LAST WEEK I asked you to send in your stories about Inauguration Day. We got a few nice responses.

One came from none other than Ellen Wheeler, trustee of the Mountain View Whisman Elementary School District, who wrote:

Dear Don,

Since you asked people to write in, back from the Inauguration in Washington, D.C., here's my quick take.

I have five main memories of Barack Obama's Inauguration: (1) It was SO COLD! (2) It was SO CROWDED! (3) People were walking around smiling, all in a good mood, there to celebrate the culmination of their common purpose -- the election of Barack Obama. (4) There was such a rainbow of people -- young white men with Obama pins, many black people, seniors, students, old hippies ... It was especially meaningful to see so many black families there to bear witness to that day. (5) I met people who had trekked there from all over the United States and even the world -- from Alabama, New York, Florida, Kansas, Connecticut and Ethiopia. I even met people who lived near Washington, D.C., who had never been to a Presidential Inauguration, and now it was time.

CLOSER TO HOME, the day workers over at the Worker Center (which for now remains located at Trinity United Methodist Church at the corner of Hope and Mercy streets) kept busy on Inauguration Day "by constructing giant 15-by-11-foot American flags for Huff School."

Another such flag is on display in front of the center, at 748 Mercy St.

This information comes from a press release, which continued: "Inspired by President Obama's call for increased volunteerism, workers went on to pick up trash from Mountain View city streets."