What happened last Tuesday was something I never dreamed that I would live to see.

Neither did my friends, many of whom had African ancestors. I hear what they tell me and can only imagine how they must feel.

Some of us were in high school when we went into a restaurant in Winchester, Va., and were told that the white kids could stay, but the black kids couldn’t. We decided to find a place where we could all eat together.

I didn’t vote for Barack Obama, but for the Vietnam veteran I’ve long respected and admired. However, I’ve decided two things about our new president:

(1) The more I hear him and see him, the more I like him; and

(2) He takes big bites ... meaning that he has set some mighty ambitious goals. (In English, we say, “Don’t bite off more than you can chew.” The Italian version is somewhat more colorful and refers to one of the results of biting, chewing and swallowing.)

A friend e-mailed me her thoughts about the inauguration. I told her I would include what she said in a column because I agree with it, and it is well-written. It comes from someone who has learned to deal with life as it is, not by deciding how life ought to be and whining because it is not.

“Was just watching the inauguration,” she wrote. “It reminds me what a great country we live in. Agree or disagree with the man coming into or leaving office, you’ve got to admire the process.

“President Obama made a good speech. I really feel bad for him, though. No human being is EVER going to live up to what a lot of people are expecting of him. He is not going to walk across the surface of the Reflecting Pool or raise the dead. Many of the people who follow him follow an ideal, not a man.

“They’ve always been around looking for some kind of Utopia where we’re all at peace and there is love everywhere. Unfortunately, when President Obama turns out just to be a man, not a messiah, the Utopians will turn on him, too, and go off to seek some other poor guy or gal to stare at all teary-eyed and dreamy, and wait for them to wave their magic wand and make everything wonderful.

“Ah, well, some things never change.”

No, my friend, they don’t. As she said, some folks actually seem to believe our new president can accomplish everything he sets out to do.

Others apparently would like to see him fail. Now, think about that: If these people were crewmen on a ship and didn’t like the captain, they’d probably enjoy seeing him running it into an iceberg and sinking it.

For entirely practical reasons, it would suit me if Obama turns out to be the best president we’ve had since Abraham Lincoln. That’s what we need.

Syndicated Columnist Cal Thomas didn’t care much for Obama’s inaugural speech, saying it lacked passion.

I’ve heard enough of what people call “passion” in my 61 years to be suspicious of it. It’s usually too loud and often lacks reason and substance. What I heard in the voice of our new president was sincerity, determination and the potential for leadership.

Leadership doesn’t win all the time (and, in the case of George Washington, maybe not even until it’s “now, or-else”) but it gives you hope that somewhere down the road you WILL win. “Come and follow me,” it says. “I will take you there, and we will prevail together.”

Leadership also knows which fights to pick, and when and how to fight them. Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate cavalry general, is a prime example of this idea. Usually outnumbered, Bedford Forrest repeatedly led his men to victory by figuring out just how many Yankees he could successfully bite off and chew at a time, leaving the rest to deal with later.

In recent weeks, there have been numerous references to Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. — and with good reason. Another name that should be remembered is that of Frederick Douglass, because he put down much of the foundation for what happened last Tuesday.

Douglass escaped from slavery in Maryland and became one of the nation’s fiercest and most eloquent abolitionists. At first a strong critic of Lincoln, he worked with Sojourner Truth and others to make him an ally.

When Lincoln was elected to his second term, Douglass became the first black person invited to an inaugural event at the White House. He already had been a guest there several times, but the guards didn’t want to let him in. Lincoln himself intervened, saying, “Here comes my friend Douglass.”

After it was decided to allow freed slaves and other blacks to join the Union army, Douglas wrote this: “Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letters US, let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder, and bullets in his pocket, and there is no power on earth or under the earth which can deny that he has earned the right of citizenship in the United States.”

Those words apply to any number of people I know, whether they were in the armed services or not.

In particular, they speak to me of a friend who was a Tuskegee Airman — they were America’s first black military aviators — and how he survived one war in Europe against the Germans, only to come home and face another being waged against him by Americans.

When someone hungers to prove himself, and you give him the tools he needs and the incentive and the opportunity, there’s no limit to what he can achieve. To me, that’s what America is all about.

Here comes our friend Obama. May God grant that his presidency will be as significant as his election was.