The update to my distant relatives on my local No-Kings experience, town of 100K

[UTUSN]

Last edited Mon Jun 16, 2025, 04:01 PM - Edit history (2)

Was going to follow-up about my No-Kings experience because I tie up loose ends and perhaps have a touch of OCD, but my way of good wishes for Fathers Day was not to intrude, so belated congrats.

As with the colonoscopy last month, the preparation was more intense than the actual event. That is, the No-Kings was very well attended here, with lines of people 2 and 3 deep along 3 or 4 blocks on both sides of a main intersection. And of course peaceful and full of good cheer and fellowship, same feeling I have gotten at the half-dozen Democratic rallies I've ever been to, like being at home with like minded people.

But there's always the personal impact on me that is different, so: I'm sort of agoraphobic, was raised as solitary with all the older people of the house being gone to work and school, so am not used to being in groups and crowds - not in audiences, congregations, and football cheering squads.

So this crowd was naturally LOUD and cheering and waving signs, but even more, hundreds of vehicles passed at a crawl very LOUDLY honking the horns in total support, taking pictures, smiling, yelling, many with their own flags and signs, even one with a poodle in the window going around and around the blocks.

I was wearing my Navy ball cap that I always use and had to say thank-you very MANY times to all the ones saying, "Thank you for your service," to which I added, "Thank you for YOURS!"

So the sun was tolerable and the seat of my rolling walker hit the spot. I took pictures, but my phone's screen was black from the sun, so I couldn't see the buttons, so it turned out that most of the pictures were SELFIES - gaping mouth, eyes screwed up!

*********** - ON EDIT, Note: I've objected to W.Shrub's TY-4-urService Iraq meme from the start, but am gracious to non-wingnuts who are well intentioned about it, and I wear my cap because it's part of me, not to fish for thank-yous. The meme represents the main lesson that NeoCons reaped from Vietnam, that the Draft was poison to war mongering and that the bad treatment of Vietnam veterans depreciated military service as a whole, such that they needed to go all Volunteer and entice enlistments with superficial "appreciation." Hence, TY-4-urService.