THE STARS ARE ALIGNED AND OUT AT INAUGURATION!

SO SHOOT ME FOR DELETING THE PHOTOS OF BIG NAME STARS/POLITICOS

So, I told you I was new at thing blogging thing....well apparently I put this earlier post somewhere and it was stuck in "drafts" and apparently did not send....so I'm sending it now....So ignore the now passe remarks about Caroline Kennedy....what a difference a few days makes.....Ron Howard subsequently became a nominee for Nixon the movie and Caroline is no longer going to be the "junior senator from New York"........but enjoy the vicarious thrills we got from seeing our cousins friends at the Screen Actors Guild ball and the BIG star studded events.....New Jersey Governor John Corzine was at the ball with us on Saturday and has quite the moves, but paused to bring greetings in between dances and singing by Grammy award winner Regina Belle....and the "fresh faced young man" standing with Ed [Ed has glasses, Deval does not] is my first legal boss [when I was a summer intern at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in NYC in 1985 ] who is now Governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick. ....speaking of glasses....hiding behind that big grin with big glasses is the very smart Rachel Maddow, whose show on MSNBC has many of us addicted and sleeping less each night..

HEADING HOME TO DETROIT/JACKSON

Finally, as if it were the icing on the cake.....we slept in late on Wednesday after the inauguration and read all the morning papers and shopped in the underground arcades between the Metro and our hotel for souvenirs, grabbed another great crab cake sandwich from the hotel's restaurant Mez and then headed to Washington National Airport------I refuse to call it Reagan International--even after all these years --for home.

HERE COMES DA JUDGE....

As we got settled in our seats, an elderly black gentleman behind me was looking for his window seat and hestitated crawling over 2 young kids already seated who didn't get out of their seats to let him in....I was on the aisle and looked up only to recognize one of my biggest legal heroes---6th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals Judge Damon Keith. Among lawyers and judges, he is a giant! [See his wikipedia entry below. ] So, I stood up and offered him my seat, quickly introducing myself, giving him a kiss on the cheek and mentioning how I knew him and had worked with some of his former clerks and am a mentor to one of his younger more recent clerks. His face brightened and he promised to take a photo with me when we landed. When the high school kids seated next to me asked me who he was I told them. They told their teacher and then she asked if they could get his autorgraph and take pictures. So, several students did and got him to sign their Washington Post and USA Today newspapers. He was very gracious to them. As he took my proffered seat, I introduced him to my husband Dave and my mom Doris and they chatted the entire trip back to Detroit. I'm not a hater.....!!! I eavesdropped from the row behind them counting the minutes until we'd land and I could chat him up.

Judge Keith did indeed wait with my husband for me at the gate and we talked for 15 minutes while I "interviewed him" about his experience at the inauguration and some of his famous cases and we caught up on the whereabouts of his previous clerks I have known. To summarize his impressions on the big event.... he got choked up a little and said essentially this: "There have been 3 major events in my life that have been unforgettable (1) the March on Washington (2) welcoming Nelson Mandela when he was released from prison and (3) the Obama inauguration [which he attended with his grandchildren]. He is indeed a fortunate and blessed man. I am fortunate and blessed to have met him on this occasion ----or at all!!

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Wikipedia entry for Judge Keith follows below:

Keith grew up in Detroit, where he graduated from Northwestern High School in 1939; Keith then moved on to West Virginia State College (B.A. 1943), Howard University School of Law (J.D. 1949), and Wayne State University Law School (L.L.M. 1956).
Keith's wife, Dr. Rachel Boone Keith, and he were married in 1953 and had three daughters. She died on January 4, 2007.
In 1964, Keith was elected co-chair of the Michigan Civil Rights Commission with John Feikens, and was a key player in the tumultuous times following the Detroit race riots.
In 1967, Senator Philip Hart suggested Keith to President Lyndon Johnson, who nominated Keith to his seat on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Keith eventually rose to Chief Judge of the District Court. And in 1977 he was nominated to the Sixth Circuit by President Jimmy Carter where he has remained.
Keith is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, the first intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity established for African Americans.

[edit] Notable Cases
In United States v. Sinclair (1971), Keith famously ruled that Nixon's Attorney General John Mitchell had to disclose the transcripts of illegal wiretaps that Mitchell had authorized without first obtaining a search warrant. Keith's decision was upheld by the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court's landmark decision in United States v. U.S. District Court (1972) (also known as "the Keith case") contributed in 1978 to the president signing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). That decision is commemorated as a "Michigan Legal Milestone" called "the Uninvited Ear" and erected by the State Bar of Michigan.[1]

[edit] Clerks
He has been called a father-figure to current Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm, who once served as his law clerk, and administered the oath of office to her in both 2002 and 2006.
In addition to Governor Granholm, other former law clerks to Judge Keith include: Lani Guinier, first African-American woman to gain tenure at Harvard Law School, The Honorable Eric L. Clay, U.S. Circuit Judge for the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, David Simmons, Chief Administrative Law Judge at the DC Commission on Human Rights,Constance L. Rice, prominent civil rights activist and co-founder of the Advancement Project and Robert H. Giles, Assistant Prosecutor in Oakland County, Michigan

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THANK YOUS

So.....there you have it..............Thanks to Congressman Schauer for the inauguration tickets. What a lifetime milestone and unforgettable experience.

Thanks to my mom Doris because she kept on trucking, even when her knees and legs were about to give out.....I think she wondered who and how she'd be rescued in the sea of thousands if she passed out or decided she couldn't go any further.....fear is a powerful motivator!!!!

Thanks to God and mother nature for the sunshine on January 20th because the cold didn't seem as frigid as it had been all the days before the event.

Thanks to Eileen Lehnert who suggested that I create a blog and chronicle the events...good idea...

We are thankful to our cousins Staff Sargeant Calvin Phelps (who attended Congressman Schauer's swearing in and took him greetings from us) and his lovely wife Sheila and their son Curtis for taking care of Glen while we were gone. We were welcomed home by our 3 year old who asked us "how was your trip.....did you say hello to Barack Obama?" as he hugged and kissed us repeatedly.....This question from Glen is interesting for several reasons.....

During November parent-teach conferences at his pre-school, the first thing his teacher, Miss Diana, said was "....in over 30 years of teaching pre-schoolers, I have never known any students in pre-school to know or be able to name the President of the United States, except your son Glen........" OK.....?! Obviously he's been paying attention to dinnertime political conversations and our discussions of the news.....

The second reason it's so cute is that apparently Glen is no longer mad at Barack Obama....For several weeks after election day he would shrug and get a frown on his face when we talked about the then President-Elect....we figured out the reason later when we asked Glen why he didn't want to hear about Barack Obama. Glen told me the story of how Barack kept him from "swimming with the kids." Then I remembered how on election day, which was a Tuesday and day of Glen's regular swimming lesson,I had to get to the polls to vote before 8pm. Dave was out of town and it by the time I picked Glen up from pre-school, it was after 5pm and I knew I needed to vote before swim lessons. We were late for swimming because of Barack Obama. So Barack was standing between Glen and his love for the pool/swimming. He remembered how on election day, I let Glen make the mark on the ballot for Barack and took a photo of it. He really was involved directly in the event that caused him to have a shorter swimming lesson! Out of the mouths of babes.....Well, Glen will grow up with memories of what we hope will be a normal event in political campaigns and in life...............the best, smartest/capable person with the best ideas and strongest leadership skills gets the job, wins the presidency or accomplishes great things, without regard to the color of his or her skin.......Thanks for listening/reading/commenting and sharing.

Peace!