Well, we got a call yesterday afternoon at 3, asking if we'd like some tickets to one of the inaugural balls...so we went, along with billions of others, piling into the Omni Shoreham. Throngs of thousands, of whom we found two folks we knew! It was the Middle Atlantic Ball...for residents and hangers-on of the States so described.

Passing through the lobby took us between a choral group doing an inspired version of America and their musical accompaniment...they were terrific, if oddly situated, like a hallway ornament.

Onward to the coat check room (more of which later, regretably, in the Siege of the Palladin Room). Then into a sea of glittering be-tuxed and be-gowned mid-Atlantic-Statespersons...squeezing by the hundreds through what normally one might consider a wide hall, down a flight of steps, to bottle up in front of the metal detectors. The Prez *may* show up, after all, so they have to do this. Above the stairway, a harpist and pianist give us yet more patriotic tunes; the harpist in particular is encouraging the mass on the steps to sing along! We're having none of it...and gradually shuffle down around and through the metal detectors. Once through a phalanx of Secret Service guys wave metal-detecting wands across all our bodies and then down into the ballroom areas we go.

Everone shuffles from a small ballroom to a much vaster one; lots of live music in each...there's Louis Goldstein, Treasurer of Maryland since seemingly colonial times...there's the Governor of Maryland, Mr. Glendenning...hey, he seems to have lots of friends! There's...thousands of people I don't know. Mixed drinks are an atrocious $6 each...beers $5! (the better to cut down on consumption, no doubt). In the larger ballroom, a band that earlier was doing Glenn Miller concludes its routine with a ripping rendition of "Shout" that has the whole damn room leaping into the air! (And tomorrow is a school day...!)

There is a pause, and, at say 11, a new band appears, launching into rip-roaring, horn-section-driving rock and roll. It's the Max Weisberg Seven, from Jersey. (Really!) Max, the dummer, looking and dressed like a lawyer who just never got rock out of his system, stands after three numbers and introduces the first of three guests who will perform: John Mayall, of all people..John Mayall! (If you were in college in the late '60's and found English R&B, it was Mayall who made it happen, bringing under his wing Eric Clapton, Jimmy Paige, and all kinds of guitarists.) He's got to be 60+, and he pours it on from keyboard, guitar and harp.

Then comes... Bo Diddley. Bo Diddley! He tears it up for 40 minutes. This big burly man with huge fingers and great touch on his square-body guitar. "That's how it's done," says Max the drummer as Bo ambles off, to be followed by...

Chuck Berry! Chuck Berry!? We're stuck in an R&B time warp!...these are all the OLDEST of the OLD ROCK GUYS...and they still have the place leaping and hollering. Wow!

As Chuck got into his second or third song...we see lots of scurrying around at the front and sides of the stage, a voice comes across another loudspeaker "Chuck! Chuck!" Chuck keep on playing. "Chuck!" We have a surprise for you!" A group of about 10 performers no one has seen before climbs up on stage...the Marine Band, apparently shuffled in unobserved over in the corner, pipes up Hail to the Chief...and here comes Bill and Hillary. (Gads what an ordeal THEY had to endure...this being one of 14 balls they were to pass through).

Crowd goes bonkers hollering and yelling. He makes some comments, asks if anyone is from Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, West Virgina?...Wild cheering..."We carried them all, thank you!" says he. Chuck starts stumming one of his riffs -- you could do Maybelline with it -- and begins singing something about Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton and "We love you!" Bill And Hill are forced to dance across the stage, smiling and really gleaming (I think all the women approved of the gown...), then...they're off.

Thereupon what must have been the strangest performance of Chuck Berry's career begins. First off, the sound system has been horribly mixed from the the appearance of Bo Diddly. But as Chuck gets into his next tune, the Marine Band starts to play again...this time some other march...the one for the Veep. They play, Chuck grins in puzzlement and marches across the stage, Lucille slung by his side. They finish, Chuck waits...nothing happens. So he starts his set again. Five minutes later...the Marine Band. This goes on twice more...Mr. Berry and Mr. Mayall (still at the keyboard) dealing with it with wonderful humor. Finally, they're done; Chuck and John and Max start to pack up. No Al and Tipper, it's 1:10 AM. We don't care any more. It's time to head home. But not before...

The Siege of the Coat Room

How can I succinctly describe a one-hour, 40-minute wait for our coats? All of it experienced in the crush of a mass of hundreds squeezed in the hallway in front of one open door, trying to get into a large room used as the coat room? I can say it was scary as the hour reached 2 AM, and still there was little movement into the coatroom, and NO EXPLANATION from anyone. God: trampled to death at the door to the Palladin Room at the Shoreham waiting to get a coat!

The crowd, be-tuxed and be-gowned, pressing up against itself, began to express itself indignantly, chanting "We Want Our Coats--Now!!" and wailing at the hotel security at the door, the secret service guys and the contingent of DC cops. A police whistle burst from the steps behind me, where hundreds are standing. A DC policeman hollers, "Everybody...back up!" "NO!!!" roars everybody. Shortly thereafter, the damn door closes! Protests! Groans! What can you do? I have to wait it out, the coat inside is, well, a family heirloom! I'm thinking of tactics for: a) sneaking into the room, and b) evading the riot that feels ready to explode.

The door opens, I can see a small DC policewoman, holding up a megaphone. "Attention everyone," she yells, quieting the crowd. This turns out to be - after more than one hour in this mass - the first attempt at an explantion; so we're all ears. "The coat check system," she reports, "has fallen apart." A hooting, indignant chorus greets this observation. But she explains a process!...and gradually...gradually...we begin to shuffle through.

30 minutes later, I'm in the room...it looks like Burlington Coat Factory's going out of business sale...tables with piles of coats scattered here and there. I am panicked, of course, that we'll be down one heirloom, but after a few minutes, find it! And thereafter leave the room through a kitchen, and find fair Kate. There are hundreds yet to make passage into the room. The Seige is in place.

At 2:45 we pull out and head up Connecticut Ave. And it's a school night.

Go, Bo Diddley...to bed!