BTW folks, I’m sure Silverback Junior wouldn’t mind if you left him a message on the occasion of his first Freep. ;-)
Posted on 03/01/2003 6:05:33 AM PST by Mr. Silverback
Though we had intended to be in place as early as 3:30pm, the forces of Justice were held up by personal matters and did not arrive at the freep site until about 4:40. Patriots present were Mr. Silverback and Silverback Jr., my 8-year-old son. We parked and proceeded to the corner of Galena and Stephenson, specifically the corner with the Stephenson County Courthouse. Standing right under the lovely County Civil War Monument, we broke out the signs. Initially, Silverback Jr. was holding “HONK IF YOU SUPPORT OUR TROOPS” (with a border that makes it look like there’s an American flag mounted under the sign) and I had “NAPALM SADDAM” which has a border of flames around the edge of the sign. We also were each holding a small flag suitable for waving. Later on he switched to a smaller “Smallpox: BAD. Freedom: GOOD!” sign and I put the “NAPALM” sign away and took the “Honk” sign. Even later on he was having trouble with the wind blowing the sign, so we put that away and he switched to two flags which he waved around enthusiatically!
The intersection is one of the busiest in town, and the vast majority of those driving past were honking. We got thumbs up from most of the pedestrians. It was great seeing a cross-section of American society all affirming the troops. We got honks from drivers of every race and age group, driving everything from a Greyhound bus to a Neon. We only got one negative reaction, some middle-aged white guy who drove by in a gray rustbucket. He honked and when I turned to wave he gave us a vigorous thumbs-down. The sad thing is that this was after the “napalm” sign was put away, so he wasn’t giving the thumbs down to war, but to the troops themselves. Well, stupid is as stupid does.
Everybody seemed to really be digging Silverback Jr., who made a perfect poster boy for patriotism. Last week our weekly paper, The Freeport Ink (a very nice publication, I used to work there) had a huge cover photo of a little girl about Junior’s age with a sign which read “BUSH- Don’t Bully Us OR The UN Into YOUR War!” with her proud Dad (A local Pastor!) leaning in from behind his daughter, pleased as punch to be standing around insulting the President while Saddam tortures and rapes thousands of people. It didn’t occur to me until I was writing this after-action report, but I’m proud that the “picture” we made today was 180 degrees out from theirs, almost as if we were the photo and they were the negative.
Other reactions we observed:
Every cop that went by (4 different squads, we were near the police station) gave us a bit of the siren and a thumbs-up.
An older sedan stopped at Galena for the light, and the woman driving kept honking over and over. Eventually she rolled down her window and called out “Thank you!” We responded with an emphatic “You’re welcome!”
A white early-90's four-door full of black teenagers pulled up, both windows on our side came down, and the kid in the back seat yelled “God Bless America!” Junior let out a “Woohoo” and I gave them a flag wave and called out “God Bless America indeed!”
A couple we go to church with honked from before the stoplight until they were out of sight of us.
As I mentioned, we got a big honk from a Greyhound driver, and we could see a few passengers waving at us.
I guess the horn wasn’t working too well on one car, because a girl in her early twenties rolled down the back window and yelled “HONK!”
One lady stopped at the light, turned her head to look at me and was turning it away when she did a double-take and looked a little shocked. I followed her gaze and saw that Junior (who had sat down to rest on a bench) was holding up my “NAPALM SADDAM” sign. Heh-heh-heh!
One of the most gratifying things to see: Passengers going through the intersection on Stephenson or our side of Galena would take a second to read the sign, then we’d see them excitedly telling the driver to honk. There’s really strong core support for the troops here and a lot of folks don’t want to miss doing even a little thing like honking for them.
At about 5:20, we packed up, and egressed the area and headed home, since Rambette was waiting supper on us (Transaltion: I needed to order Chinese food.)
BTW folks, I’m sure Silverback Junior wouldn’t mind if you left him a message on the occasion of his first Freep. ;-)
Sounds like a great city for Freep-Fest.
Mr. S., I, too, got a thumbs down (actually a Democratic middle finger salute) from an old hippie dude - and it was also aimed at the "support our troops" sign. They must not have much knowledge of who will be saving their bacon if need be. I just smiled and waved at him (it really makes them MAD!)
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