Dave Heemstra checked with his son's fifth-grade teacher in Severna Park before bringing Ben to the demonstration outside the Supreme Court yesterday. The teacher said this would be a great civics lesson.
Taking the Metro in from New Carrollton with lunch in brown paper bags, they didn't know quite what to expect. They climbed the hill from the Capitol South station, and the boy got his first exposure to that great Washington art form, the full-throated, protester-politico-police-media street opera. And the fat lady was reportedly inside.
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There was civil rights leader Jesse L. Jackson, on his way into the court. There was Republican Whip Tom DeLay (Tex.), who seemed to look directly at Ben. There was someone dressed as Santa Claus, promising the election to Texas Gov. George W. Bush. There were police officers wearing riot helmets. There was a donkey. No, a mule. A real live mule, named Forty Acres, standing stubbornly at First Street and Maryland Avenue NE, being interviewed by a television reporter from France.
In the mosh pit of a couple thousand protesters, Vice President Gore's supporters chanted, "Oh, no, Gore's ahead, better call my brother Jeb!" while supporters of Bush, whose brother is governor of Florida, responded, "Two, four, six, eight, how many recounts does it take?"
Before long, father and son decided to have lunch. They sat munching ham sandwiches safely across the street from the mule, the mob, the megaphones and the marble building where, they were certain, history was being made.
"We came because it's a historic day," said Heemstra, 44, an airline pilot. "This is something he'll remember years from now, how he was there at the Supreme Court when they were deciding possibly who would be the next president."
Ben, 10, seemed to be soaking up an excellent father-son teaching moment. "It's pretty cool: The closest election in the history of the U.S., and getting to be here and see all the people protesting," he said.
The Heemstras were protesters, too, after a fashion. They had set aside their signs to eat their lunch. Dad's was one of the preprinted glossy ones: "Bush-Cheney." The boy's, hand-lettered, was what seemed to catch DeLay's eye: "Al Gore, The All-Time Loser."
But for the Heemstras, as for many others drawn like iron filings to the magnet of the Supreme Court, partisanship was accompanied by another yearning: To be present, to bear witness, to teach and perhaps to learn, and to take away a memory that will endure far longer than the next presidency. Such reticent true believers tended not to be in the mosh pit but around the fringes.
Cheryl Speight, 50, a secretary from Fort Washington, brushed back tears as she explained why she came. She works for a pro-Gore labor union and said she was encouraged to carry a partisan sign that named the candidates. Instead, she drew up her own sign, pro-Gore to be sure, while also reminding anyone who saw it of principles deeper than any single candidate or party.
It said: "My Vote Lets Freedom Ring From Here Throughout the World!!"
"I know how much not only my people, but many people, went through just to gain the right to vote," said Speight, who is African American. "It makes me shudder to think of my vote not counting. . . . This is for the people whose vote might not be counted."
Speight has thought that way since she was a girl and her mother taught her to sing, "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty." Yesterday she couldn't stay at home with her thoughts. "It's not about sitting at home praying, it's about being here," she said.
Jean and Craig Borne, both 28, from Baltimore, threaded through the crowd pushing a blue baby carriage. Inside was 4-month-old Jessica. Sometimes Jessica rested on Craig's shoulder, entertained by the colorful array of protesters.
The family stood out in the crowd because they bore no outward clue as to which side they were on. No buttons or signs. Ask them, and they'll say they support Bush. But that's not why they came.
"Regardless of who you're for, it's wonderful to see democracy in action, people taking the Constitution seriously," said Craig Borne, a seventh-grade English teacher who has spent a lot of time on civics since the election. "It's a part of history we hope not to see again--but it's great to be a part of it."
Across First Street NE from the court, Jean Borne aimed her video camera at the grand white edifice and hummed a melody that will be audible above the din of protest when Jessica plays the tape back many years from now. The melody was "The Star Spangled Banner."
After the arguments, after the lawyers came down the white steps to a stiff cocktail of cheers and boos, many in the crowd began to drift away.
Rebecca Alcarese, 35, a real estate agent from Timonium, north of Baltimore, called her husband, Gary, on her cellphone. She was pushing their 3-month-old son, Marc, in a stroller.
"I want you to know, Marc was on CNN right behind Greta Van Susteren!" she reported.
He laughed at her adventure, even when she told him, a Bush supporter, that Marc was sporting a Gore-Lieberman sticker on his baby-blue hood. She voted for Gore.
"It's such a momentous occasion," Alcarese said after hanging up. Her son "doesn't know this is such a historic event. I thought in retrospect he would like to know he was here."
She also came for partisan reasons. For a long time after the election, she had been content to let the process play out while she watched from afar. That feeling ended when the Supreme Court halted the recount.
"Now it's the principle of the thing," she said. "Sitting back watching on TV wasn't very proactive. . . . I came down to express outrage."
Staff writer Hamil R. Harris contributed to this report.
