Greg Schneiders
Deputy Assistant to the President for Special Projects
Age at the Time: 29

Originally published Jan. 13, 2001

I chose to observe the ceremonies as a real citizen, which was very in style in those days, so I went to a friend's office and watched the parade from there. If anybody knew about Carter's walk in advance, they did a good job of keeping it quiet. I thought it was a natural extension of the campaign.

What really stands out to me is the first meeting in the Roosevelt Room, which was later that afternoon, around 3 p.m. It was our first senior staff meeting. I was struck by the fact that there didn't seem to be much business to be done. Ham Jordan was presiding at the time, and he was mostly talking about what we were going to be doing in the coming weeks. It was largely procedural. After the meeting, we wandered around like a bunch of tourists, poking our heads into the Oval Office and looking around.

Blogs