Today is the First Day of the Next Four Years

How did it get to be January 20 already? I was supposed to be more on top of my new life plan by now. Instead here I am either Facebooking or blogging. Not big moneymakers for a work-from-home lawyer. So this will be short. Mainly so I can go watch the inauguration ceremony. I love it that Obama will be sworn in with his hand on the same Bible Lincoln used. I don't care what your political views are, you have to admit it's a nice touch, and would be a good smack in the face for racists and white supremacists, were they capable of understanding.

I have an old Vietnam vet client who used to tell me a lot of the old classic southern racist jokes -- not because he thought I was racist, but simply because he knew I was white, and because he knew I liked to laugh. I did laugh, but mostly at his audacity and at the realization that when I was a kid, that stuff was common and no real harm was meant by it. We didn't know what "hate speech" was. The "N" word was a mere descriptive term that my grandparents used. They never uttered it in a pejorative way. Anyway, don't want to go off on that tangent.

My client told me that he recently discovered that he has some "half-breed" grand-nieces. He said, "And I'll be damned if they ain't the purtiest things you ever did see." So proud of them and so struck by the young girls' beauty.

Then he proceeds to tell me, "You know, I've been thinkin' 'bout it, and all them white presidents ain't never done us a damn bit o' good, so maybe with this one we have a chance."

It's not the skin color itself that makes it different. Never should be in any case. But I think it's the life experience or empathy or symbolism behind it that makes it different. Not that that alone would make a person a good (or bad) president.

I wonder how many of us are not so much glad to see a new president as they are just glad to see the old one go.