Inauguration Day evokes memories

I am white. As such, when I was 5, I integrated an all-black elementary school in New Orleans. My mom -- who had graduated from Little Rock High during its famous integration -- was the first white teacher at that school, and I was the first white student. That was a blink ago, during Richard Nixon's 1970s.

My ex-wife went to a public high school in rural Louisiana that was all girls. People whispered the school was turned into an all-girls building in order to keep white girls away from black guys. That was a sneeze ago, in Ronald Reagan's 1980s.

My best friend in high school in Georgia was a light-skinned black. I stood next to him as, now and then, a white guy we worked with said, "Robert, you don't look like a (racial epithet)." Those comments always made me rage, yet Robert dealt with that humiliation every day.

Today, Barack Obama becomes the 44th president of the United States. Obama does not erase the past. He writes over it. Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves. Obama freed their ghosts.

More precisely, people who voted for Obama changed America, because America changed before Obama, in a quiet revolution, before the election. We elected Obama not because he's black or in spite of it, but because being nonwhite dissolved as an issue, and the tombstone of inequality dug firmer ground.

Obama now stands aside from race. He will be judged by his actions, beginning today, the day after we recognized Martin Luther King Jr., whose era suddenly seems like a dinosaur age ago.

ODDS ON OBAMAS

And now for the silly side: Offshore oddsmakers have been busy setting bets on Obama's address and Michelle Obama's dress. Nevada sports books can't put out playable odds on such things. So here's a quick list of odds as of Monday, according to PaddyPower.com:

* Odds Michelle's gown will be purple: 11-8; blue pays 3-1; pink pays 50-1; green pays 6-1; red pays 8-1; orange pays 16-1; black pays 20-1; leopard skin pays 100-1; star-spangled banner-patterned pays 500-1.

* Odds Barack will wear a red tie: 11-10; blue pays 11-8; a bow tie pays a measly 10-1.

* Odds the first big Obama administration event will be his confirming the 1969 moon walk was fake: 50-1.

n Odds the first celebrity shown on CNN in the crowd will be Oprah: 7-4; George Clooney pays 12-1; Beyoncé pays 14-1; Anne Hathaway pays 20-1; Chaka Khan, Chris Rock, Britney Spears and Paris Hilton each pay 33-1.

* Odds the Obamas pick a Portuguese water dog: 8-11; a Labradoodle pays even money.

* Odds they call the dog George: 8-1; naming the dog Change pays 25-1; Dubya pays 33-1; Yes We Can pays 33-1; Gordon pays 66-1; Condi pays 80-1; Snoop pays 100-1; Joe The Plumber and Monica each pay 250-1.

* Odds President Obama will be played by Will Smith in a movie: 6-4; by Jamie Foxx pays 5-2; by Denzel Washington pays 4-1; by Eddie Murphy pays 8-1; by Cuba Gooding Jr. pays 10-1; by Wesley Snipes pays 14-1; by Dave Chappelle pays 33-1; by Samuel L. Jackson pays 40-1; by O.J. Simpson pays 100-1.

* Odds the next big job earned by a black man will be a black pope: 7-4; a black James Bond pays 9-4; a black Batman pays 33-1; a black Snoopy pays 500-1.

OTHER STUFF: CHER, BULLS

Cher, 62, is slated to star in a comedy called "The Drop-Out" with Johnny "Jackass" Knoxville, 37, according to the Hollywood Reporter. She returns to Caesars on Feb. 21.

Since the Championship Bull Riding World Finals Competition is in town at South Point, several competitors are riding out to Nellis Air Force Base today to do some troop appreciation and dedicate performances to a local soldier who used to be a bull rider, lost both legs in Iraq and is at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

And I'll be spinning some favorite songs, culled from my rock critic brain, at 6 p.m. Wednesday, with Nate Tannenbaum on KUNV, 91.5 FM.

What do you think about all this? Write your thoughts on my blog (reviewjournal.com/elfman) or e-mail me (delfman@reviewjournal.com), and I'll post them. My column runs Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays. See you then.