Welcome Aboard the Payne Train

I got text messaging…finally! But in all seriousness we all know the feeling of what happened Tuesday night of how, as Thomas Friedman of the NY Times put it, ” The Civil War started in Virginia, tonight ended in Virginia, and now Reconstruction begins.” What made the night so much more historic and inspiring was the reaction of the world. The excitement in Kenya needs no description nor explanation, my friend in Denmark explained that the Danes cared more about our election than their’s, Obama’s elementary school in Indonesia did nothing else but watch the election throughout the day, the city of Obama, Japan celebrated with any American they could find, London, France, and Germany all ran special edition newspapers, in DC people were singing outside the White House “na-na-na-na hey hey hey goodbye,” television coverage of the election was rated at 84 million people watching, and here at Cornell students ran into the streets shouting, “Yes we can!” then marched up to the libraries on the arts quad and stormed the buildings still chanting the various Obama slogans.

I thought the Giants winning the Super Bowl was the emotional highlight of my life, but that turned out to be false. Tuesday night will be near impossible to top.