You Say 'President,' I Say . . . By the time 68-year-old Genevieve Astor squeezed onto the Red Line train at Woodley Park yesterday morning, the car was packed with clammy passengers. To the rescue: Amanda Orenstein, who gave up her seat so Astor, just in from Houston, could sit.
"Well, bless your heart!" Astor marveled. "And I love your sign! Hail to the Chief!"
"That's thief," Orenstein grumbled, straightening her hand-lettered sandwich board. "The sign says, 'Hail to the Thief.' "
"Oh," said Astor. "You want your seat back?"
-- Felice Belman
Nice Coat, Part I Just two stops along, the eastbound Orange Line train was already elbow to elbow at 10 a.m., plastic rain slickers rubbing against faded parkas.
In the next-to-last car, a well-coiffed woman nestled into one of the last remaining seats. Her husband stood by expectantly, his gloved hand grasping for a pole as the train rumbled along.
The woman chirped away to her seatmate, a young man from Pennsylvania wearing checked pants. He was in town on a culinary internship, he told her, and was headed downtown to make pastries for an inaugural luncheon.
The woman listened attentively. Her two multi-diamond rings sparkled in the morning light. Her luxuriant, full-length black fur cascaded onto the stained orange carpeting.
Around her, scarved and layered inaugural-goers readied themselves for the chill. The woman's husband took note.
"Honey," he said, "you should have worn another coat."
"Why?" she asked, as ears turned their way. "Animals are always out in the rain."
The car went momentarily silent.
-- Marylou Tousignant
Check the Plates "There's USA2!" a woman shouted as she pointed her camera at a limousine sweeping down I Street NW early yesterday morning. The limo was on its way to pick up the vice president-elect and his wife for a worship service at St. John's Episcopal Church a block away, and the man who waved through the tinted window was not Dick Cheney.
The woman's disappointment lasted but a few seconds.
"Nobody's going to know he wasn't in there," she told her teenage daughter. "We were here! I got a picture of USA2!"
-- Bill Broadway
Sidewalk Singalong For an hour and a half, the 50-plus demonstrators waited in a cold drizzle at a C Street checkpoint. Finally, the line began to move, and the group launched into its own version of the Vietnam-era anthem, "Give Peace a Chance."
"All we are saaaaay-ing," they sang, "is count every vote."
A police officer, motioning the group to stick to the sidewalk, sang back to them: "All we are saaaaay-ing, is move it along."
-- Nurith C. Aizenman
Rah! Rah! . . . Blah! A man and woman, wearing crimson "Bush" sweat shirts, strode toward the parade route through a swarm of protesters who hooted at them.
The woman tried to ignore them, then brightened.
"Look -- cheerleaders!" she said, and gestured at a group of eight brightly dressed young people who were doing leg kicks (and, in one case, the splits) as they lustily spelled out, "R-E-S-I-S-T!"
Leanne Finnegan, 18, of Charlotte, stopped long enough to explain that these were the self-dubbed Radical Cheerleaders/Charlotte-Maine Chapter ("There's one person from Maine. We came all the way here to do our cheers. We're trying to be very preppy.")
Then she rejoined the group and picked up the chant:
"Resist, resist! Raise your fists, raise your fists! Fight the capitalists!"
The sweat-shirted couple came closer.
"Oh my gosh," she said.
"Wrong cheerleaders," he said.
-- Michael Leahy
Dressing for the Weather
Rain-soaked and chilled to the bone, spectators on Seventh Street shared gingersnaps and hand warmers as they awaited the parade. But something in the fast-growing crowd diverted attention from Pennsylvania Avenue.
"Oh my God, he's wearing shorts," a woman yelled, and soon the cry went up in the crowd: "Shorts! Shorts! Shorts!"
All eyes were on a man in a green fleece jacket and blue print shorts.
-- Maria Glod
The Edge of Their Seats They had their M & M s, their PowerBars, a thermos of hazelnut coffee and a David Balducci Secret Service novel. The two Centreville women had snagged a prime parade-viewing spot on 15th Street NW between F and G streets -- a bit too prime, as it turned out.
"We're definitely not supposed to be here," concluded Cheryl Day, 34, as she slouched comfortably in a folding chair. She had begun to notice that she and her "activities buddy," Jennifer Howe, were the only civilians in a sea of uniformed police officers and trench-coated Secret Service agents -- not counting a few ticket-holders and a marching band from Marshall, Minn.
Clearly, they had crashed the joint. Day, a computer teacher, and Howe, who teaches "dental careers," passed the checkpoint right behind a horde of kitchen workers for the party at Riggs Bank. "They all had big knives and big chef hats," Day said. "It was hilarious. So we just snuck through."
At that moment, Bush's motorcade passed by, bound for his swearing-in, and the women jumped from their chairs, yelling happily. As she caught sight of Dick Cheney in one of the cars, Howe mused: "You know, I've cleaned Mrs. Cheney's teeth. Maybe that's what I'll say if we get questioned about our seats again."
-- Ian Shapira
An Internet Connection
Stephanie Mackey, of Reston, didn't expect to be standing on Pennsylvania Avenue Saturday afternoon -- not until she scored tickets on eBay Friday night.
"I watched eBay all day. I watched the same screen," she said, noting that she got up from her chair only once, to pick up a friend at the airport. And now, there they were, searching for their seats in the stands near Lafayette Park.
"I don't think this is right," Mackey said, as a volunteer directed her two blocks away. "We'll find them," she added with a determined look as she led her friend away.
It turned out that buying the seats was the easy part.
-- Nancy Trejos
Nice Coat, Part II Megan McCue, 24, a Sierra Club protester from Philadelphia, stood in the intersection of 13th and E streets NW, spinning around, holding the head of her polar bear outfit.
"This is very warm," she said, scanning the cold, wet crowd for the rest of the critters in her group. "It's actually a very nice day with this thing on."
It was also a friendly day, as several parade-goers asked to have their pictures taken with her -- including the man who remarked, "You look like a lonely polar bear."
She put her head on and wandered back into the crowd.
-- Graeme Zielinski
Using His Thinking Cap In the midst of the noisy demonstration at 14th and Pennsylvania, a vendor threaded his way through the chanting crowd hawking black "Bush-Cheney" baseball caps at $10 a pop.
He wasn't getting many takers. He tried a new sales pitch.
"You can buy it and burn it if you want," he said hopefully.
No one did.
-- Jacqueline L. Salmon
Witness to History Luann Hamill stood in a sea of Bush supporters on the Mall, loaded down with walkie-talkie, cell phone, purse and camera. She had come from Plymouth, Mass., to chaperon a high school marching band.
"I don't even know if I like him," Hamill confided to the woman next to her.
"That's okay," the stranger responded. "There's forgiveness for everyone."
Looking somewhat stunned, Hamill turned away to her ringing cell phone.
"Hi, honey," she yelled. "Can you hear it? He's about to be sworn in!"
Pause.
"I know," she said, "but I'm watching it live."
-- Tracey A. Reeves
Skoal! So who said you couldn't toast the new president? Bush ended his oath of office with a "so help me God." Cannon blasts sounded over the Capitol. Rich Lord and Chris Rodgers each downed a shot of vodka.
The two friends flew in from Erie, Pa., at 6:30 a.m. just to stand in the mud and the rain on the Mall and watch their candidate get sworn in, only to turn around and fly back at 4 p.m. They got their mini bottles from the flight attendant.
"This is history, and it's the responsibility of all citizens to participate," Lord said.
"Besides, it doesn't hurt to have a little vodka to warm the bones," he said.
-- Sylvia Moreno
The Mane Attraction Dan and Susan Donohue, of Vienna, endured the cold to witness the pomp, to feel the passage of history, to see the new president walk by. But it may have been the sight of their beloved horse Castaway that moved them most.
The Donohues donated the gray thoroughbred to the U.S. Park Police two years ago -- and there he was, stepping proudly down Pennsylvania Avenue as part of the Park Service detail.
Susan sighed. Dan snapped a picture.
President Who?
-- Peter Whoriskey
Putting on the Dogs Susan Butcher, four-time winner of the Iditarod sled race, looked relieved as she mushed her 11 dogs off the parade route. They had been pulling a sled on wheels and were looking somewhat restless and bored.
"They're used to going a lot faster," Butcher said. "They kept on trying to pass the Mormon Tabernacle Choir."
The one thing they didn't suffer from was the cold. Butcher, who wore a traditional Native American muskrat fur parka, has competed at 50 degrees below zero weather, with frost bite to show for it. Compared to that, she said, Bush's rainy parade was "a walk in the park."
-- Graeme Zielinski
Showing His Colors
As spectators filtered out of the grandstands, Ed Leik, 54, took a spot on a planter behind the National Theatre. From his small stage, he waved a tiny American flag.
"I'm just waving a flag because it's a grand day to wave a flag," he said.
