Ain't That America...

I realized the other day that this blog is almost one year old. I started it on January 25, 2008, and it was originally going to be largely devoted to my travel escapades as an international courier. Since I was getting out and seeing the world, I wanted to share the things I saw.

I was fairly fresh off my stint as an expat on Sakhalin Island in the Russian Far East, and I had been bitten by the travel bug. 2008, of course, ended up becoming an incredibly tough year. Soon, soaring oil prices resulted in the abrupt end to the courier niche I was enjoying, and the blog had become the only real hobby I've ever had. Woodworking, model cars or train sets never really caught on with me, and wine, women and song don't count as hobbies.

JackRabbit Café mutated from burgeoning travelogue into something of a stream-of-consciousness, current events site. I have always thought of it as my own little newspaper, or as the written outline for the radio show that is only heard in my head. Since it was an election year, the presidential race became a prime focus, and since I saw him as an unmitigated disaster and national embarrassment, George W. Bush became a frequent target. This wasn't ground-breaking, but it was how I honestly felt.

Plus, I'm a news and political junkie.

As a teenager, I once spent a large part of a valuable, too-short North Country summer sitting inside, watching the Watergate hearings. I depleted my Vitamin D. I can remember reading Rolling Stone as much for Hunter S. Thompson's politicized gonzo writing as for the music news. My political addiction started when I was young, and I never made it to rehab.

Years earlier--1968--I was eight years old, soon to turn nine. First, in April, Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and killed. Two months later, my older brother Bobby came bursting into the house, yelling for us to wake up. He was home from college and out with friends that night. He had heard that Bobby Kennedy had been shot, and we got up to watch the network news bulletins. The next morning, our third-grade teacher Mrs. Boas wheeled in a TV so we could keep up with the ongoing story. And on one of those two nights in that violent year, I cried, because I can remember my mother laying down next to me in my bed, telling me that everything would be okay.

Then Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush. My life, so far. 

Four years ago tomorrow was a bad day. Not only was George W. Bush taking the oath for a second time, but that morning I woke up to find my cat Elvis--trusted comrade and source of many years of humor--dead on my living room floor. A double whammy.

I still think about Elvis, but after tomorrow, I hope to have little reason to think about Bush, unless it concerns a war crimes trial.

So it's Inauguration Eve, and tomorrow Barack Obama will become our 44th president, and the first African-American to assume the office. Suddenly, this country seems to have grown up in a fundamental way. Still, the economy has tanked and we face incredible challenges. Yet I am optimistic and--yes--hopeful. I know that politicians are salesman, but I'll sign on for a good product. Let's get out of Iraq, stop the torture, provide universal health care, remember that it's Main--not Wall--that is America's Street and once again treat the rest of the world like neighbors, not pieces on a game board.    

I'm under no illusions that President Obama will magically return us to instant prosperity. He isn't a messiah, and he isn't "The One", no matter the derision from the mocking simpletons on the right. I'm sure he'll piss me off about this or that soon enough. Hell, I'm still mad about his FISA vote, but that's politics, and his upside seems huge.

No, Barack Obama isn't a savior. He's just a man with good ideas and what I sense are the skills and instincts that hellacious job require. The goodwill he has generated both at home and abroad is refreshing after that rich bounty was squandered by his predecessor immediately after 9/11. 

JackRabbit Café will soon enter Year Two, but right now I'm just thinking about tomorrow. A great, historic day, as we start anew.