A new beginning

I bought this shirt about a year ago, not long after President Obama (President Obama! Sweet Jumping Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick, I love saying that!) won the Iowa Caucus. At the time, I still thought he was a bit of a long shot, but, after having started off the campaign season convinced that Hillary was my candidate, I suddenly found myself swept up in the excitement of Barack Obama’s candidacy. The man moved me — and still does. And, thankfully, he also moved a majority of the voting public last November.

I vividly remember, with crystal clarity, sitting on the couch with my wife in our old apartment exactly eight years ago today, and being in a state of complete disbelief that the man taking the oath of office was actually going to be our president for at least four years. I just could not wrap my head around it.

When that same man was re-elected in 2004, I was done holding out any hope for presidential politics, and as the past eight years ticked by, I pretty much resigned myself to the fact that the relatively youthful experiment that is America was headed toward a complete collapse, perhaps within my lifetime.

Today, I feel like I have been awakened from an eight-year-long, dark, dreary and depressing stupor to find that our nation is still capable of doing great things—and that our nation itself is still great.

I am elated and proud to have Barack Obama as my president. What an incredible day.