GALA'S STAR WORE DESIGNER FEATHERS

2,900 ATTEND SHOW FOR CHILDREN CITY BEGINS TO RETURN TO NORMAL

"George to George -- 200 Years," a children's inaugural festival that reflected a decidedly Republican view of American history, was held yesterday at Constitution Hall as the rest of Washington began to return to normal after Friday's inauguration.

First Lady Barbara Bush and Marilyn Quayle attended the performance, which featured an appearance by "Sesame Street's" Big Bird and a series of historical skits designed to trace the presidency from George Washington to George Bush.

At the conclusion of the 75-minute program, Barbara Bush led her own inaugural parade up the aisle. She was flanked by watchful Secret Service agents and trailed by Marilyn Quayle and her children and many of the 10 Bush grandchildren.

The official inaugural celebration will end today at noon after an interdenominational prayer service at Washington Cathedral.

About half of the 2,900-member audience were children, some of whose Republican parents had been invited to official inaugural events. Shirley Temple Black, the former child star and ambassador, was honorary chairman of the festival, which featured child cloggers and a poised 11-year-old actress named Rachel Graham who played the title role in the Broadway show "Annie."

The program, narrated by actor Wilford Brimley, was punctuated by references to the Bush presidency and at times underscored the themes of George Bush's inaugural address.

One character, referring to George Washington's wisdom in rejecting a monarchal title, says, "Oh, I get it, I'm great because I helped choose George Bush to lead America today, right?" which prompted loud applause by the adults. So did Brimley's statement that "President Bush will do whatever it takes to see that the American dream is going strong when you kids grow up."

There were also some curious historical omissions: None of the featured presidents was a Democrat, and a skit that portrayed Abraham Lincoln writing the Gettysburg Address never mentioned that the Civil War was fought over slavery.

At the end of the program, children received a "George to George" coloring book filled with parallels about the two presidents. One example: George Washington was a surveyor and George Bush was an oil driller.

None of that seemed to matter to children. "It was great," said Kwame Walcott, 8, of Silver Spring, who attended the program with two friends and one of their mothers. His friend Jayna Lacy liked the cloggers and Kamal Aqui liked the character who kept interrupting Brimley.

Paula Williams, Kamal's mother, got tickets to the free event from a friend who works at the White House. Williams, a lawyer at the General Accounting Office, said she is not a Bush supporter but appreciates the attempt to involve children in the inauguration.

Elsewhere around the area, out-of-town inaugural revelers began to depart. Officials reported that yesterday was much busier than usual at National Airport as private jets took off. "We've got extra people, so we're coping," said an airport official who added that commercial flights were also crowded.

Washington, which was transformed for the swearing-in and 1.6-mile parade, began to resemble its usual self. Traffic signals that had been removed along Pennsylvania Avenue so they wouldn't obstruct the floats went back up. The flags hanging from lampposts came down. More than 40 concrete and metal litter cans, picked up at the orders of the Secret Service for fear that they could harbor bombs, were replaced.

On Capitol Hill workers dismantled the plywood presidential platform they had spent months constructing and carted off 24,717 folding chairs used for the swearing-in ceremony.

The biggest and most unpleasant job was performed by District sanitation workers who swooped down on Pennsylvania Avenue Friday night even before the last float rolled by the reviewing stand at 6 p.m.

"We almost had a street sweeper in the parade," said John J. O'Donnell, chief of street cleaning for the D.C. Department of Public Works, who orchestrated his own parade of dump trucks, mechanical sweepers and jumpsuit-clad workers.

Their task -- to pick up the estimated 20 tons of newspapers, horse manure and other debris left by 300,000 spectators, 12,000 parade participants and 457 horses -- was complicated by high winds.

"It was like chasing butterflies," said O'Donnell of sheets of newspapers, which many people had used to sit on, that skittered across the Capitol and down Pennsylvania Avenue.

Three men armed with shovels spent Friday night marching down Pennsylvania Avenue scraping manure off the streets.

In general, said O'Donnell, who has been involved in every inaugural cleanup since 1961, this year's wasn't bad. "It's light litter and not nearly as bad as the Fourth of July because people don't eat and drink as much," he said. "People are probably more dignified at an inauguration."

Staff writer Cornelius F. Foote Jr. contributed to this report.

Articles appear as they were originally printed in The Washington Post and may not include subsequent corrections.