Inauguration Day

It's cold in Chicago today--not bitter and brutal like it was last week, when we stayed under zero from Wednesday night to Friday morning, but the temperature is in the teens and lake-effect flurries are scything their way across the shoreline communities.

I don't think anyone here has taken much notice of the cold, though. Our eyes are turned east. To Washington, D.C. To the inauguration. To Barack Obama.

It's not just that Obama is a Chicagoan, though there's certainly a great deal of pride in that. And it's not just that he is the first African-American elected to the highest office in our land, though that is a momentous achievement long overdue in "the land of the free and the home of the brave." And it's not just that he represents change from the previous administration--one could argue that any change from George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, even the tag team of McCain/Palin, would represent progress.

It's more than that. It's about hope.

Hope that the economy steadies out. Hope that our men and women in the armed services can be moved out of harm's way sooner rather than later. Hope that America's international reputation can be repaired. Hope that the next four years will be better than the last eight.

This is a day of jubilation for many Americans, and rightly so, though I wish our government and the Obama team weren't dropping so much cash on the inaugural balls and hoohah at a time when millions find themselves out of work or, if employed, living from paycheck to paycheck. This is still a great day.

There's a lot of work to do, though--a lot of messes to be cleaned up from the previous tenant of the White House. Few presidents have come into office with more problems to solve, challenges to face, uncertainty to dissipate. President Obama looks ready to roll up his sleeves and get to it. Let's help him as much as we can. Whatever your political affiliation--liberal, conservative or middle of the pothole-pocked road--it's in your best interest, as Americans, for this president to succeed. We have to hope he does (and hold him accountable in the next election if he doesn't--if "change" translates to "more of the same partisan bitching that's clogged our governmental arteries for the past couple of decades").

But there's that word again--hope. In times like these, it's just about all we've got.