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Inauguration Day

Sixty years ago (Jan. 20, 1941) I was 10 years old, in the fifth grade in Baltimore. My mother kept me home from school that day, and we boarded a train on the WB&A; line and went to Washington.

I sat about six feet above the ground, on the branch of a tree, so that I could see. We were right across the street from the Capitol and watched as FDR was inaugurated for a historic third term. Truthfully, we were so far away that you couldn’t recognize faces, and the sound system was barely audible. Mother was right, though. It was a momentous occasion, and we would never see a third-term inauguration again. Little did we realize at that time that four years later, in 1945, FDR would be inaugurated for a fourth term.

CHUCK CHRIST

West Hollywood

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