For the aged, waking up every morning comes as a gift. Yesterday had a ribbon on it.
The TV screen was a flood of flags, bunting, crowds, Inaugural stands, Lincoln Bibles and all the other patriotic paraphernalia of the day. Best of all was the realization that it was not Mitt Romney being sworn into the Oval Office.
After a year of haunting fear that in my final years the country might be run by meanness and insensitivity, it was reassuring beyond belief that Barack Obama was taking the oath again.
On my ninth birthday, March 4. 1933, Franklin Roosevelt was inaugurated for the first time. I experienced that from a grainy newspaper photograph.
Amid wall-to-wall coverage on CNN etc. all the words and images reinforced the hope that somehow in some ways the next four years will be better than the last.
As I left my room for breakfast, I saw the sign on my teen-age granddaughter’s door across the hall: “Happiness is not a goal; it is a byproduct. –Eleanor Roosevelt.”
Amen to that.
Update: Romney, who had so many plans for Day One, spent it in sunny California, confirming what many Obama voters suspected when casting their ballots.
MORE.