Twenty years ago today I was in sixth grade, and I had the day off school for some reason. It was a Friday. I was helping my mom set up the new television we’d just bought, a 20″ Sony with a remote control, of all things. I was hooking it up to the VCR we’d bought the previous fall. It was a watershed year for the household, technologically, though our first microwave was still several months away.

We got the TV set up in time to watch George H.W. Bush get sworn in. I was hoping my mother wouldn’t remark on how I’d cried—shed actual tears—the previous November, on the night he defeated Michael Dukakis. I was righteously angry and sad, though I wasn’t really sure why, only that my parents were and therefore I should be too. But none of us could have predicted what the next five inaugurations would bring.

All in all, this morning kicks the ass of that morning.