On civility and empty cannons

It was 9 a.m. in California, on Jan. 20, 2001, and the inauguration was about to begin. I hadn't voted for George W. Bush, but you might have thought I was his biggest fan from the way I kept repeating, 'We're getting a new President! We're getting a new President!” I was attempting to convince a just-turned-four-year-old that the swearing-in was going to be more fun than 'Scooby-Doo.”

Pajama-clad and not fully awake, Jake climbed onto my lap. 'Look, there's George W. Bush,” I said. 'He's going to be our new President. Look, there's Bill Clinton. He's going to be our old President. Look there's George H.W. Bush. He's an old President. And there's Jimmy Carter. He's an old President!” I jollied him along as Mitch McConnell spoke, and I bowed my head over his to still his squirming as the Rev. Franklin Graham said a prayer. I hummed ‘America the Beautiful' directly into his ear as he laughed because it tickled. Finally, Justice William Rehnquist administered the oath of office.

'Yay! We have a new President, Jake!” I said as the camera panned to a brace of cannons. Jake went rigid in my arms as 'Hail to the Chief” was shot through with the beginning of a 21-gun salute. 'And now what are they doing?” he asked. 'Are they shooting the old Presidents?”

I proudly explained to him the peaceful transition of power, assuring him that, in this country, we don't shoot the old Presidents - that we empty the guns and the cannons into the air to signal disarmament and peaceful intentions.

George W. Bush and Al Gore competed in the most hotly contested election in our nation's history and yet, on the day of the inauguration, the man who won the popular vote sat only a few feet away from the man who won the electoral vote, and after taking the oath, Bush praised Gore for 'a contest conducted with spirit and ended with grace” in a speech redolent with the words 'civil” and 'civility.”

As a lifelong Democrat, I certainly never thought I'd be missing George W. Bush. Or maybe, as Jake prepares to vote in his first election, what I'm really missing is civility and empty cannons.

' Jane Purcell teaches English and Current Affairs at Scattergood Friends School in West Branch.