Bellingham Election Night Bacchanal

I know this was happening everywhere (or at least in every town in America with a population greater than 50,000), but the moment the Obama win was announced we could here a great uproar from all over town, fireworks, horn-blasts, shouting in the street. Just then somebody (Mike K.) showed up here and led a train outside banging pots and pans. (Rachel was pretty embarrassed, but I think I was caught up in the mood myself; I'm not going to say whether she shed a tear during the victory speech . . . . my peripheral vision's always fuzzy anyway, not with tears.) When we got downtown, there was a spontaneous reprise of the thriller-dance going on in the same intersection, minus the drag. Lija and Richard's old boss thought they were doing the electric slide (which incidentally Tavis Smiley on NBC had just been telling T. Brokaw he wanted to do just right then, leading the old white guys through the studio and out on to the street), but us dead-beats knew better. I thought I was filming it, but must have been a bit too excited to press record. Instead I got this spontaneous march down Magnolia, with a somewhat resigned police escort:

I also tore my glasses from my face and declared to the other sinners: I can see, at last, at last, I can see.