The Road to January 20, 2009

So, in less than 72 hours, my family and I will watch the 44th person become President of these United States. I'm sitting in a room in Philadelphia now, unable to sleep, blocks away from what the National Parks Service Tour Guide today described as the "Labor and Delivery Room" of our country & modern democracy (Independence Hall - where the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were both created) and I am still in awe of where we as a nation are and where we are about to go.

233 years ago from today, we were a colony of the then most powerful nation on Earth, chaffing at the way mother country was treating us. On the streets I got to walk today, people wandered around wondering was war and independence the way to go, or loyalty and trust. I listened today as 4 actors read from the journals of 14-20 year old kids from then as they grappled with that. Thankfully, we picked the unknown and dangerous path, as we always seem to do.

As we, picked that path, a large bell, known properly as The Pennsylvania State House bell, rang out. Today, I saw that bell, having been melted down twice and cracked twice. I read how another group, besides our founders, used that bell to call for liberty, but the second time for the people who got to only be 3/5 of a person under the documents signed here. I saw another exhibit how that same bell was a symbol used again for liberty by a gender who waited until less than a hundred years ago to get the voice & vote I was given on day 1. And then I rounded another corner to see a young preacher from Georgia's picture by that same bell, and I watched a video of one his most famous speeches in time to hear him say "Free at last, Free at Last. Thank God Almighty We're Free at Last".

I have almost cried three times in the last 3 months. Once was on November 4th as a group of us who worked on the Obama Campaign for countless hours were dancing and whooping it up in a bar on election night. We had just watched John McCain's graceful and grace filled concession speech and Obama's hopeful acceptance/victory speech. A middle aged African American man, who was just passing by on the street, saw us going crazy, and stopped to investigate and discovered who we were. Before I knew it, he had hugged several dozen of us, simply uttering the words, "Thank You" to many of us.

The second time, was standing, in Zero Degree weather, with my daughter, in Pennsylvania, looking over what had been on September 10, 2001 a field in the middle of nowhere. Now is is yet another testament to the fact that Freedom's continuation isn't free. It has to be rented every so often, with a very high renewal price. And we passed dozens of such reminders (signs for Gettysburg, Valley Forge, etc) on this trip.

Today, it was standing there in Philadelphia, looking at that silly old bell, which now we all call the Liberty Bell (thank you anti-slavery folks), framed in the background by the former Pennsylvania Statehouse, now known as Independence Hall, and listening to the words of that Preacher, Martin Luther King , Jr. and thinking, we'll be closer than ever soon. And, while I never thought I'd live to see it, I'll watch it a 1,000 or so feet away. If I don't cry then, it'll only be because I don't want frozen tears on my face all day.

Truly, I sit here tonight, in awe of where we have been and where we go next. God Bless everyone who made this journey possible and God protect this fragile little experiment we call America and her new leader.