Tag Archive for inauguration

My Inauguration Boots

January 20, 2010 politics No comments

boots
Those are my Inauguration boots.

Every time I wear them I say to myself — sometimes silently, sometimes out loud — “these are my Inauguration boots.”

One year ago today, my Inauguration boots saved my life (or at least my toes) as I stood in them for 12 hours straight along with thousands of my fellow frozen citizens to watch the inauguration of President Barack Obama.

One year later, the warm and fuzzy feeling of my Inauguration boots hasn’t faded, even if the warm and fuzzy feeling of the Inauguration has a little bit.

A lot has happened in that one year: troop increases in Afghanistan; unprecedented bailouts of the financial, insurance, and automotive industries; a stalled healthcare reform effort; a climate change summit that went nowhere; an aborted terrorist attack; and now a natural disaster in Haiti and an electoral disaster in Massachusetts.

A lot can change in a year. And my Inauguration boots remind me that winters do end.

–lori

Get on the Bus! Inauguration or Bust

January 18, 2009 politics 4 comments

I’m heading to D.C., baby!

Three busloads of students from the UofR will be leaving Monday for an all-night road trip to the nation’s capitol, and I’ll be along for the ride as one of the “event managers” (read: “chaperones”). Our 150 students will be joining a crowd of 2-4 million citizens of the world along the National Mall, all eager to witness history in the making, and all needing to use the same subway cars and porta-potties.

My main task will be to make sure that all 150 students find their way back to the buses and back to Rochester. That sounds a little daunting. But as the President-elect himself might say, if we just stick together and look out for each other, no-one gets left behind.

–lori