Marches

In October 1967, when I was a student at Columbia University, a bunch of us piled into a friend's old car and went to Washington for the March on the Pentagon. My friends were from Chicago; I was Canadian, just back from a two-year stint as a volunteer teacher in Ghana, where I witnessed my first political marches following Nkrumah's overthrow--brightly coloured, with lots of music and dancing (in Ghana, even funeral colors are bright). I went along to Washington pretty much by accident, not knowing a whole lot about U.S. politics at the time. I'm glad I was there. It was one of those historical moments. 

Last night I stood in the rain with a couple hundred other people on the edge of El Camino Real, a local prelude to today's Women's Marches in Washington and elsewhere. My sign said Not My President on one side and Love Trumps Hate on the other. In red and black. (I've seen some terrific signs in the news stories, including Grab your own). There were lots of kids and their parents, a drummer, and cars driving by honked happily. The March in Washington looks awesome and I wish I were there: this time I'd have been a fully-committed demonstrator.