My Experiences at the Peace Rally

Several people have asked me to write an article about what I did at the march against the war in DC a couple weeks ago. I’ve been reluctant, not because I hate writing, but because I’m a little bit embarrassed. So here’s my confession. But a little about my history:

In 1968 I was in Chicago for the anti-war demonstration during the Democratic National Convention. I was way in the back, probably 2 blocks away from Cow Palace. But for some unknown reason the crowd kept surging back on us. We were close to a cyclone fence and didn’t want to get squeezed against it so we walked a couple blocks over, got a pizza, and went to my cousin’s apartment. We turned on the TV and ‘OH MY GOSH’ THAT”S why they were surging back!! I quickly call my Mom and let her know I was OK, munching on pizza.

I spent a weekend in the ‘80’s holding a long banner asking for passage of the ERA in front of Reagan’s White House. But then some friends from Boston came by and sightseeing with them sounded like fun so I left. An hour later the women I left holding the banner were arrested for trespassing.

In 1992 I went back to DC for the March for Women’s Lives and my friends and I listened to the speeches for awhile and then got into the march. But it was so crowded and uncomfortable that we pealed off the crowd, stopped in a bar, supposedly waiting for the march to thin out, and ended up drinking toasts to the marchers for hours, ‘We’re wisth you, sisthersh!’

Do you see a pattern? This time several friends from around the Country all emailed me and said let’s do the march! The husband of one friend in Arlington refurbished limos and he said he’d drive us to the march. Yes, it’s true. I went to the march in a limo. But that’s not even the most embarrassing part. The crowd was great. Lots of young people were there but old familiar speakers like Jesse Jackson. We listened to some of the speeches, started marching, and like ferrets attracted to shiny objects we noticed that the National Book Fair was going on right next to the demonstration! Yes, I’m ashamed to admit that I went shopping during an important demonstration!! Bad, bad, me! (I got a tote bag and several great books.) We started feeling a little guilty and went over to the Washington Monument and looked at the displays. There were hundreds of white crosses and empty Army boots lined up that really moved me. We couldn’t get near ‘Camp Casey’ but saw hundreds of signs, displays, and a cord with hundreds of signs stringed on it with the names of the fallen. My friend’s husband picked us up just as the concert was starting (in the limo, of course) and we drove to Rehoboth (Delaware) to another friend’s cottage where we feasted on crab and caught up on each other’s lives and talked Progressive politics for 2 days.

So that’s the truth. I’ve had many folks tell me that they might have gone to the march if they’d known they could do it in a limo. But no one admits that they would have stopped demonstrating to eat pizza, sightsee, get drunk, or go shopping. Oh, well . . . I’m just a bad radical, I guess.