Am I The Only One Fascinated By All This Inauguration Stuff?

I posed the question in the headline, "am I the only one fascinated by all this inauguration stuff? But I think the answer must be no, because if nobody cared, it wouldn't have been on almost a dozen TV channels on my TV this morning, side by side with reruns of cooking shows and 60's sitcoms.

(Plus, Decades Channel ran a compilation of Inaugural swearings-in and speeches throughout the morning, kind of like the NFL Network does with Super Bowls ahead of the big game that day.)

Even though everything this year was pared down due to the pandemic and the attack on the Capitol two weeks ago, I'm a first generation American and I know how much this country meant to my folks because they never took it for granted, and I try not to, even though I was born here. And maybe I feel a little more patriotic this year and appreciative after the events of two weeks ago. And, wow, didn't Lady Gaga just nail it with the national anthem.

I love seeing the former Presidents, side by side, with leaders from both sides. And occasionally, TV captures a magic moment, like this morning, over the shoulder of Senator Amy Klobuchar, someone was rocking a thousand dollar pair of Nikes. It wasn't at an inaugural, but at Sen. John McCain's funeral, where former President George Bush was sharing lifesaver candies with former First Lady Michelle Obama. We don't have to agree on everything to be friends or at least civil to each other.

And here where I've kind of come around a bit to a different way of thinking. Normally, I wouldn't be all the excited about "show-bizzing" up an event like the inauguration, but I tell myself, this is the direction our society has gone, and quite honestly, for the most part it's quite respectful. Oh, you get a little show-bizzy flourish at the end of a performance, but for the most part, it's very nice. Today, Jennifer Lopez was very good. The young poet, Amanda Gorman, stunned a lot of people with her poem, and made some of us wish we'd paid more attention to the poetry we were taught in high school and such. And Garth Brooks is, well, Garth Brooks. Just perfect. (And so was Yolanda Adams' rendition of "Hallelujah" last night at the Covid-19 memorial.)

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But the inauguration is an important symbol of continuity and just an important part of Americana, and I just love watching it every four years.