Today I joined six other people to protest at a busy intersection in my new town. The weather was balmy for January, low-50s, partly cloudy, with a few sunbreaks. I brought my camping chair and my growing collection of protest signs.
The speed limit through town is 55 mph. The traffic light is long, which meantdrivers had to sit and wait for green lights and left turn arrows. That meant they had plenty of time to read our protest signs and decide if they were for or against our scrawled messages.
I set my chair in the barkdust next to an 85-year-old woman sitting on a wheeled walker. She waved a little American flag and held up a “Melt I.C.E.” sign taped to a tall stick. Two women stood nearby, waving big pieces of posterboard. The lone man in the group didn’t have a sign and was happy to receive one of mine. I gave him “I.C.E. out for good,” because that was the protest theme for the day.
One of the women held a sign that read something about making peace and teaching peace with a huge peace sign, circa 1974. Her companion’s sign was written in black marker on fluorescent orange posterboard, so I couldn’t read it. I’m sure it was something pithy.
My signs varied: “Vote,” “Save the democracy,” “No kings,” “86 47, Term limit SCOTUS, etc.,” and “My cat could sh*t a better president.” That last one is my favorite, but I fear it wasn’t readable from cars speeding by at 55 mph.
Our merry band of seven received many honks, waves, and thumbs-ups from vehicles speeding by or turning onto the highway after shopping at Grocery Outlet and BiMart. The blast from a log truck was particularly impressive. We also got some middle fingers, mostly from fat white guys driving big American pickups. I’m sure they had rifles in racks. I tried not to think about that.
Only one man had the courage to confront us in person. Just an ordinary white guy with a really big chip on his shoulder, yelling at us about Barack Obama, deportation, border this and that, and illegal aliens running over pedestrians. It was hard to follow his propaganda because the 85-year-old to my left was calling him a fascist in an equally loud voice. I expected her to skewer him with her sign.
After a few minutes, the protester with the peace sign got between the angry white man and the angry 85-year-old and shooed him away by holding her sign in his face. It was a big sign, and I figured he couldn’t really punch a peace sign, so he left. His presence was offset a bit later by a visit from another white guy, who stopped and praised us and earnestly doled out a crunching handshake that left by bones numb for a good minute.
A couple youngish men joined us, definitely rabble rousers like my elderly neighbor. One was a photographer with a bushy beard. One was a 10-year navy vet. I loaned them a couple signs. Nice kids.
We spent an hour and a half enjoying the weather, waving signs at honking cars, and chatting. Great fun.
Welcome to small town life.