Purple Inaugural Tickets

Last summer I decided to take advantage of our daughter Mary's proximity to Washington DC and make plans to attend the inauguration.  I knew that it would be historic no matter who won.  We would either see the first woman VP or the first African American President take the oath of office.  After the election I sent an E-mail to Senator Crapo requesting 2 tickets.  I thought my chances were pretty slim so I was surprised when I got an E-mail that contained, "We are happy to inform you that you have been granted 2 tickets...."  Yipee!!!!  We had to go to the senate office building on the Monday before the inauguration to pick them up.  Imagine our delight when we opened the envelope to discover our tickets in the "purple standing section" which was located right behind the seated area.  Wahoo!!!! We thought we had really gotten lucky! 

On Inauguration morning we got up at 3:00 a.m., drove to the closest Metro station and were on the street near the capital by 5:30.  It was an amazing scene with huge crowds of Obama fans, occasional cheers of "give me an O....give me a B......", and lots of police.  Our  tickets told us to get off at the Judiciary Square so we did.  We found a line and a very polite policeman told us to get out our purple tickets and get in line in the tunnel.  This tunnel is actually a four lane highway that goes under the Mall almost directly in front of the US Capital.  We walked and walked down and finally got to the back of the line where we stood and waited.  It was fun to talk to the people around us...after 6 hours you become friends!

During the time we spent in the tunnel lots of incredulous people kept walking by saying, "is this the line for the purple tickets?"  They were amazed that their "wonderful" purple section tickets would require them to wait in such a long line.  We heard that the line went all the way through the tunnel about 1 mile! 

When the security check points opened at about 8:00 the line started slowly, ever so slowly inching forward.  Finally we got out of the tunnel and immediately saw that there were absolutely no police and no barriers anywhere to be found and people were moving towards the security check from the street and from Union Station.  Waiting politely in the tunnel meant that we had little or no chance of getting in to the ticketed area.  Finally Mary and I made our way to near the front of the line where we could see the Capital and the security fence.  Occasionally a small group would be allowed through and they would run towards the Capital.  Now instead of cheers of "Obama!" the cheers were "Let us in!!"  "Purple tickets".....someone suggested climbing the fence but the snipers on the roof made that seem like not so good of an idea!  So this is what we saw of the inaguration of our 44th President!

We were a part of history....we spent Inauguration 2009 in what has been called the "Purple Tunnel of Doom".  Congress is launching an investigation of what went wrong that kept 5 - 10 thousand people who had tickets out of the ticketed area. If you look at the aerial shots of the inauguration you can see that the "purple standing area" was no where near full.  It will be something to tell my grandchildren, just not the story I thought I'd be telling!  And it was wonderful to spend time with Mary even if it was waiting in the cold with no bathrooms for 6 + hours!!!! Oh yes, and in case you thought the purple tickets were somehow reserved for Republicans who shouldn't have been there anyway, there were people all around us who were big Obama supporters, who had volunteered for him and had even worked in the transition office.  So lots of loyal Obama fans also were not able to see anything.  I felt sorry for the older African Americans who were just crying when we heard the big cheer and then the 21 gun salute and knew it was over!