDTV, in my warm apartment, while tweeting and facebooking about the event to friends all over the country. I saw a lot more than I would have seen down on the mall.
I did go down to Chinatown, made it as far as the security gates keeping people out of the parade route. I took pictures, which are posted here. I talked to vendors, and bought two Obama hats and a bottle of Obama hot sauce. The hats will go to my sister, who wanted something that was there, at the inauguration. The hats count. Even though you could buy the same things from other places, on other days, she’s getting hats that have that ineffable been-there-ness. Had I bought the same hats a day later, though, even though they might have been sitting there for the inauguration, they would not have that magic quality.
On 9/11, I was walking around Dupont Circle, talking to my sister on a cell-phone. I assured her that nobody would attack Starbucks. One plane hit the Pentagon, the other may have been coming for the Whitehouse or Congress. I had friends who were closer, but that day was in the air everywhere. We didn’t know what would happen next, there were rumors of car-bombs, and I didn’t dare get on the Metro. So I was “there.”