MANY COMPARISONS have been made to Barack Obama’s inauguration as president this week to the ceremonies that elevated John F. Kennedy to the office on Jan. 20, 1961.

Did President Obama’s address contain any lines as memorable as these from Kennedy?

“And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.

“My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.”

At this writing we haven’t heard the new president’s address. But of course he and his speech writers will hope to make the kind of historical impact achieved by Kennedy and only a few other inaugural speechmakers.

THERE ARE similarities between the two inaugurations — each replaces an 8-year Republican administration with a new young Democratic leader saddled with great expectations — and the excitement level is high.

But so much has changed in the last 48 years. What was then a nation of 180 million people now has more than 305 million, according to a Jan. 1 estimate.

And nowhere near the two to five millions who streamed into the capital this week showed up that frigid late January in 1961.

THANKS TO THE new vice-president, Lyndon B. Johnson, my husband Ray Greene and I were privileged to have close-up seats for the JFK swearing-in and many other inaugural events.

Until President Ronald Reagan moved the inauguration to the west side of the Capitol in 1981, the ceremonies were held on the much more restricted east side. Instead of the 250,000 with tickets on the mall to see Barack Obama take the oath of office, only a few thousand huddled in the cold on that Friday in 1961.

An 8-inch snow had ended only hours before and the sun had come out. The temperature was 22 degrees with a 17 mph wind, making the chill factor 7 degrees, a recent check of the weather records showed.

IT TOOK AN extreme effort for this Southerner to concentrate on the speech, but I remember thinking that the “ask not” lines were designed to be engraved in marble some day.

Ray had the same reaction, for he wrote in his Mirror story that these were “Probably the most remembered words, directed right at every American man and woman . . . ”

There were no taxis available, and it seemed like a mighty long walk from the Capitol to the White House, where we had tickets for seats in the bleachers set up just below where the presidential party watched the inaugural parade.

OUR WALK ended in frustration. Men from all three service academies (there were no women students then) were marching by and police would not let anyone cross Pennsylvania Ave. We learned later that John Kenneth Galbraith, the Harvard economist, got the same treatment, though he said he was a personal friend of the president.

We looked for Gilmer’s Charlie Hogg, then a West Point cadet, and Phil Maywald, attending the Air Force Academy, but could not spot them. Nor could we locate former Buckeye Bob Parsons, who marched with the UT Longhorn band.

Seated near us in the parade bleachers were Barefoot Sanders and his wife, Barefoot already well known to Ray and me from his year as student body president at UT-Austin. Sadly, he will miss this inauguration, for he died last September after a long and distinguished career as a U.S. district judge in Dallas.

SOME OF my other reflections, as reported in The Mirror:

En route to a coffee given by Texas Sen. William P. Blakley (temporary appointee, as it turned out) at his office, we saw Joseph P. Kennedy, the president’s father, bound from a Cadillac limousine up the steps of the Senate office building to shake hands and engage in back-slapping with Virginia Sen. Harry Byrd, whose very conservative political views are said to be similar to the elder Mr. Kennedy’s.

(It was the following December that Joseph P. Kennedy suffered the crippling stroke that afflicted the last eight years of his life.)

A [Jan. 18] night reception for Sen. Johnson, which attracted 8,000 people to the  Statler Hiilton Hotel, came to a halt for 15 minutes when President-Elect Kennedy stopped by. The $5 ticket included a buffet. (That cost would be $25 now.)

AT THE YOUNG Democrats dance at the Mayflower Hotel the center of attention was the box where Lynda Bird and Lucy Baines Johnson were seated with their Texas escorts. Lynda wore the blue gown she had chosen for her apppearance as a visiting duchess at the Yamboree in the fall of 1960. She and Jim Cockrell of Hillsboro danced the Charleston to music by Woody Hermann’s band. Lynda asked to be remembered to her Gilmer friends. 

At the inaugural ball at the Sheraton  Park Hotel, attended by mostly Texas and Indiana folks, Jackie Kennedy had left the presidential party by the time it arrived.  Three hundred Marines formed a corridor where the new cabinet officers and their wives entered, followed by the president introduced with Hail to the Chief. The Armory ball and others preceded ours, and by the time the president left and we shared a taxi a gracious Indiana couple had hailed, it was 2:30 a.m.

I’M MORE THAN happy to watch the Obama inauguration on TV, as he himself suggested for any tempted at the last minute to attend in person.

My mother, the late Georgia Laschinger, wrote a column in Ray’s absence and the final paragraph said that he and I did not have to wire home that we had arrived.

“That very afternoon the Huntley-Brinkley NBC news program took pictures at the tea for distinguished ladies and Sarah Greene was seen standing in the receiving line.”

(The receiving lines were distinguished, not the attendees. I still remember the Marine officer in dress uniform who said, “Mrs. Auchincloss, Mrs. Greene” when I was introduced to Jackie Kennedy’s mother.)

MY MOTHER also wrote about how special lyrics are sometimes written for old tunes and the adaptation becomes better known than the original. For example, she noted, England’s God Save the Queen became My Country ‘Tis of Thee. The column concluded:

“Now that we have a vice-president from Texas newscasters are finally learning the Texan’s favorite tune is The Eyes of Texas and not  I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.

“So it goes. maybe some day An Army of BucKeyes  will supersede The Stars and Stripes Forever. When President Kennedy entered the inaugural platform to this Sousa march our 5-year-old granddaughter jumped to attention, saying, ‘Why that’s the Buckeye song.’ ”

sgreene@tatertv.com Sarah Greene Archives