Even with an unusually warm early winter, yesterday was darned cold. It barely hit twenty degrees. A few of my volunteer sign holders decided not to spend their early evening in deep freeze on a pedestrian walkway over the westward reach of I-94 in Milwaukee but that didn't stop my most intrepid crew. These folks are amazing: Kossack Puddytat bundled up in enough layers to look like a real Russian Cossack, Badscience in her new snowmobile boots, and Ty, Angela, Nicolas, Joe and Paul all committed to an hour and a half displaying our R-E-C-A-L-L for the fine folks who work in the city and live in the western suburbs.
There was a beautiful sunset as I set up on the highway to take some pictures. Our crew danced beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free, the other hand holding the signs fairly still so as not to create distraction for the drivers on their way home. After all, it takes some real coordination to get off the cell phone long enough to give us the finger, and we do wonder if taking both hands off the wheel for the double-barrel finger is really a good idea!
Yeah, we got a lot of that, but a lot of thumbs up as well, a lot of honks, democrabeeps, and a few screamers with the inscrutable koan chestnuts "get a job," "go home" and "fuck you, asshole!" I love that we are there during rush hour, after a day's hard work, very close in this case to where we all live, while people winding their way west to Waukesha tell us to "go home."
We counted the cars for a while, and estimated about 60 per minute passed below us. That is 600 in 10 minutes. We were out for 80 minutes. I like those viewership stats!
While I was down on the highway taking pictures, a guy out walking his dog went up to our crew on the bridge. We're all a bit gun-shy from the "biting incident" when we first went out. But this guy seemed friendly. "Hey," he said, "You guys are doing a great job with the signs!" "Thanks," replied Badscience. He returned with, "I saw you on the internet." "Wow, really? Where?" "On Daily Kos a week ago!" Go figure: the one close-up interaction we had was with a random Kos reader!
Later that night, we went to the Sirius Booty Benefit To Recall Walker's "Frozen By the Funk" dance party in a great bar in Milwaukee (Redroom), where we had been asked to bring our signs. Well, why not? Disco balls, laser lights, dorky dancing, "Recall Walker" LED signs... my whole life flashed before me...
While I don't think much money was raised for the cause, the DJ tore the roof off the sucker, and everyone had a great and fun time. We were frozen by the weather out on the overpass, but the funk most definitely warmed us back up.
And today it is back on the streets with the Sidewalk Soapbox and a few friends to gather signatures. It is warmer and sunny and time to hit it!