Here's something rare

This story actually made me chuckle a couple times while writing it. I like it — dry humor.

By MATT WRIGHT
For Temple High School junior Keith Wilkinson, this week was full of new experiences.

First subway ride. First snowfall. First time to attend the presidential inauguration.

Wilkinson stood a scant 400 yards away from the U. S. capitol, where President George W. Bush was sworn in for his second term Thursday. A crowd of thousands — which Wilkinson compared to the battle scenes in the Lord of the Rings movies — stretched for several blocks behind him.

Even though he had a choice ticket (acquired with the help of City Councilwoman Martha Tyroch), he said the view was not what stuck out.

“The most memorable thing was the sheer noise that (the crowd) made when Bush stepped on stage. It was just an uproar, beyond comprehension, just an enormous rush,” he said by phone Thursday.

For Moira O’Brien, another Temple student at the inauguration, her favorite part was also aural instead of visual.

“The speech at the end that George W. Bush made was nice — and meaningful,” the Travis Middle School seventh-grader said by phone.

Ms. O’Brien and her friends from the Congressional Youth Leadership program were stationed behind the reflecting pool, several hundred yards further away than Wilkinson, who was in D.C. with a different inauguration program. She said she enjoyed just listening to the president speak.

“It was really fun, even though we couldn’t see the president. There were big screens, but we still couldn’t see it too well because there were tall people in front of us.”

Of course, the inauguration was not the only event Thursday. There was also the parade, which Ms. O’Brien watched from the National Press Club to get in from the cold.

Wilkinson, on the other hand, missed it completely.

“I didn’t get to see the parade because of security problems,” he said. “Security was very, very, very high. Between snipers on the roof, to armed machine guns on the street, to vans or blockades on every other street, security was everywhere.”

On her way to the Press Club, though, Ms. O’Brien got to meet one of security’s nemeses: protestors.

“There were tons of them,” she said. “Walking from the inauguration, us being a big group of kids, they started telling us that George Bush and our parents lied to us, and we need to start getting the facts straight.”

It was a slightly different brand of political discussion than Ms. O’Brien had experienced earlier in the week in debates and forums with fellow politically knowledgeable middle schoolers from around the country.

“We talked about different issues, like stem cell research, education, homeland security and the war in Iraq. I learned a lot just by talking about them and listening to what other people had to say,” she said.

But Ms. O’Brien and Wilkinson both said there were more than just Bush lovers and Bush haters in D.C. this week.

“There were some Kerry people (in my group),” Ms. O’Brien said. “They disagreed with some of the things George Bush thought, but they still came to enjoy history.”

The week was filled with tours of locations dear to America’s past — monuments, memorials, historical locations and centers of government.

Wilkinson, for instance, got to see what it is like to have a cushy job in Congress.

“We sat in the House of Representatives — they had the most comfortable chairs,” he said. “Now I know why it might take Congress some time to get things done.”

Both students spoke well of the city and the ceremony, especially after the cold and we weather cleared somewhat Thursday.

But there was one thing Wilkinson found “very shocking” about the inauguration.

“There were hundreds and hundreds of Port-A-Potties,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many in my life.”

After I got off the phone with the high school kid, I realized that was probably the first time in the history of the Telegram that an interview had been conducted from Union Station.