Harold was not as interested in who was being inaugurated as president as much as the fact that there was a president being inaugurated. The high school history teacher had been fascinated with the Presidency since he was a high school student himself and was required to write a paper on one of the Presidents. When others jumped at Washington or Lincoln or FDR, Harold chose Rutherford B. Hayes so he could have one all to himself.
What he discovered, at least as he understood it in later years, by choosing a less than outstanding officeholder he became fascinated with the office itself. It became the way he taught History of the American Presidency, a senior level class he got to teach only every other year, alternating with Colonial U.S. History.
As a student, a history major, at Chadron State College, Harold had written a paper on the evolution of the inaugural ceremony itself, its traditions, its ceremony, both regal but heavily populist as well. He became fascinated with the ceremony and how it spoke to the end of one term and the beginning of another, what it said about the handing off of power, of delineating whole segments of the nation’s history with the end of one era and the commencement of another, and done so in the midst of flags and pomp, not violent revolution.
His career as a high school teacher in southwestern Nebraska had lasted for almost 25 years. He was an institution of sorts, never wanted to venture into the administrative tier, preferring to be in the classroom. Never marrying or becoming very active in the community, but consistently committed to his students. About the only thing the community knew about him was his annual summer vacations to visit at least three historical sites he had never seen.
The only trip Harold had ever made to an inauguration was in 1985, for Ronald Regan’s second. It was not because he was a fan of Regan or because he had the means; it was because he had the opportunity.
The invitation to make the trek came from Simon, a fellow senior at Chadron State whose father ran a major hardware business in Omaha, and kept Simon in a steady stipend which both boys enjoyed. The invitation to take a train to Washington to see Regan inaugurated was to be a final senior trip together, just the two of them doing something substantive and doing it together.
When the two arrived in Washington’s Union Station a couple of days before the event, it was already turning cold, even for the two plainsmen. By Sunday morning, January 20, the announcement had been made that the swearing-in would take place in the White House because of the subzero weather. First time ever not held in public. Harold and Simon watched it from their hotel room, on television, as they could have done from anywhere in the world. Harold remembered they did not even get dressed and had both breakfast and a late lunch delivered to their room. He only knew that they were in Washington when he occasionally looked out the window on to the frozen white of Franklin Park and beyond to the tip of the Washington Monument above the trees. The next day they headed back west, only slightly disappointed. They had made the trip together and were glad they did.
After graduation in May, the two gradually started losing touch with each other. Simon returned to Omaha and his father’s business and Harold returned to western Nebraska to teach. They saw each other at a 15 year class reunion held in Lincoln in 2000, but it was a big event and they didn’t get to talk long. About a year later, Harold got an email from Simon wanting to reestablish contact. They continued to write each other a couple times a month, and then last summer Harold got an email from Simon’s address but written by his sister telling of Simon’s death. There was no explanation except to say it was a “tragic loss for all of us who knew him.” Harold had been blind-copied, and the email closed with “Please do not respond, account being closed.”
Harold received that email in late July. On August 28, as he ate dinner alone and watched Obama’s acceptance speech from Denver, just 200 miles to the west, he knew he wanted to see this inauguration. He got up from his plate and went on line, and in a few minutes had a three night reservation at the Hamilton Hotel, agreeing to a surcharge to guarantee a room on the top floor, overlooking Franklin Park, facing the Washington Monument.