Denouement: Friday, August 29

I owe you one more "official" post, about the amazing events of yesterday evening.

Delegates were transported to Invesco Field by bus and brought to a special entrance for access to the ground floor of the field. If you were looking at the stage on TV, the delegations were arranged in something of a "T" on the field, the stage set up being at its crossbar, on the 50-yard line. (Mile-High Stadium is, of course, a football field first and foremost, home to the Denver Broncos. A large sculpture of a rearing horse crowns the stadium rooftop right above the scoreboard.) Massachusetts was to the leftmost end of the T's crossbar. This meant that much of our seating was obstructed by camera towers and lights -- we could see the right side of the stage set-up pretty well -- but thanks to the several large screens, no one missed a trick. In fact, the use of high-tech stage and sound sets made the whole atmosphere very 21st- century.

Besides, the air in the field was electric with excitement. A hot, humid afternoon turned beautifully clear and cooler, once the sun dipped behind the stadium walls. Seats in all four upper decks were chock-full by 5:15, nearly three hours before Sen. Obama was to speak.

On the scene:

* Gov. Michael Dukakis brought his entire family -- wife Kitty, two daughters and a son-in-law, and one lively grandson -- to the event. They were seated immediately in front of me. Except for their political celebrity (and preferential seating!), they were not unlike many other families one could glimpse in the stands -- entire families, babies, youngsters, oldsters.

* Senator Kerry worked the crowd, and acceded to the request of a group of veterans to pose for some pix information with an honor guard.

* Patrick Kennedy also worked the crowd and sat nearby for a while.

* Congressman Ed Markey, sponsor of Thursday morning's Mass. delegation breakfast, was in the crowd, as was Congresswoman Nikki Tsongas.

Lots of press roamed our seating area, the easiest to access from the outside gate, for background photo shots and crowd scenes. Joe Scarborough (MSNBC's "Morning Joe") and his crew stopped by the Mass. delegation to meet and greet.

Speakers and music were interspersed throughout the day, not unlike the convention program in the Pepsi Center on the previous three days. Early in the evening, Cheryl Crowe 's medley of songs was wonderful and popular with the crowd. But it took Stevie Wonder to really get us going. Groups of delegates were dancing in the aisles and the atmosphere was festive, not unlike a rock concert. Among the many who addressed the crowd Al Gore was a popular choice to speak on this last night, along with (conversely) the panel of voters from all over America who told why they were supporting Barack Obama for president. Best line, from an Indianan named Barney Smith, who had suffered economic hardship in the past eight years: "It's time for our government to think first of helping Barney Smith, not helping Smith Barney."

When the video of Barack Obama's life story aired, it calmed the festivities to a more serious mood appropriate for the speech to come. As the video ended, Senator Obama bounded onto the stage, and a roar of welcome and applause erupted that lasted for several minutes.

The speech itself was, of course, marvelous: specific, high-minded, purposeful and clear. The pundits have already pored over it at length, so I will just add my own sentiments here: I had the sense that I was witnessing greatness, that this was a moment against which time (political and otherwise) might be measured in future. And I was right: the next day, in a crowded Denver airport, we who were lucky enough to have heard Obama's speech live spotted one another sporting Obama t-shirts and buttons and asked one another, "Were you there last night?"

The Mass. delegation partied until the wee hours (so I'm told) at a skybox at Coors Field, the baseball park that's home to the Colorado Rockies. We had a full view of the resplendent field under the lights, wonderful food and drink, and the last of each other's company as a delegation.