(My apologies for the blurriness of the main body pics. I had to use the zoom feature on my roomie’s phone to keep my distance from the main body of the protests, thus, not the best photos. I tried to only pick the ones where at least some signs are readable.)
So, my roomie comes back from some errand this afternoon and tells me that there’s a BLM protest going on downtown! “Holy crap, are you shitting me?!”
“Nope, It’s stretching along Lake Gregory’s fence on Lake Gregory Drive, across from Goodwin’s, from Lake Drive to San Moritz Drive. It’s full of people!” Yeah, the names of our streets are pretty “original”,,, not. Forest Drive, Forest Lake, Scenic View, Crest Forest… Then there are all the roads named after places in Switzerland, or meant to sound like they are: Zurich, Zucher, Alpenhorn, etc, etc...
“AWESOME! How many?”
“I don’t know, maybe a hundred, two? There’s a few Trumpers on the other side facing them on Goodwin’s parking-lot side. Maybe fifteen or twenty of them...”
I laugh at that, “There’s maybe fewer of those losers here than I’d thought...” I’m gleeful at that prospect, since I’d told someone in a comment on another diary today that I’d noticed a more Progressive bent to people’s conversations the last time I was out… which was, oh, man, almost three months ago. “I gotta put this on Daily Kos! I need pictures!”
She looked dubious. She knows I’ve been itching to get out of the house to a protest since they’d started. I’m one of those poor fucks who are at risk from the damnable plague (screw you, ‘Rona, I hate yer fucking GUTS): asthma, arthritis, allergies that trigger the fucking arthritis (Edit, I meant asthma, dangit), oh, and teargas... Uh uh, bad idea. I’m a bit overweight, in my fifties, and I recently learned I may have an autoimmune disease of some kind messing with my thyroid. Augh. I can’t freaking win. I’ve been waiting my whole life for a battle like this—don’t ask—here it is, practically on a fucking platter… and my wife and room-mate won’t let me go ‘cuz of my health.
Reminds me waay too much of my mother’s complaint/joke about, “I always wanted to be a Hippie, but my parents wouldn’t let me...” FFS, I’m never gonna get my chance to face down my personal soldier in a tank, like she did in 1990… Yeah, she made up for “...my parents wouldn’t let me” bit. *cries*
OK, I did live in a protest camp for nearly two months that same summer (it was during the Oka Standoff against the Canadian government. Mum and tanks, ‘cuz martial law at Oka). I suppose that counts. Didn’t have to face guns, though, just racist assholes in pickup trucks yelling at us to go back to the Rez. :-p
Anyways, back to present day. She asked, “Do you want to go down there and see it?”
“FUCK yeah...”
“I mean you can’t join ‘em...”
I grumbled something about, “Bugger ta that bullshit. You know I’m getting outta th’car...”
“You could look out the window...”
“I want pictures and the windows are cruddy!”
“You can roll ‘em down...”
“I know that. It’s taking pictures out of a car window that I hate.” Another thought came: I have a good camera, but getting pics off of it takes a while, and I wanted to get this diary out as soon as possible after this protest, “Uh, could I use your phone to take the pics?” She said sure, and off we went.
It appeared that most of the protestors had already left in the short time we’d been talking about it, with more leaving as we drove up. Is there a curfew in this town? I had no clue. But, there were still enough people for some pics. I gleefully hop out and start taking what pictures I could, annoyed that the zoom-feature kinda sucked. They’re a bit blurry, but I hope the photos are legible enough for folks. More protestors started to walk off down Lake Drive, main drag, but I didn’t get any pics of those, though I tried.
I think roomie’s phone was out of memory. I dunno, I’m not good with those things. To me, they might as well be thin wafers of magic. :-P At least the photo I used for the title page is good, since I could at least get a decent, clear, image even while standing at the obligatory distance away. :-p
Finally, as we started to drive out, I did roll down my window… and bellowed out like a Bison: “BLACK LIVES MATTER!” loud enough for the folks on the boulevard slightly less than a hundred feet away to hear me. Cheers and jeers (the last from the Bunker Baby fans, of course). It was awesome. I thumbs upped as we left.
There was a small police presence. Very small. I saw two, count ‘em: two, cruisers. That’s it, with one Sheriff out of his car. I didn’t see where his car was, though. The cops weren’t even out of their car when we arrived. They came out toward the end. I waved at ‘em as we drove back home after I got my few pictures. They even waved back. :-)
Crestline, San Bernardino County, Southern California—home of touristy antiquing shops, three fast-food places, one really good restaurant, two others of decent yums—all 3 ‘em Hispanic food (of course, it’s California), plus a couple of cafes that make good stick-to-yer-ribs “American” fare, and the obligatory small-town “never eat at this place unless you like dry, over-done, it’s-gonna-give-you-enteritis it’s not actually Chinese-food and not run by Chinese folks anyway” place. Who’d a thought a flyspeck like this town would actually host a protest, let alone one with more than ten people—on either side? Pretty cool.
While I didn’t get to face down riot cops, truncheons, or tear gas like I wanted to (hey, people have said for decades that I’m a little crazy), at least I got to see my wee little town show there are sane and loving people here who outnumber and can shout down the Bunker Bois. I like the feeling of hope it gives me. :-)
Keep it up, you guys! I hope you have another protest, and keep having them, along with the rest of the country, until the changes for the better we’re starting to see become true and permanent!
And, just because it’s the clearest pic, and ‘cuz it deserves to be seen twice for the hopeful message: