George:

Jenn and I will be in DC attending the ceremony, watching the parade and the Inaugural Ball at the Ronald Reagan building on Pennsylvania Ave. In reading your other reader's comments, it appears that others from Charlottesville will be attending too (though not for the same reasons...) so I hope to see some faces I recognize up there. Jenn and I love to run into people from Charlottesville whenever we are away (we ran into Marshall Pryor - Young Men's Shop, while on our honeymoon in Ireland).

I guess if Susan McCleary, Steven Sisson, Kay Peaslee, Alex Searls, Ellora Young and others want to go protest they are more than welcome but I hope they remember that we are all Americans and we all live together under the same basic guidelines of morality. If anything it's always nice to say hi. I wonder if someone would treat me differently in DC than they would here in Charlottesville just because they were protesting an event - probably.

I can't say that I agree with Ellora Young with taking her daughter out of school (on a Saturday?) to protest what the US Supreme court decided. I don't agree with some Supreme Court decisions but I recognize that, as Americans, we all agree that it is the law of the land.

When we have children, we do not plan on forcing our political views on them - we will let them determine for themslves what they think is best.

This reminds me of the story I heard on NPR over the holidays about the young lady who was a Christmas Elf in a mall and a lady brought her child in and said "Tell Santa what you want", and the child says,"I want Progger & Gamble to stop... "Tell Santa what you want - you want Proctor & Gamble, say it - PROCTOR & GAMBLE, what do you want them to do - what? Tell Santa you want Proctor & Gamble to stop... torturing animals. Is that right? Is that what you want?"

"...yes, I guess so..."

Anyway, I'll bring you a nice gift from the Ball, and if we get any incriminating pictures, I'll send them along...

United we stand...

Will Lyster (electronic mail, January 11, 2001).