KSanders writesRemembering President Obama’s Farewell Address (1/10/17)

by Kyle Sanders

There he was: the Leader of the Free World, right before my very eyes, the size of a Tic-Tac. I, along with tens of thousands of other fortunate folks, was sharing a space inside McCormick Place with President Barack Obama, and at this particular point of view, I could squash him between by index finger and thumb. While I had the convenience of a projection screen easily within view of my peripheral, there was something more meaningful behind straining my neck and standing on my tip toes just to catch a glimpse of this man who I had supported these last eight years as it would be perhaps the only time I would have the chance to see him in person.

It was a bittersweet night of course, but not as bitter as the negative degree temperatures I endured in the wee hours of Saturday morning to stand in line for a free ticket. After what seemed to be just a four hour power nap, I awoke at 4:30 AM with little effort in cleanliness and was picked up by a friend at 5 AM. After a short detour of picking up a few other friends, we rode off to Lakeshore Drive in a caravan of hope--hoping to find a parking space, hoping to beat an onslaught of other Obama fans, and hoping to survive a most miserably freezing forecast (if anything, we were hoping the weather would deter a few hundred people from even attempting to show up!).

At 5:45, we were lucky enough to find a parking space on the street, walk our shivering selves into the coziness of McCormick Place's warmish hallways and line up behind what appeared to be a line of 1,000+ eager hopefuls. Props to the team who had to organize the line formations, as the expansiveness of McCormick Place's perimeters had everyone up against the venue's extended walls, forming a pulsing blueprint made up of human beings. My group felt overwhelmed by the massive crowd that already lay ahead of us, but it was nothing compared to the ever growing line behind us!

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