obama night - part II

the obamaniacs greeting us near the front entrance
CNN hinted at a big announcement to come as soon as the westcoast polls closed, and then started a countdown when it was nearing 10 pm CST. Anticipating anxiously, we all yelled out "10..9..8..7..6..5..4..3..2..1.." and then the CNN screen flashed: Barack Obama Elected President.
All of us screamed and jumped and hugged and cried. ALL OF US.
Part of the delirious crowd (estimated at 250,000) celebrating Obama victory
They were standing behind me during the Obama announcement. The girl in the hoodie cried in shock, as if trying to convince herself that it was true, that Obama had won. She was still sobbing when I hugged her. The cute girl standing next to me held back joyful tears watching Obama acceptance speech. When we embraced, I said "we elected Obama! we made history!" and then she cried, too. Before we all left, I had to take pictures with them. But, sadly, I never get to know their names...



p/s: I have to say this though, because it was mentioned only passingly by the press: at the Obama victory rally, I saw around me people of all different backgrounds - whites, blacks, hispanics, asians, indians, pakistanis, europeans, muslims, young highschool kids to senior citizens - all mingling together, all chanting and hi-fiving each other, and all had proud smiles on their faces. Such was the diversity of the grass-root support that Obama had been blessed with all throughout his presidential run.