Sean and Sherry Ayers, of Baltimore, are a lot like the Obamas.
The Ayers are minorities.
They have a young family.
And they want to see the country lifted from its recession.
“We can definitely relate to them,” said Sean, a chemical operator for W.R. Grace & Co., a Columbia-based chemical conglomerate.
“The more we followed them, the more we liked them.”
The couple received two of the nearly 400 inauguration tickets distributed by Sen. Ben Cardin’s office, which determined the recipients through a lottery. Cardin’s office received nearly 200,000 individual requests for a spot Tuesday at the U.S. Capitol where between 2 million to 3 million are expected to converge.
Sean, 44, who is black, and Sherry, 38, a Native American, live in the Mount Washington neighborhood, and have two boys, ages 9 and 12, and a girl who is almost 2. President-elect Barack Obama’s children, Malia and Sasha, are 10 and 7 years old, respectively.
Sean, a lifelong Baltimore resident, and Sherry, a North Carolina native who’s a microbiologist with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, are attending their first inauguration.
Obama’s pledge for middle-class tax cuts and health care reform resonated with the family throughout the campaign.
And like many, they want the war in Iraq to end.
“I hate taxes — My ears light up when somebody says tax cut,” said Sean. “Spending is really an issue. You don’t want to spend a lot, because you don’t know if you’ll have a job in a month or two.”
The family must cope with health care costs and property taxes that each cost hundreds of dollars a month.
From the start, the Ayers have instilled in their children the significance of this election.
“They already understand the importance of the election process in general,” said Sean, explaining how they’ve taken the children with them to the voting polls since they were young.
The couple plans to bring their two oldest children to the Capitol and have one child watch the inauguration and the other watch the parade.
“I think for them to be there in the crowd will be different. The same camaraderie and hope people had at the polls will be there in D.C,” Sean said.
The Ayers are confident that security will be tight, but are prepared for the cold and any rain.
“It’s usually cold on inauguration day,” Sean said. “But I know we’re going to have the, ‘Mom, I want to go home’ factor.”
They now plan to drive to Washington, D.C. the night before the inauguration and stay with friends. They originally wanted to take public transportation, but tickets quickly sold out, Sean said.
“We were going to go regardless,” he said. “Getting the tickets just made it easier.”
And if anybody is wondering, the couple wouldn’t part with the tickets for anything.
