The Inaugural, Pt. 1
It started fairly innocuosly: Steve Youngblood, our weekly page five columnist in Parkville asked if I would get him press credentials for the Presidential Inauguration and — get this — if I would pay for him to go.
After I stopped laughing (those Park University professors are a laugh riot once they get tenure, aren’t they?) , I told him to feel free to ask for credentials, and to throw my name around at will. He did, and I got the credential. This presented a moral quandry for me: At first, I really didn’t want to go to the Inauguration, but he sort of did get me hopeful about it. We had asked for five credentials and we received one. Technically, I could turn over my credential to him, but I wanted to see if I could talk him out of going.
As luck would have it, Mr. Youngblood had plans to visit Jordan in March and decided he couldn’t take the time off anyway. The problem averted, I booked a flight on Midwest and headed to Washington D.C. with my American Express Gold Card and printed off credential form in hand.
About 15 years ago, my father became the CEO of American Securities Group, a division of Fortis. Before taking over the reins, he hired a consultant to do a “personalysis” of his key employees. Initially not sold on the idea, the consultant decided to do a trial on our family. When it came time to report, the consultant sat in front of him and smiled, confident he had the sale in hand.
“Mr. Vasto,” he started, “let’s say you’re going on a trip to New Orleans. You’re the type of guy who checks the air in his tires, his car’s fluid levels, you make sure you have a map of the route, you have hotel reservations along the way. Your son? He just gets in the car and drives west.”
Sale closed.
I’m reminded of this story as we land at Reagan National Airport. I learned to always wear a suit when I fly — it keeps it from wrinkling and you tend to get treated better from airport staffers — and I have just one carry-on, a wheeled laptop case. I still don’t have a hotel reservation. We land and the place is an absolute zoo…there must be hundreds of people in the terminal, many of them chanting “Obama! Obama! Obama!” and laughing out loud. I have to get my credentials by 3 p.m. at the Russell Senate Office Building in downtown, and make my way for the cab stand at around 10 a.m. I used to live in the D.C. area…this town is crippled during the Cherry Blossom festival…I know it’s going to be a madhouse downtown, so I decide to head over as soon as possible and make like a responsible adult. Besides, I know the staffers serve free coffee and donuts and the granola bar on the flight just wasn’t gonna cut it.
“The corner of Constitution and Delaware.”
The cab stand guy — who we’ll call “cab stand guy” — gives me a blank look.
“Dulles?”
I give him a quizzical look.
“Yeah. I just got off a plane at National Airport. Now take me to Dulles. That makes sense. Constitution and Delaware,” I repeat, with added emphasis.
“D.C.?” he asks.
“No, Philadelphia,” I reply, really enjoying our little chit-chat. “Yes, DC!”
Somehow I make it to the Russell Building and wait on would be my first of many, many lines during the week.
Once inside, however, the place is grand. All of the journalists are geared up, too…most of them seem to be like me — small town journalists who are there to take advantage of the opportunity to witness history. I’m just happy to find a place to plug in — I have a King Features deadline and my phone has been ringing off the hook all morning with media inquiries regarding the The Kansas City Luminary — the nation’s newest newspaper.
Hmmm…there’s that fly by the seat of your pants thing again.
That aside, the building is wonderfully — one would almost say, bizarrely — completely open to the public. It didn’t take me long to find my own office – an empty office with a stunning view of the Capital waiting for a new senator that I commandeered in between meetings with the four area Senators and their media staffers. Kit Bond was, not surprisingly, the best office to visit of the bunch (McCaskill’s office was too crowded) and I got a kick out of watching him politick the visitors to his office – almost all of them thanking him for some sort of funding.
That day, I got a haircut by the same barber who cuts the Senator’s hair on the hill, and I suddenly look 30 years older. After an old fashioned straight razor shave, I’m still in the chair as the radio stations call and interview me about The Kansas City Luminary. The barber jokingly orders a subscription (but he’s getting one anyway).
I did manage to book a room – one of the last within 10 miles that isn’t going for $2,000 a night – and it’s something that resembles the hotel shared by John Candy and Steve Martin in “Planes, Trains and Automobiles.” I can practically see the dust mites, and the guy who was in here last must have smoked 20 packs of Parliaments a day. I wear socks and gloves to bed…I’m not taking any chances…
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