O Happy Day!

Well mostly! This is actually about Tuesday but I was too busy to blog yesterday. Tuesday was my network's turn to be in town travel pool. I was the afternoon shift so I missed all the excitement of the morning but there were still plenty of happenings for my time there in travel pool.

This is my second year in a row that I've been around for the event celebrating Black Music Month at the WH. You can read a little bit about last year's experience. BTW, one of last year's musicians was on America's Got Talent last night. Yes, I admit it. I watched it last night. I'm not proud of myself. There was nothing else on. But I was probably one of few people who knew that these kids up there playing the violin weren't exactly off the street... they had been to the WH and played for POTUS. Anyway, I digress. Yesterday's event was devoted to gospel music. And the East Room was a rockin! They said they were going to turn the White House into a house of worship and I think they did. There were a lot of amens and hand raising! I like this event because it's the event that POTUS decides not to make a fool of himself by trying to dance because he knows that he's really white. He just does the white man head nod to the beat. He clapped quite a bit but when it came time to "raise the roof", he just couldn't do it. But the highlight of the entertainment came with the last song from the last group. I've loved the song O Happy Day ever since I saw it in Sister Act 2! It's on my iPod but now I need to download the version from the original artists. Because they rocked! Walter and Edwin Hawkins wrote the song in something like 1969. I've loved the song because of its positive outlook on life and I loved the song even more yesterday when the Hawkins sang it live. The whole East Room was rockin!!

Earlier in the afternoon, we got an announcement overhead at the WH that POTUS (and that means we tag along) was going somewhere for an off-campus OTR (off the record) event. It didn't take very long to figure out that we were going to St. Albans for Tim Russert's wake. In those situations, the WH doesn't tell us but they confirmed it with a wink with the understanding that we can't report what it is until we get there. All for security's sake. What was cool about this outing is that we were in a really short motorcade- only nine cars. Two police cars, five suburbans, two press vans and that was it. No ambulance, no limousines, etc. Normally it's about 15-16 cars and overseas I've been in a motorcade with over 50 cars! But we stopped at all the traffic lights and went the speed limit. Very unusual!!! Most people on the road beside us didn't have a clue that the leader of the free world was in the SUV right next to them. However, if anyone had tried to do anything, there were two SUVs filled with USSS with machine guns who would have put them back in line. POTUS went inside to the wake and we stayed outside on the sidewalk but we could see the line formed around the huge city block of people from all walks of life- from tourists to celebrities. It was quite a testament of how many lives Tim Russert touched. I would hope that one day I will leave a similar legacy!