Swearing In Mitt Romney

For the aged, waking up every morning comes as a gift. Today has a ribbon on it.

The TV screen is a flood of flags, bunting, crowds, Inaugural stands, Lincoln Bibles and all the other patriotic paraphernalia of the day. Best of all is the realization that it is not Mitt Romney who will be sworn into the Oval Office.

After a year of haunting fear that in my final years the country might be run by meanness and insensitivity, it’s reassuring beyond belief that it is Barack Obama who is taking the oath again.

On my ninth birthday, March 4. 1933, Franklin Roosevelt was inaugurated for the first time. I experienced that from a grainy newspaper photograph.

Amid today’s wall-to-wall coverage on CNN etc. all the words and images will reinforce the hope that somehow in some ways the next four years will be better than the last.

As I leave my room for breakfast, I see the sign on my teen-age granddaughter’s door across the hall: “Happiness is not a goal; it is a byproduct. –Eleanor Roosevelt.”

Amen to that. Especially today. 

Update: Romney, who had so many plans for Day One, spent it in sunny California, confirming what many Obama voters suspected when casting their ballots.

An aide says it was “doubtful” he would watch the Inauguration on TV, confirming what one of his sons confided to a reporter last month, “He wanted to be president less than anyone I’ve met in my life. He is a very private person who loves his family deeply and wants to be with them, but he has deep faith in God and he loves his country, but he doesn’t love the attention.”

He should have sent the President a thank-you card.