Eleven Years and an Hour Later

Eleven years ago today, I watched Barack Obama become the 44th President of the United States. I took my dad and step-mother out for lunch and we celebrated that and our server’s recent baby.

His inauguration co-incited with my dad’s 74th birthday. I had just turned 50 the previous October. My 40s were a decade of change, bad decisions, homelessness and redemption. I had my ego crushed, heart broken and dreams dashed. I was patronized and lashed out. In between 1998–2004, I lived in at least seven different places. For two years, my address was a post office box in Troy, Michigan. Without a lot of help from my mother and grandfather, rest his soul, I might not have made it through those bad times.

Because, in 2009, January 20th fell on a Sunday, the swearing-in took place on the 21st. It was the largest crowd to witness an inauguration since John F. Kennedy. Caroline, the last one left, was there, as was Ted, who was dying.

It was noon. I couldn’t tell you what I had for lunch that day. I had worked on his campaign the previous fall, harder than I had for any other candidate in my life. I can remember, at 14, stuffing envelopes for McGovern and voting for and doing stuff for Jimmy Carter in 1976 and, through Move-On.Org, trying to get John Kerry across the finish line in 2004.

Obama was different. Oh sure, there were other African American candidates before him. Shirley Chisholm had run a quixotic primary campaign in 1972 and Jesse Jackson ran twice for the Democratic nomination…