Obama, Acid, Camaro's and D.C.

Jan and I got to see the Obama inauguration. Not at home. Not in a bar. Not in person. But in departure gate 4a at JFK.
Just making the assumption that we would be arriving late into JFK on January 20, 2009, we thought we could still make it to the apartment by noon.
Northwest didn't disappoint. We arrived at the JFK gate at precisely 11:24. Way too late to make it to our t.v. in Brooklyn Heights.
So, we got off the plane, hiked down to a deserted (or so we thought) departure gate and joined five of our brothers and sisters to watch some tee-vee.
Three of those we joined were TSA security (boy, put them behind an x-ray machine and they're total dick's, put em in front of a monitor hung from the ceiling, watching our new president get sworn in...priceless) and the other two were custodians. Three men. Two women.
As the inauguration began to unfold we all bonded like, well, like brothers and sisters. Don't think that anyone deferred to us because we were the only white folk around. Uh..uh. Two of the gentlemen, sat...on their backs...showed us most of their underwear, and text messaged through most of the inauguration.
And don't think we felt at odds or ill at ease because...well...because we were the only white folk around. Nope. We sat on our asses, howled when Miss Thing praised Jesus, and got misty eyed when the other sister stood up with hands upraised as Chief Justice, John Roberts , screwed up the oath of office. Didn't matter. Still counted. In fact, it counted way before Obama actually mis-spoke those words.
The seven of us, for the next hour and a half, became that little community that Obama talked so much about. We were a microcosm of the 2 million person crowd that came to be part of something the likes of which we may not experience again in our lifetime. As a family, as a community, we all hooted and groaned and then laughed out loud as the little, evil weasel, Cheney, tried to channel FDR as he was pushed out in his wheelchair. For the God's sake! If truly there is a God, couldn't he have missed the ramp and pulled a header down the stairs.
We all marveled at those girls. And the life that was ahead of them. And we all gasped in unison as the camera's showed what Obama was seeing as he looked out over the masses.
So many people. They said 2 million.
And then I remembered a time back in 1969 when I was part of a crowd like that. We said a million. Nixon's cronies said maybe 250,000. We said screw you, it was a million or more you sleazy little bowl of fuck.
And then I realized there were so many parallels, as well as dichotomies between these two crowds.
January 20th and that crowd? They were a sea of hope and expectations.
November 15, 1969 we were a sea of frustration and protest. A stoned and angry band of brothers and sisters. But the love. Oh my God, the love.
It all began with a beaten up Camaro that Captain had. I don't know if he owned it, stole it, or borrowed it. Back in the day, it didn't really matter. We had a car and we were going to Washington, D.C. to protest the war in Vienam.
The Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam. November 13th, 1969 we clambered into the Camaro, probably early sixties vintage: me, Jan, Cindy, Ace and Captain. Really, Jan, Cindy and myself were the only ones who escaped the 60's without an alias (unless you count the time we were arrested for minors in possession and the intake sarge asked Jan if she was known by any other names and she said Pollack).
There was Captain. And Ace. Spiney. Electric Lynne. Crazy Patty. Frog. The Fly. Downer. Jean Wean the Beauty Queen, (I'll have to tell you sometime about Jean and I hitching down to Florida and almost being abducted and killed outside a small town in Georgia), the list went on and on.
But this trip it was just Jan, Cindy, Captain, Ace and myself. No money except for a tank of gas to get there (leaving from East Lansing) and a tank of gas to get back. We were going to drive straight through. We had bologna and mustard sandwiches. Ripple. Chips. And drugs. And we knew we always had the kindness of other Hippies.
I think Captain started driving and, of course, he immediately dropped acid. Hey, he wasn't called Captain America for nothing.
Ace did too, just to keep him company. Cindy, Jan and me...I'm pretty sure we were more level headed and just got stoned. Somewhere in Pennsylvania we had to take over the driving. I don't remember much except Captain was crying and Ace left the car for awhile at a rest stop and joined another group that was, of course, also going to d.c. We got stuck in a traffic jam, in the interstate, and found Ace again. It was like a parking lot. But it was also a community.
You see, the cool part was the closer you got to D.C. the more crowded the highway became. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE was heading in the same direction. And as we would stop in the middle of the highway because there was nowhere else to go, we'd share food and pot and booze and stories. We were all there for the same reason.
Just like the inauguration. Those two million were there for the same reason.
I think that only happens a couple a times in as many generations. That common reasoning. That ultimate goal of making a difference.
The only difference between November 15th and January 20th, forty years later, was that, this last January, the difference had already been made. We had made that difference. Us, the majority. We didn't steal an election, like in 2000 or Swiftboat another one four years after that.
And as Jan and I sat in Departure Gate 4A, I thought back to forty years before when we had been together, except that time, it was to try and make a difference. The real change was yet to come.
Oh sure, we got pretty apathetic, not to much longer after that. Drugs took over a lot of the revolution, and when Rednecks from the South started growing their hair long then we pretty much knew the revolution was over.
Point being, Nixon was gone then. And Bush is gone now.
As we pulled into Washington d.c. on the night of November 14th, I'll never forget our eyes burning, and us all looking at each other and realizing we were being tear gassed. Cool. Well, let's say that the police/cops/pigs had driven a huge contingency of a mob right into the path of our car.
And I'll never forget sitting in Departure Gate 4a and watch a woman in her custodial uniform reaching for the ceiling and praising Jesus for bring us this man with the funny name.
I won't forget Jan and I ducking into a hotel to try and escape the tear gas, she and I slipping into the woman's room, in a stall and huddling there until the mob had passed us by.
And I won't forget being able to experience that same rush, of that same crowd frenzy (albeit through a t.v. screen) with the very same same woman. We've come a long way Pollack.
And so much further to go.