Inauguration Day, 2009: A View from Oxford

It is Inauguration Day, and I homebound with allergies, laden with sneezes and a nonstop nose. That's the bad news. The good news - - I witnessed American history at one of it's defining moments.

The faces in the crowd, smiles plumped-up with hope, all waving at the media. You realize there is so much riding on this man, his policies, and the precedent he will set into play. We can hope his presidency will set into domino motion a time of renewed personal responsibility, intellectual curiosity and innovation, and knowing we can change through sacrifice. Success will be require community effort. No one ever does it alone.

An unidentified woman popped on the screen wearing a pink bowl hat holding a handscratched sign that read, "The future is watching." Yes they were.

With all that said, I have memories scanning President Kennedy speeches and funeral, the MLK assassination, the first moon walk (and it wasn't Michael Jackson), and the first live satellite concert when Elvis rocked his pelvis from Hawaii. Yet I cannot recall a benchmark time when so many were on the same page - - When so many took breath of the same thread of history and commonality, strung together by patriotism and the wow of technology. Surely this was a capstone of American history.

May tomorrow find us with equal enthusiasm and lungs still full of fresh air - - committed to all that was celebrated today.