Great lady, artist, mezzo -soprano Jane Struss sends this report of election night:
THE MOMENT
We were at a young friend's house, who is a community organizer, now at the Heller School at Brandeis and he had a projector with different stations screened on the wall. All the 20-somethings had gone...they didn't remember the awful election of 2000 when we went to bed thinking to wake up to President Gore and got something else instead. We weren't about to leave until McCain made his concession speech. So there were me and Rudy, both Davids, Hank and David's father (an Episcopal priest who is a riot...and he had brought a bottle of good whiskey and one of champagne for either eventuality. We ended up with the champagne, thank God, but we each had to try a little whiskey...I still can't stand the taste.) When they announced for Obama at 11:01 I started crying, as did everyone else, as we watched the crowds in Chicago and Jesse Jackson standing there with tears streaming down their cheeks and looking like he couldn't believe the miracle. I called my granddaughter Heidi in Utah, who had been so excited about the election and her first time voting and she was asleep! How innocent they are in a way, and how idealistic too. Then McCain's very gracious concession speech, then drove home to hear Obama's. A message on the machine from my 11 year old granddaughter Elizabeth: "Where are you Nona, Grandpa, he won, he WON!" This form an 11 year old in Flagstaff, AZ. Afterwards great noise from Harvard Square...apparently streets blocked off and everyone crowding into them. I sort of wish we'd gone down, or at least out to Mass. Ave. Rudy and I certainly didn't sleep much. Anyway, in the words of my student Abby Rockefeller (and she should know) "I took my first real breath in 40 years." It really is a new day when anything is possible (in the best sense). And in Michael Moore's words: "Wow! Wow!!"
Much love, Jane
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