By Steve Huffman
shuffman@salisburypost.com
Preston Wallace and Kenneth Hobson said the wonderful thing about being in Washington, D.C., for the inauguration of Barack Obama was the camaraderie.
“Everybody was embracing everybody,” Wallace said. “We all carried on conversations like we’d known one another all our lives.”
Wallace, 45, and Hobson, 43, are Salisbury residents and first cousins. They drove last Sunday to Mitchellville, Md., where Wallace’s father lives.
Wallace and Hobson took the Metro into Washington on Monday and again on Tuesday.
They said they were surprised with the ease of their trip. Warnings about the backup of traffic around D.C. didn’t materialize.
Everyone was ó in a word ó friendly.
“It was warm the whole time,” Wallace said, referring to the reception that he and Hobson felt, not the temperature, which was rather frigid.
“People would bump into each other, but they’d jump back and say, ‘Excuse me.’ It was something to see.”
“I heard that not one person got locked up,” Hobson said. “People were there using walkers, they were there in wheelchairs. Everyone was friendly to everyone.”
Wallace and Hobson were in the National Mall on Tuesday, but far from the site where Obama took his oath of office. They watched the big event on a Jumbotron and listened to it through loudspeakers spread around the mall’s perimeter.
“You could have heard a pin drop,” Wallace said of the silence that marked Obama’s oath of office and his inaugural address.
Wallace and Hobson said they were interviewed by news correspondents from the United States as well as France and Canada while in Washington. They said the interest in Obama’s presidency spans the globe.
Wallace also attended one of the balls that preceded the inauguration. The ball included musical entertainment by Patti LaBelle, the O’Jays and Fantasia.
“It was one of those top-shelf events,” Wallace said.
While in Washington, Wallace bought all sorts of souvenirs ó watches, programs and copies of the Washington Post, included.
Flags were given away by the bundle-full.
Wallace said he wanted to be there for the grand event because of the historical significance of it all.
“It’s something I’ll be able to tell my grandchildren,” he said.
Wallace noted that when he graduated from West Rowan High in 1982, his class was the first where black and white children had attended school together beginning in the first grade.
Wallace said seeing Obama, a man of African-American heritage, take the presidential oath was awe-inspiring.
“It was one of those events I wouldn’t miss,” he said.