history in the making

I am so glad that I get to park in front of the tv for all the inauguration festivities and formalities. This is truly an amazing moment for our country.

When I was a child, my parents worked for equal housing rights in my hometown. This was at the same time as Father Groppi's marches in Milwaukee, although we were in a different town, in a different state not too far away. My early years were spent with white and black families, and I truly didn't see any racial differences until I was seven years old and watched how the other kids treated our school's first black student. My tanned dad's skin was darker than my mom's, so it made sense that someone else's skin could be darker than his (even though I wanted my daddy to be the darkest). Due to their civil rights work and the fact that my parents had minored in Russian in college, they were investigated and watched by the FBI at that time. In fact, I watched the FBI interrogate my mother when I was four years old, in my own living room after my dad had left for work.

So I watch this inauguration with awe. On the day I went to vote, I felt the enormity of the process in which I was participating. No matter what my vote, history would be made, and I was part of it. We would have either a black president or a female vice-president. How awesome is that? And in just a few days, it will happen.

Wow.