As the sun rose on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., a thunderbird and an angel from Neah Bay alighted.
These winged creatures came on the shoulders of Julie Johnson, in a vibrant red and black shawl that celebrated a new morning, a new president — and basketball.
Veteran Neah Bay hoops coach Ron Johnson, husband to Julie, joined her and some 2 million others on the National Mall on Tuesday for the inauguration of President Barack H. Obama, and later gave a breathless interview via cell phone.
This president is an ardent basketball player who just might put a court where the White House bowling alley was. An excellent sign, to Ron’s mind.
Basketballers understand teamwork. “You’ve got to get along on a team,” and if you can’t learn that skill, you won’t get far, said Ron, a member of the Makah tribe who coached basketball for 30 years.
“When I saw him playing,” Ron said, “I said, ‘All right. This is what we need.'”
Port Angeles ball
At the sold-out Peninsula Community Inaugural Ball Tuesday night in Port Angeles, a bipartisan, evening-gowned and, in some cases, tuxedoed crowd jammed the Naval Elks Lodge.
“What’s wonderful is everyone feels united,” said Democrat Annette Hanson of Sequim. “That’s what the country needs.”
Davi Parrish and Bobbie Kreider, a pair of Port Angeles Republicans, voiced their support for the new Democratic leader.
Regardless of political stance, Kreider said, “Today’s a celebration” of Obama’s transcendence of history.
“He’s our President, and I support him. The country’s come a long, long way.”
Julie Grattan, a Port Angeles Democrat, came to the ball with three Republican friends.
“Unity is my main focus,” she said. “I want to be patriotic, and I can be, with what’s happening.”
Long walk
In Washington, D.C., Tuesday morning, Ron and Julie Johnson began their walk from the Embassy Suites hotel to the U.S. Capitol a good four hours before Obama took the oath of office.
“People were happy to walk these miles. We’re all going to do the same thing,” Ron said.
“Everybody here has the common feeling of hope for the future — with an understanding that it’s going to take years to clean up our situation,” Julie added.
“The world has changed and we need to change with it,” she said. Julie is a member of the Lummi tribe who works as a consultant to Native American groups and serves on the Northwest Community College Board of Trustees.
“We need to take a step back and take a look at our county … The jobs are in technology.
“Change is hard,” she said. But Obama’s inaugural speech refreshed her hopes.
“He was honest,” about the country’s struggles, she said. “It was a down-to-earth speech,” both positive and realistic.
Julie then invoked her husband’s words.
“We need that teamwork, that working together,” she said.
Julie’s hope is that people on the Olympic Peninsula, in Western Washington and in Washington, D.C., will find ways to work together to fulfill the new president’s promise.
The thunderbird on her shawl, she added, is shaped like an angel of inclusiveness, “leaning out to give you a hug.”
Marcia Farrell of Port Angeles was also on the National Mall Tuesday, though unike the Johnsons, she didn’t have a ticket to the inauguration. She couldn’t see the podium, so she just listened. And looked around.
‘Total elation’
“I felt just total elation,” she said, “just looking at the masses of people and the joy in their faces.”
Farrell added that she can’t remember ever feeling anyting like this in her 62 years.
During the ceremony, “there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The sun was shining on the Washington Monument.
“It was so amazing. With that amount of people, you’d think we’d be stepping on each other’s toes. But there wasn’t an angry person among us. People were saying, ‘Oh, excuse me,’ ‘Oh, I’m sorry.'”
At one point Farrell and a frail woman who looked to be in her 70s wanted to move to higher ground.
She and the woman “kind of held hands — I’m no spring chicken myself — and then she hugged me and said ‘Thank you.'”
Farrell was headed for the We the People Inaugural Gala at the Capitol Hill Hyatt Regency Tuesday night. She’ll return home to Port Angeles on Thursday.
“We the people are the ones who made this happen,” Farrell said, “by talking to our friends and family. We can’t say, ‘Now it’s all done.’
“Our reputation in the world is so tarnished. It’s our responsibility as Americans to show that we are a kind and loving people.”
To restore a healthy economy, Farrell added, “we all have to make sacrifices. We can turn this around.”
That’s not all she hopes for. Together with their new leader, Americans can “have better race relations and be more inclusive of all people. This is a huge step toward that.”
LeRoy and Lorraine Martin of Port Angeles also attended the ceremony in Washington, D.C., but could not be reached on their cell phone on Tuesday.
Jubilant at library
Tuesday morning at the Port Angeles Library, the scene was less crowded but as jubilant.
Young couples embraced. Silver-haired men murmured “yes.” Women raised their hands high to clap, as 25 big-screen television viewers welcomed Obama to this point in history.
And when the new president gave the podium to a another black man — 40 years his senior, the veteran of marches with Martin Luther King Jr. — the hollers and chants started anew.
The Rev. Joseph Lowery was the giver of the inaugural benediction for the millions on the National Mall and across the world, and when he asked the people to say “amen,” yes, they did.
Lowery smiled, and the Port Angeles audience laughed, as he purred his rhythmic finish:
“Help us then, now, Lord,” he said, “to work for that day/when black will not be asked to get back/when brown can stick around/when yellow will be mellow/when the red man can get ahead, man/and when white will embrace what is right.”
President Obama grinned, as did the people in the library’s Raymond Carver Room as they belted out “Amen!”
They whistled and whooped, too, with soul and gusto. Next they stood, together with the new leader and his family, for the national anthem. The past hour had been an emotionally draining one, so they sang softly.
Then it was over — but not for Katrinka Brinkley of Port Angeles.
This is a beginning, she said, for her son Lawrence Matthew Brinkley, a teenager who’s living in Texas. He’s biracial just like the president, the offspring of an interracial marriage.
When Obama was elected in November, Brinkley said her son told her: “Mom, I can do anything.”
“And he can. He’s an A-B student. He’s going to go to college.”
Watching the inauguration, Brinkley broke out in goose bumps, remembering the days when she and her husband, a black man, had to be “very, very careful” when traveling in Virginia.
Today, Brinkley believes, is a new day for whites, blacks and every American in between.
“He represents everybody,” she said of the president.
Charles Strickland of Port Angeles was one of several at the library who made an exception in their television-free lives to watch Obama give his first speech as president.
“This is going to have to sink in for a while,” Strickland said afterward, his eyes sparkling with tears.
For him, the best part of Obama’s inaugural address was the ending.
“In this winter of our hardship,” the president said, “let us brave once more the icy currents and endure what storms may come.
“Let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested, we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back, nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed upon the horizon and God’s grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.”
To this Strickland added one thing: “Yes, we can.”
Rama Lash, who came from Olympia to visit his girlfriend Kari Williamson of Port Angeles, said regular folks have a role to play in the new administration.
That role is “to maintain hope, and to focus on the good and not so much on the negative,” said Lash, 33.
Sam Fox of Port Angeles, who watched the inauguration with his partner, Erin Drake, was just as energized. “It’s time to step up,” for positive change, he said. Obama was able to reach the White House “because folks cared and paid attention.” Fox added that he has reason to believe Americans will keep doing so.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
