We survived the purple ticket disaster!

Would we do it again? Not for any reason but to see Barack Obama be sworn in as President.

Guess we find some comfort in knowing that we were not alone in our struggles to get to the Swearing In Ceremony...in fact, we survived and we actually GOT in! Achieving the latter, we apparently did better than tens of thousands of other folks...

http://news.aol.com/political-machine/2009/01/20/thousands-of-inaugural-ticket-holders-turned-away-including-us/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/20/AR2009012003362.html?hpid=topnews

12:05 a.m., Tuesday, January 20, 2008--We fall asleep after being called at 11:55 p.m. by one of Kelvin's D.C.-area relatives, who shall remain nameless. :)

3:00 a.m.--I wake up and start preparing to leave for the Capitol. We have already visited the Capitol twice on this trip, to check out the lay of the land and the borders of the Purple Ticket section.

4:20 p.m. We say goodbye to my friend, Susan Goering, and her 13 year-old son, Austin, who have crashed in our hotel room the prior night, due to the difficulty they would otherwise have had, trying to get in from Baltimore on Inauguration Day. Susan is Executive Director of the Maryland American Civil Liberties Union.

4:45 or so--definitely prior to 5:00 a.m. --We arrive and get in the line for Purple Ticket Holders, at 1st St. NW and Louisiana. We are about 200 or 300 people back from the beginning of the line. Our friend, Mary Kay Greene, a hearty woman in her 70s, arrives shortly thereafter, and stands in line with us. Kel is tired and sits on a cement planter next to the street. He eventually lies down and falls asleeop on the ground next to the planter, looking like an 11 year-old homeless person. Mary Kay buys us a $20 blanket from a walking vendor, and I cover Kel with it. Kelvin puts his coat under Kel's head. We check on him periodically, to make sure that he is okay.

6:00-something a.m. Kelvin and Kel go to Union Station to use the bathroom. Friends from Kansas City who were about 50 people ahead of us in line are heading toward the bathroom and I go with them--Obama Female Alternate Delegate to the Democratic National Convention Aimee Gromowsky and Field Organizer Shelia Johnson. Mary Kay holds my family's place in line.

We use the ladies room at the nearby Liaison Hotel, where Amy's uncle Albert Riederer is staying, and I put foot warmers in my shoes. We head back to the line.

We try to get back on 1st street NW where we'd left it...near the back of the bus that was parked sideways across the north end of the street, to keep vehicles off the block. The few feet-wide gap through which we had left is blocked by a security person, who says we cannot enter there. We go to the other side of the bus, where there is now a sea of humanity...everyone telling us that we cannot go up 1st Street towards Louisiana, we must go to the back of the Purple Ticket line. I desperately explain that I have to get back to my family, as I bore with my body through the crowded throngs of people. I lose Amy and Shelia, but assume they get back up there (I later find out that they did). I make it back to our position, where Mary Kay is still standing.

7:00 a.m. I text Kelvin and tell him not to return via 1st Street, rather, to come up New Jersey and across C street, otherwise they will not be able to get back to us.

People with purple tickets keep coming, for hours. There is no official to direct the foot traffic or to organize or control the crowd. Self-appointed, rather large men in line tell people "purple ticket holders go that way," (away from what we assume is the front of the line). People keep coming and coming. I feel sorry for them for waiting until 8:00, then, 9:00, then 10:00, to arrive. Our line is getting wider. It's becoming increasingly difficult to keep some semblance of a line. People are pushing into one another--most can't help it, the laws of physics are coming into play--there are just too many bodies for that square footage of land. A woman behind us is pushing her son into my back, seemingly intentionally, and telling people who want to cut across the line (in order to get off the block--they don't have tickets or have other-colored tickets) that they'd BETTER not touch HER son or cross through the line. She lashes out and tries to hit one person who is crossing through our line. I explain that people MUST cross through, because otherwise they will be trapped on the block, and there is no more ROOM on the block for the people. This one woman was the only person in the record-setting crowd that I saw display any hostility.

I don't know where the line went beyond the bus at the end of the block. Someone said that it was 8 blocks long. I learn later that the line is in a tunnel. I know that, on our side of the bus, it seems to have curved around into a U, and to have filled in, to the point of no longer being a line, but, rather, a mass of people.

It is about 10:00 a.m. and the line has not moved. Our friend, Josh Reed, who is in the Yellow Ticket section, has told us as early as 9:00 a.m. that there are people in the Purple Ticket section. We don't understand how this is possible, since Purple Ticket Holders have not yet been let in. Josh suggests that we locate some Security People or police, to find out why the line has not moved. We don't see any officials. I long for the "oppressive" military-state-like security measures in place at the Democratic National Convention. Although they were somewhat disorganized, they were THERE and helped create and move lines.

The kid in back of us passes out. Kelvin tells his mom to lie him down and elevate his feet. He checks the 12 year old boy's pupils and heart. The child is fine, just fainted. People start taking off the boy's coat. Kelvin tells them that the boy is not overheated, that they should not take off his cold or he will suffer hypothermia. A young police person comes over, seems not to have much to offer. Does use a radio to communicate the problem to someone, but no one seems to come to take the child away for additional medical attention or evaluation. We hope that the child's mother has the good sense to take him home and is able to GET him home.

We have been on the verge of going back to the hotel, to try to watch the Swearing In on TV, but we can't figure out how to get out of there, there are people everywhere. I tell Kelvin that we are in what seems to be a life-threatening situation. People are pushing together so tightly that it wouldn't take much for someone to be crushed to death. If people panicked and stampeded, I know for sure that, if they started trying to run and shoved harder, someone would be trampled to death. This is no exaggeration. We were minutes away from bailing, but decided to hang in there, until the Swearing In was over, such that there was absolutely no hope we would be inside for it; and we really would have had problems finding a way out through the masses of people crushed together.

People start moving, but not necessarily in the direction of where we think the entry gate is. We realize that our "line" is no longer a line, and there is no way to stay in it. We start pushing our way sideways through the people. We run across someone with a flourescent vest who says that the entry point is farther over to what had been our left. I try to call and I text Mary Kay, from whom we've become separated, to "go as far to the left as you can." (We learn later that she DID, barely, get in).

People along the tall, sturdy metal fence are being let in, as are people on the far left of what is like a "V" of people being admitted. We in the middle don't seem to be allowed to enter. Folks start demanding, "Let the middle in!" and I add to the chant, "Please!" We are being crushed in this location, too. We briefly see Kristi Boone, who has become separated from Stan Adams and Heather Getz, who she says are somewhere in front of her.

After 11:00 a.m.--Eventually, we are allowed by Police and Secret Service through the gate in the big metal fence. Getting through Security is a piece of cake. The lines leading up to the metal detectors are short. We make a quick stop at a porta-potty. No waiting there, even though there had been no toilets for the tens of thousands of people waiting outside the secure perimeter.

Then, we stand in the Purple Section in a place no where near any of the spots we'd plan to stand. There are trees in front of us. Surprisingly, usually non-assertive Kelvin keeps us moving towards the center, even though I assume there is no room to move that way. He leads us through a little path in bushes taller than our heads. We come out on the other side of the bushes, with little pieces of vegetation on our coats. We stand at the back left of the center ticketed section, with some kind of barrier between us and the Silver ticketed section behind us. Kelvin can put Kel in his shoulders periodically, because it doesn't block anyone's view. Kel can use the binoculars to see Barack. I can see Barack's little head between other spectator's heads. I give my camera to a guy who has climbed on top of a porta potty, and later panic when I don't see my camera; I get it back ASAP. I take photos by holding my camera straight up, at arms' length, and pointing it in the direction of the area where Barack was speaking. I get a few good pictures that way. Porta-potty man has much better success.

I cry, sob, really, when I look between people's heads and see Barack, looking out at the crowd of millions, and think about how it must all look to him. The outcome of this improbable journey. The folks he will lead to changing the course of human history and saving us from ourselves. Yes, we will.