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EDEN - He packed his long johns, hand warmers, a camera and his rented tux.

On Jan. 18, Jim Parsons, a physician at Morehead Memorial Hospital, was off to Washington for a once-in-a-lifetime experience - seeing Barack Obama, the first African American president, take the oath of office.

"I very much wanted to take part because of how historic it was. This is a pivotal time in the history of our country. Almost everything that's happened in my lifetime has led to this," he said.

Because Parsons' daughter, Heather Parsons, is the legislative director for U.S. Rep Brad Miller, who represents parts of Greensboro and Raleigh, he had a ticket to the inauguration.

Unfortunately, it was one of the now infamous "blue" tickets.

If you don't know the story, thousands of people who had blue, purple and silver tickets for a reserved standing area, weren't able to get into their area. It's being referred to by some as "ticketgate" and there are scores of Web sites and blogs lamenting the fiasco that ensued on Inauguration Day.

Many who had blue tickets were congressional staff members, such as Heather Parsons. She'd been given two tickets, so she invited her dad to join her.

On the Monday before the inauguration, while his daughter worked, Jim Parsons wandered around the mall, mingling with the tens of thousands of people doing the same. The Jumbotrons were in place, replaying the concert held the night before; fleets of portable toilets lined the sidewalks; and vendors were everywhere, selling Obama souvenirs.

Parsons bought his grandchildren inauguration buttons. And he took in the moment. "There was a very positive mood," Parsons said. "Everybody was upbeat and cheerful."

That night, he put on the tux and attended a ball held by the North Carolina Society of Washington. Miller was there, as well as North Carolina's newest U.S. senator, Kay Hagan of Greensboro.

The next morning, Parsons and his daughter left her Arlington apartment about 7 a.m. She had a special pass that allowed her to drive into the district, but it was slow-going.

"There were huge numbers of people. It (the road) was a packed pedestrian walkway," he said. By

8:30 a.m., they'd made it to the Longworth House Office Building, and they set out walking.

"We found the blue line, but it was a long way from the gate," he said. So, they stood, 40 people abreast, packed in a line with what Parsons estimates could have been 20,000 to 30,000 people.

"And it didn't move," he said.

The hours ticked by. By 10:30 a.m., Parsons and others around him began to realize something was wrong. They were in a mass too congested to move - too far from the Capitol to see anything and nowhere near the blue gate that would lead to their area.

They were fast running out of options. There was no way they could make it to the mall to see the swearing-in on the Jumbotrons. And, there were no security guards to advise them, no announcements being made, no directions of any kind.

By 11:30 a.m., Parsons could hear the sobs - people brokenhearted that they'd come so far to see the inauguration, only to miss it all.

But miraculously, the crowd stayed quiet.

Disappointed but resigned, he and his daughter headed to her office, hoping to get there in time to at least watch the ceremony on television. Others were also giving up, including two women - a mother and daughter, one from New Orleans, the other from Richmond, Va. They'd boarded a bus in the wee hours of the morning to travel to the inauguration from Richmond.

Earlier a stranger had given them silver tickets. Otherwise, they'd have been standing in the National Mall, watching a Jumbotron.

"Heather likes stray cats and dogs and people in distress," Parsons said, so he wasn't surprised when she struck up a conversation. "You're coming with us," he heard her tell the ladies - Zena and Erma - he never got their last names.

They arrived just in time to see the vice president being sworn in.

At the end of it all, the women said they felt blessed - first, to have a stranger give them tickets and second, to get the invitation from Heather to watch the events from her office.

"The day could have gone very differently. It could have been ugly, but people just didn't do that," Parsons said.

But he was there.

He had an adventure, and he had a story to tell .

And he came away with a new faith in people and hope for an ailing country.

Not such a bad day after all.

Contact Myla Barnhardt at 627-4881, Ext. 116, or myla.barnhardt@news-record.com