January 20, 1993:

And so, My Fellow Americans...
Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes, into
Your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.

-- Maya Angelou, On The Pulse of Morning (See Note #13)
(the first poem performed at a Presidential inauguration since Robert Frost performed The Gift Outright at Kennedy's inaugural in 1961)

"I wouldn't compare it to a poem I'll read over and over again in silence. That's not the kind of poem it was meant to be. It's a song, really."

First Tuesday after the First Monday in November, 1992: Student Activism, or A School Bus Driver's Naughty Finger

final confession: the first Tuesday in November, 1992 had an explosively bittersweet evening, like coffee infused with too much aspartame. I first heard the fantastic news of Clinton's victory, in fact, with a wired and jubilant group of friends in the campus coffee house, but this night that began as a shining city on the hill ultimately became a tale of two cities. How quickly emotions changed with news of last-minute rural votes in the down-to-the-wire defeat of that year's Iowa Equal Rights Amendment.

During the last semester, this same group of friends had organized speakers, student rallies and a poster campaign (compared to the recent protests in Washington, DC, Seattle, and Los Angeles, our activities were almost laughably courteous). At the same time, a coalition of right-wing "family values" organizations (rumored, though never divulged, to be funded by Pat Robertson's 700 Club) blitzed the state with fliers and pamphlets claiming that, though the ERA may sound American at first, it would ultimately result in coed public washrooms and legalized witchcraft(!). One mistake on campus was spending far too much time sarcastically debating just exactly what practices constituted witchcraft and which ones (if any) were illegal under current statutes. But while small groups of students consulted Shakespeare's Scottish play for the umpteenth time and crooned a theme song Frank Sinatra made famous years before ("It's such an ancient pitch/But one I wouldn't switch...it's witchcraft" (See Note #15)), and right-wingers consulted and crooned whatever they consult and croon, other students busily provided a plain old (albeit unwitting) commentary on campus activism in the early '90s.

One pro-ERA poster I hung with campus permission (again and again) in a student dorm hallway was defamed (again and again) in any number of creative ways, most usually by tacking over it with: 1. Centerfolds from Playboy magazine (no irony there, I don't suppose); 2. Cutouts of my photograph from the campus newspaper (a threat? a scarlet letter of gender treason? an elaborate commentary on the politics of representation?); or 3. Fat autumn grasshoppers, still squirming on long straight pins (dadaesque art meets brute rage? senseless cruelty on display? huh?). But it was not until the early morning of election day that these events coalesced and crescendoed, at least in my mind.

In zealous dedication (and freezing cold drizzle), our small band of students made rounds to local voting places with signs urging passage of the ERA. At one public elementary school (and despite our citing of statutes establishing exact minimum space requirements), grumpy election officials moved the four or five of us out of the parking lot and onto the roadside. There we stood with homemade signs and frozen toes, when one of many school buses slowed and virtually stopped in front of us. The driver honked for our attention, raised his hand, removed his glove and uplifted his middle finger. Then, like some carbon-spewing bank heist getaway in slow motion, he roared off to pick up the young minds, eager for a day of learning. I think for all of us at that voting place, this was the moment at which we realized just how radical -- and how threatening -- a proposal like this was to some folks.

October, 1992: Glazed, with Filling

et me return once more to Primary Colors and to a single, jaw-dropping image that I want to remember alongside this next section. It's another extended tracking shot, amidst yet another scandal: just as the Clinton figure's campaign managers, consultants and spouse(!) are watching agonizing news reports and strategizing how to politically survive the latest barrage of sexual torpedoes, we follow the camera out the hotel room window, and begin a slow but bold dolly -- like a voracious stroll -- across a dark parking lot and toward a Krispy Kreme doughnut shop counter, where (of all places in the city) the candidate is rapturously enjoying the absolutely unique brand of southern everyman comfort food, while dispensing a little of his own. Deep in his element, he's talking to the clerk, listening to his pain and generally doing what he does best -- so well, in fact, we get the feeling he really means it, just as he really means to better the country by improving the lives of average American working Joes. (See Note #16)

But in a climate in which (unlike Kennedy's period) Republicans had made "liberal" a hatchet word for their use, a magnetically charismatic governor with irresistible populist persona had plenty of hard work to do, even against an arrogant establishment candidate in an embarrassingly recessive economy. All labor allusions aside, the hard work of Governor Clinton resulted in what my best friend Mark recently remembered as "almost magical memories," referring to a beautiful gold-and-rust day on which Mark, Katie and I saw the governor speak at the state fairgrounds(!). It all began with parking several miles away, as this one was open to the public. How rapidly our cribbing about urban engineering was forgotten to the cacophonous sounds and carnivalesque mosaic of faces as diverse as America itself. Forget images of early-'90s Benetton ads, this was a portal to a future this country had only just begun to shape and which policy and leadership had not yet begun to follow, a glimpse of a future administration intimately plugged in to the world it was about to help create. It was, by all accounts, a remembrance of things to come. (See Note #17)

Like Mardi Gras in Iowa (or the logical extension of a bygone era's civil rights march), the human parade stretched for blocks, with apparently little concern for how long it took in reaching its destination. No, this day was about the process and the journey (like the scene of John Keats's bucolic Grecian urn), the act of becoming, the implicit meaning of a meandering walk with friends and fellow citizens. (See Note #18) Ducking into a convenience store for coffee along the way, we saw a line stretching halfway through the store. Earlier in the day, we had seen members of the Sikh religious community wearing turbans and ceremonial daggers and here, a few places in front of me in line, were several folks I did not recognize wearing yarmulkes and buying Cokes. Just as we left the store, I heard one of the clerks behind the counter (impressed with the turnout) note that he was going to check out the speech after he got off work. Had I known then what I know now, I would have bought a doughnut from him. Eight years later (and at the end of a completed social contract), what still strikes me about that day are the feelings that I had entered into a personal contract with Governor Clinton and (there are doubters of this) that ordinary folks came out precisely because he genuinely wanted us there.

A final layering of remembrance: eight years after this day, I find it impossible and undesirable to separate it from the many days spent (years later) on the lawn of the Iowa State Capitol, playing Frisbee (which was allowed), drinking Guinness Stout (definitely not allowed), and listening to music of now-defunct bands (marginally allowed) with Mark and Katie and a politically subversive T-shirt (depends who you ask). (See Note #19)

"History's what we're about too. What else is there?" asks the Hillary Clinton character in Primary Colors. Indeed. That day was history. And I was part of it, we were part of it. We -- who only glimpsed then what we know now -- were part of it. Eight years ago a little-known governor from one of the smallest, poorest states set out to make history. Years from now, people will ask about Bill Clinton and I will tell them about that day. That day was history.

January 20, 2001: Exit THE KING, or Lights Up for Curtain Call

o this point, I've written little about what was actually said in the speeches I've mentioned. Therefore in closing, I'd like to touch on a particularly poignant moment from Clinton's long goodbye speech that was eclipsed earlier by his entrance that night. When it came time to end his farewell, the words Clinton invoked were not from a political or literary authority, but rather from the "theme song" of his first Presidential campaign (several political lifetimes ago). His last words were "And don't stop thinking about tomorrow" -- even though all I could do was think about that night, about the last eight years, about how very far we had journeyed together. (See Note #20)

The cause of my reaction came just before these final words, when Clinton invited us to look back with him -- back to a point far beyond all remembrance and bestowed with deep meaning and resonance, a genesis: "My friends, fifty-four years ago this week I was born in a summer storm to a young widow in a small Southern town." And then he moved directly back to the world of remembrance and recollection and, with typical chutzpah (ask your Jewish neighbors) both paid homage to Kennedy's Los Angeles acceptance speech and took George Washington's "in the service of my country" speech a touching step further: "America gave me the chance to live my dreams. And I have tried as hard as I knew how to give you a better chance to live yours. Now my hair's a little grayer, my wrinkles are a little deeper, but with the same optimism and hope I brought to the work I loved so eight years ago, I want you to know my heart is filled with gratitude," he confessed into the white glare of the camera. (See Note #21)

Hearing these words, I found myself contemplating all that has happened in the last eight years: Katie and I recently celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary; Mark has lived in Japan and returned and will soon marry in Ireland (I'm his best man); we have all graduated college, lost loved ones, made new friends, moved out, moved on, moved across the country, kept in touch, gotten older, and even grown a few grays and wrinkles of our own. Someone pointed out during the 2000 convention that, had Kennedy lived, he would now be 83 years old. But, of course, this matters only because he is spectacularly not 83, but rather always and forever the handsome young President and unfair image for constituents and usurpers alike (in black-and-white, nonetheless, like some haunting political counterpart to teen beauty magazines). And so, with this in mind, I find one final set of lyrics from a bygone era's sacred store playing in my head -- from McLean's "jester" (Bob Dylan) in 1974. (See Note #22)

It plays for President Clinton as he leaves office; it plays for those of us who reflect upon a young president (and younger versions of ourselves); it plays for these days to remember; it plays for those of us, like Henry Burton, who believe it now, as we believed it then:

May your heart always be joyful,
May your song always be sung,
May you stay forever young. (See Note #23)

13. For the full text of the poem, see The Horizon Leans Forward, Washington Post, January 21, 1993 (A26) or just about any Maya Angelou fan website. (Return to Text)

14. Quoted by David Streitfeld, The Power and the Puzzle of the Poem: Reading Between Maya Angelou's Inaugural Lines, Washington Post, January 21, 1993 (D11). (Return to Text)

15. Frank Sinatra, Witchcraft (Coleman/Leigh), Best of Capitol Years, EMD/Capitol, 1953. (Return to Text)

16. The second gem (along with Maya Angelou) out of Winston-Salem, NC. Long ubiquitous in the South, Krispy Kreme is branching out: the company recently went public (and went online at http://www.krispykreme.com), won entry to the Smithsonian, and opened stores in New York and Las Vegas. Be realistic and pick up a half dozen for the drive home, a dozen if you even flirt with the idea of sharing. (Return to Text)

17. Once again, before even the inauguration, it was apparent in the press that Clinton's choices would have tremendous influence upon the nation: "Clinton has given an early indication of the change in his choices for cabinet posts. Hoping to make his administration 'look like America,' the new President has appointed blacks, women, and Hispanics -- a direct result, his friends say, of his having lived through the civil rights movement...That contrasts with the previous administrations of Bush and Ronald Reagan, whose main advisers were wealthy white men, much like themselves." (Scholastic Update,12). (Return to Text)

18. Keats' poem is available online at http://www.bartleby.com/126/41.html. (Return to Text)

19. "Come as you are, as you were,/As I want you to be/As a friend, as a friend, as an old enemy/Take your time, hurry up/The choice is yours, don't be late/Take a rest as a friend as an old memoria," Nirvana, Come As You Are (Kobain), UNI/Geffen/DGC Records, 1991.
"Twenty-five years of my life and still/I'm trying to get up that great big hill of hope/For a destination/I realized quickly when I knew I should/That the world was made up of this/Brotherhood of man/For whatever that means," 4 Non Blondes, What's Up, Bigger Better Faster More!, UNI/Interscope, 1992. (Return to Text)

20. Fleetwood Mac, Don't Stop (McVie), Rumours, WEA/Warner Brothers, 1977. Singer Stevie Nicks speaks briefly about this song's use in Clinton's campaign and inauguration in Stevie Wonder, McCalls, January, 1999 (available online at http://www.nicksfix.com/mccalls1.htm). (Return to Text)

21. For the full text of Clinton's August 14 speech, see http://emediate.dems2000.com. As for Clinton's homage to Kennedy, consider how well Clinton's closing echoed Kennedy's acceptance speech, "Our call is to the young at heart, regardless of age. The whole world looks to see what we will do. We cannot fail their trust; we cannot fail to try" (quoted by Caroline Kennedy, reprinted in Adam Nagourney, 40 Years Later, Invoking Spirit of New Frontier, New York Times, August 16, 2000, page A25). (Return to Text)

22.Consider this fascinating lyric:

When the jester sang for the King and Queen
In a coat he borrowed from James Dean
And a voice that came from you and me

23. Bob Dylan, Forever Young, Planet Waves, Sony Music, 1974.
To journey back further than Dylan's 1974 lyrics and Kennedy's 1960 acceptance speech, see Keats' 1884 poem:

When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain... (Return to Text)

Jonathan Shectman is the editor of a series of science education books (written by the National Science Resources Center, an arm of the Smithsonian Institution) and is currently authoring a book about 18th century scientific inventions and discoveries as part of Greenwood Press's Groundbreaking Scientific Experiments, Inventions and Discoveries series. He has also presented at conferences of the Renaissance Society of America and the Shakespeare Association of America and admits to a longtime interest in American politics, especially the Presidency.

Jonathan lives in geographical space in Durham, North Carolina and in cyberspace at jshectman@yahoo.com.

Top of Page
Archives Contents | Magazine Contents
Home