So Mr. Wimpycat and I showed up early, to make sure we had a good parking spot, armed with our sign and our Gadsden flag. We were stationed at the end of Hillsborough St. right across from the Confederate Memorial on the State Capitol grounds. There were lots of police in attendance and they had metal barriers between our side and the other side, to let traffic pass between the two sides.
Mykdsmom, Constitution Day, ncweaver, overtaxed, Helms and several other FReepers whose names escape me were there. There was a very nice man from Italy who was very gung ho and added a lot to the spirit of the rally. There were several college students from NC State University carrying huge US flags. At first we thought they were walking past us to get to the other side, and somebody asked them if they were from NC State, and one of them said, "Yeah, but we're not socialists!" and they came on behind the barrier to our side.
I'm not good at estimating, but I'd say we had about 75 people there out supporting our troops and our president. The other side had several thousand, and I wouldn't be surprised if they had the promised 10,000, but I know it wasn't any more than that. They were mostly congregating on the other side of the Capitol building, so we didn't see them, but about 100 of them or so came to stand on their side of the street opposite us, and that's when the real fun began. There was mostly good-natured jibes going back and forth. One poor, deluded ignorant chap was in for it when he held up his sign that read: "Lets chose peace not war." Well you know us! We gave him a hard time over that. "It's CHOOSE! It's CHOOSE peace! Don't you want more funding for education and SPELLING?" Most of their signs were pretty lame, and I don't know how they reconciled their pacifist tendencies with the two guys standing right in front of the Confederate Memorial with a Palestinian flag and two flags with the Dome of the Rock and Arabic writing on them. These two guys walked by with a "Bomb Texas--it has oil, too!" and I hollered out, "Why don't you TRY and bomb Texas? Just TRY it!"
I must say, my husband got into the spirit of things quite early, and was enthusiastically heckling the other side. These two middle-aged and obviously non-Hispanic women walked past us on their way to their rally carrying signs written in Spanish that read "Witnesses for Justice" or something like that. So my husband hollered out to them (in Spanish), "'Witnesses for Justice'? Do you speak Spanish?" They didn't even turn their heads--it was obvious they didn't understand him. "Why are you carrying those signs if you don't even know how to speak Spanish!" He really got into the spirit of the rally. The Italian gentleman was especially vocal, and he was interviewed by several news organizations. (I was interviewed by one myself.)
It was so funny, watching people from the other side walk past us before the rally heated up. We were friendly to everybody. A smile and a "Good morning!" for everybody. Most of them sort of winced and said, "Good morning" back like it hurt them to be polite.
Lots of news organizations came by and talked to us and took pictures of our signs. I know at least 3 or 4 photographed my sign. Lots of reporters interviewed the decorated combat veteran who was with us as well. I didn't hear if he was a WWII veteran, but he was a Korean War and Vietnam War veteran and I think CD said he had a Bronze Star on his VFW hat.
Anyway, it was lots of fun, but the cold front started to come in and a lot of us started getting cold, but I didn't notice how cold I was until the time we almost left.
ROFL! CD was a trip with his Fry Mumia T-shirt! I'll let him tell you about his "special" gag that he used to go over and mill around the other side!