Wow! Wow! WOW!! Freeping sure is fun, isn't it? I love it, I love it, I love it! I can't imagine that it can be legal to have THIS much fun, can it?
I see from your Ft. Collins photos just how much snow was coming down then. But I don't remember it, yet I was there. Obviously I was having too much fun to notice the weather!
Ft. Collins was an unusual situation today due to the reporters who were out there interviewing a bunch of us. One couple with a tape recorder was from some new startup FM station that is about to go on the air, they say. A third guy was from our local Ft. Collins paper. In all the 15 months that both sides have been standing on that intersection, they've done only two articles as far as I know, and the 2nd article re-used the photo they took for the first one. It was a pretty noticeable blooper too - a photo of people all bundled up that was reprinted in the middle of summer. LOL! Their guy today was taking notes by hand, and he seemed to be wanting only short "soundbite" kinds of quotes for his article.
Longmont was an absolute RIOT! We arrived at the supposed start-time of 2PM, but both sides had got going very early today. After hauling my huge collection of Very Large Signs out of the car, I noticed a Leftist with a large peace flag standing on our corner. I mentioned that, based on our long experience in Ft. Collins - including what the police there told us several times - it would be wise to keep our signs on our own respective sides. A woman from the other side came over to also try to persuade him to leave, to no avail. Finally, I gave up on them and fulfilled an earlier promise (threat?) to them both that I would take a couple of my huge signs over to the other side, just like last week.
As I stood over with the SLA (Suicidal Lemming Army) on the wrong side of the street, she continued her animated discussion with him. He eventually caved and headed off to the Lemmings' NE corner. So I came back to the good corner in what was to be just the first of many "Hostage Exchanges" today. RandallFlagg strongly suggested I go through a "Decon" scrub before being allowed to rejoin my fellow Freepers.
Not more than 2 minutes went by before another leftist came over to pollute the pristine waters of our pro-troops rally, and so I happily marched across the intersection to share my goodness and light with The Dark Side of the street once again, calling out to them that I was happy to be back, and pointing to the reason for my return. Funny thing, but I got the distinct impression that they weren't as happy to see me again as I was to see them! I know, I know - you're going to accuse me of imagining things. But I'm pretty good at "reading people" and picking up on those silent, virtually invisible teensy clues - like the loud groans and the "Oh no!"s - those kinds of subtle indications that most people wouldn't notice.
So their unofficial spokeswoman had to cross over yet again, while I informed her that I had only come over to "save her spot" for her while she was gone. Yet another Hostage Exchange took place. What was funny about this one was that Mr. Large Peace Flag Guy - watching from the 3rd corner - had seen me go over to The Dark Side and figured that gave him a good excuse to come back to Fort Freeper. So Ms. Peacenik SheepHerder had to quickly double back and chase him off again as I was returning. Talk about "herding cats"!!
One leftist then sat with her sign just inside the corner of the Pumphouse's unused patio and informed us she was a co-owner and so it was her property and that there was no way we were going to budge her. Fine. So be it. I went back over to my enthusiastic Fan Club on the Dark Side. Yet again I held up two signs much larger and much higher and much more "distance readable" than anything they had. The SheepHerder was off to do her duty. This one caved a lot quicker than I would've thought, but I heard later that she made a big stink as she left.
Once I returned to The Light Side just in time to see a new "Leftist Intruder", and managed to scurry back across before the traffic started up. This time they wouldn't believe me at first. I kept pointing out the intruder but her sign was so small they couldn't make it out. Finally they believed me, and in a few more minutes I was exchanged once more.
One of my favorite Hostage Exchanges came as I was on my way back with my daughter (she accompanied me on all my forays to the Land Of The Clueless, and even went once without me - see the photo of her and WeldGOPhardline's son grinning ear to ear over on The Dark Side). We were a little late in the walk-light cycle to be leaving, and as we got to the median we found ourselves stuck with a signless leftist who was going the opposite way, and then turned to find a leftist with sign who was walking right behind us! As we sat there with traffic whizzing by on both sides, I informed him of the policies of his own side, but just as with the conversations I had with all the others, he would not listen to anyone of my ilk. So when the walklight came on, my daughter and I said goodbye to him and turned back to the Dark Side. We had only made it halfway across before coming back! Again, the leftists seemed quite underwhelmed by our presence. Could it possibly be that we were unwanted over here? Had we perhaps worn out our welcome? Was I using the wrong brand of deodorant? Back went the Leftists' SheepHerder. Again and again, the Herding Cats analogy came to mind.
My kids are turning into quite the little Junior Freepers! (Does this mean we'll have to buy Jr. Freeper Scout Cookies from them someday?) Although I wasn't present when it happened, I heard that some leftist asked my 11 year old, "What about all the innocent little Iraqi children who will die if we attack?" and she answered them back, "Yeah! Right! A lot more of them will die if we DON'T get rid of Saddam!" One 20ish leftist woman on The Dark Side pointed to my daughter and asked, "What will you do when they come to take her away and ship her overseas?" I replied, "I would be very, VERY proud of her. And worried as well". She came back with, "And what will you do when they ship her back in a box?" I replied, "No greater love hath a man than that he lay down his life for his friends". I guess she didn't know what to make of that, because the conversation ended.
Well, I gotta get to bed. Too much fun for one day! Looking forward to the next set of Freeps!
One last thought - have you ever noticed that at Freeper and other conservative rallies you see only customized handmade signs that our people work on for hours as a labor of love, yet all of the Leftist rallies are characterized by many factory-made clone signs which obviously have some $$$ behind them? It boils down to a case of individual free thinkers standing opposed to the MindClone GroupThink Mob, or perhaps more accurately, the NoThink Mob.
"A Leftist Mind is a terrible thing to Clone".