Officially Frazzled

Ok, on Monday, I started to wonder if I should have my head examined for trying to go on this trip -- as a working journalist or even as a spectator.

I've told my colleagues and friends on Goat Hill that I must be out of my mind.

There are a hundred different reasons why staying at home is so wildly appealing -- the cold, the crowd, the logistical nightmare of it all, the amount of work I committed to doing for this project -- take your pick.

Yep, I could get a whole mess of Alaskan snow crab legs and watch history in the making from the warmth and comfort of my home.

But where is the fun in that? When my grandkids ask me where I was when the nation's first African-American president took the oath of office, I want to say that I was right there -- a face and a notepad in the sea of thousands.

There's an episode of The Cosby Show that I've never forgotten. It an episode were Claire and Cliff Huxtable are in the living room talking with their parents reminiscing. Forgive me if my memory of the episode is flawed, but as I recall it their parents shared stories about their involvement in the 1963 March on Washington. They recounted how they sang on the bus ride to Washington, D.C. and what it was like to see so many people gathered for a common cause.

I know those were made-for-TV memories, but I want to be able to tell my kids everything about this experience. Just like I'll tell them that I was the editor-in-chief of my student newspaper when 9/11 happened and how we got out a special edition of the paper (no small feat for my undergraduate alma mater Johnson C. Smith University).

So that's why I' can't stay home.

When it's all over with, a few months down the road, when the weather here in Alabama starts to warm up and the trees start to sprout leaves, I won't ask myself whether I've taken leave of my senses. Instead, I'll think "I can't believe I ever thought about missing it."