Americans rush plans for Obama inauguration

[babylonsister]

Americans rush plans for Obama inauguration

By GILLIAN GAYNAIR and BRETT ZONGKER
Associated Press Writers


AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin


WASHINGTON (AP) -- Pattie Brew, daughter of a North Carolina sharecropper, had let almost a century go by without casting a vote for president or joining the inaugural crowds only three miles from her home in the nation's capital.

"I never had no interest in it because my vote don't matter anyway, so I never even took the time to fool with it," said the 97-year-old woman known as Mother Brew. "I knew white people had the right of way here, you know."

But on Nov. 4, she slipped on white gloves and pearls and found her way to a polling booth. And on Jan. 20, she wants to see the country's first inauguration of a black president - not from a couch at home but from somewhere closer by.

"So much history in this, honey," Brew said. "You gonna get me a ticket?"

From the District of Columbia's historically black neighborhoods to Honolulu, Americans who had let many presidents pass them by are clamoring for a chance to be a part of Barack Obama's inauguration. There are lengthy waiting lists for tickets to the inauguration and balls. Hotels have filled up as far away as West Virginia.

more...

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/INAUGURATION_AMERICAN_STORIES?SITE=CONGRA&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

[Clio the Leo]

1. I am PRAYING that it doesn't snow....

... with everything in my being. I remember at Reagan's second inauguration that it snowed and they moved it to inside the Rotunda.

With all of this talk about the Inaugural preparation, it's the ONE thing no one is mentioning.

[onehandle]

3. Freezing rain and sleet at Bush's inauguration in 2000.

Then several inches of snow late that night.

[Clio the Leo]

4. Yeah but the weather in '85 was apparently much worse ....

... all I can find on Google was "frigid temperatures" but whatever it was, Reagan is the only president to take the oath of office inside the Rotunda.

Whatever it was, it was so wide-spread that I was home from school because of a snow day (and I was in Tennessee.)

Apparently the warmest inauguration also belonged to Reagan in '81 when it was 55 degrees. Given how the sun seems to (figuratively) shine on Barack everywhere he goes, and how balmy it was on election night in Chicago, i'm hoping Mother Nature will shine her rays down on us all next January 20th.

[onehandle]

2. We made our reservations in March.

No event tickets, but who cares.