It was only a week ago. But while Washington is moving fast through issues and personalities, others are just catching up to what happened on Inauguration Day.

There are lots of accounts online. This one, about a young family in the right place at the right time to benefit from the kindness of the First Lady and the crowd, was on the Daily Kos rec list for a day. Another in the SF Chronicle, by the daughter of one of the Tuskeegee Airmen who attended is one of many that focuses on what the day meant and will always mean to African Americans. She also relates something that isn't usually part of the story about this all black combat unit in World War II that proved that skill and heroism are equal opportunity virtues:

" In another chapter in their story, my father and 100 other Tuskegee Airmen refused to sign an order establishing a whites-only officers club. They were placed under house arrest and faced a charge of treason, punishable by death. They were eventually released, but a letter of reprimand saying they were a disgrace to their country and their race stayed in their files for 50 years. Their protest, called the Freeman Field Mutiny, was later credited by historians as contributing to the desegregation of the armed forces."

So in the midst of our self-congratulations, let's remember how close and how easy such cruel abuses are.

Some memories of the day are already tagged to what's happened since, as in Bob Herbert's NYTimes column, that offers this evaluation: "But I’ve seen charismatic politicians and pretty families come and go like sunrises and sunsets over the years. There was something more that was making people go ga-ga over Obama. Something deeper. We’ve been watching that something this week, and it’s called leadership. Mr. Obama has been feeding the almost desperate hunger in this country for mature leadership, for someone who is not reckless and clownish, shortsighted and self-absorbed."

By now we've also heard some accounts from people we know: Mike, my friend from PA, the daughter of Margaret's walking buddy, etc. They confirm some of the public accounts--of a certain amount of chaos, some of it dangerous, but also the pervasive feeling in the crowd of strangers that in the end was almost magical. Not just the emotions associated with what they were witnessing, by a connection of kindness, oneness and good feeling--and I suspect a lot of mutual amazement concerning each other--among these suddenly intimate strangers.

I was in the crowd for an Inauguration long ago: for JFK's when I was 14. Even though by pluck and happenstance I got to be one of the first non-dignitaries to shake the new President's hand, I recall another event in Washington that seems closer to what I sense those who attended Obama's Inaugural felt. It was the March on Washington a few years later, the great Civil Rights march.

There was a feeling among participants that day that began the moment we got off the train. There weren't quite so many of us--only 300 thousand or so--but to that point we were about the biggest crowd the Washington Mall had ever seen. And it was heat rather than cold that pervaded that August day. But there was such a feeling that it seemed almost otherwordly, an out of body experience. I'm guessing that was closer to last Tuesday's experience. If it is, the memory of January 20, 2009 will remain with those who were there for the rest of their lives.