o-ba-ma
What I recall thinking, as I stood with the crowds in the gathered around the large tv in the neighborhood bar, having abandoned the home tv for just a minute to experience everyone else’s joy and laughter, to see what all the noise and honking and drinking in the streets was like, was that this was not only a historical change, but it was also the first time our generation had really got to witness something not only history making but in a positive way. Most of us were too young to really recall the Berlin Wall coming down in great depth, I simply remember the images and my mother’s tears, who had spent three years there.
What I do remember was watching from a class room window as the second plane hit the twin towers. I remember crying in front of the television as the Iraq war began. I remember the slow sinking feeling I’d come to expect with the making of “history.” I guess, without realizing it, I’d begun to lose faith in our country in so many ways. I was definitely one of the masses that was afraid to hope.
I didn’t cry when Obama won. I smiled. I smiled till my cheeks ached and all I could follow it up with was occasional outburst of laughter and “I can’t believe we did it.” I ordered two Johnny Walker Blacks and I smiled in front of the tv and at the people standing next to me at everything in nothing in general.
I think our generation needed to see something like this, needed the type of hope it would provide. Needed to believe. Insert cheesy proud to be an american quote.
(I know I’m a bit late on the whole thing, I’ve been internet free for daaaays, but it was nice to finally say my piece)
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