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a particularly fine Saturday morning in San Francisco...
 and thousands of folks showed up in Dolores Park to avail themselves of the opportunity to join together and make their voices heard in protesting War and Racism, to show solidarity as they demanded of their government a more humanitarian foreign policy, a cessation of military support of oppressive regimes, and to become a true world leader in the effort towards establishment of a Palestinian homeland.
"Hah!" says the pessimist in me, "Fat chance." Then why do I feel so optimistic?
Well, there's likely any number of reasons for that, but one thing was obvious from the moment yourstruly arrived at the bart station and discovered many other people already there waiting for the train into the city and obviously heading for the same place I was. Increasing numbers of others boarded at the several stops between North Berkeley and San Francisco, a great mob of them transferred aboard at MacArthur, and once we all arrived there was a mini-march of people from the 16th Street station the half dozen blocks or so to Dolores Park, & although your guide chose to take a different route, it was noticeable
that many people were heading in the same general direction and this lent to a marvelous sort of anticipation in the air. Probably nearly two thousand folk in the park at the time we arrived, still a bit early, oh, eleven-thirty or so, and we strolled about contently taking the odd photo here and there, getting a feel for the day, a taste of the energy surrounding us. It's a beautiful setting, sloping from its southwest corner in a series of terraces,
to this wide, flatter portion at the opposite corner, where the crowd was gathering in front of the stage. There were dogs aplenty, having doggy fun, chasing & playing w/one another, a table set up off on the perimeter overlooking the crowd staffed by several volunteers (& their dogs) from Dolores Park Dogs.
so, hang out w/jaypea a while as we share some of what we saw that day...
folks representing many groups were present, just a few pictured here,
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this shot from the western margin of the park looking east...
here & there,
some examples
of political theatre,
a variety of ways that one could make their point, their voice heard
she was attempting to wash the blood and oil
out of Old Glory
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& though I only took
a few photographs of them,
there were lots of families present, many with children alongside
the march was scheduled to begin at Noon, but it was nearly an hour later when people moved onto 19th Street to begin strolling
towards the Civic Center
a funny & serendipitous little moment occured for yourstuly
I'd been idly thinking as I sat on the edge of the hill at the southwestern end of the park,
watching and listening to the events of the morning, that it would be some fun
to have a brass band along for the march to the civic center. Little did I know....
oh yessss, that majorette was a real cutie...
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I'd received invitations to accompany folk to the rally & march...
also had been contacted by a few people who wanted to meet up w/somebody there. Me?
well, am used to going as a solo act for the most part, allows me a good deal of flexibility
in case boredom & ennui set in, or, as I did in this instance, rather than walk along at the
pace of the thousands filling the street, yourstruly hied hisownself on an alternate route,
and as we'd skipped brekkie, we were assailed by unignorable pangs of hunger,
so some of these next shots were taken as we meandered along at our own relaxed pace.
an oldie, apparently left in the middle of Mission Street, a mystery...
cocktails, Like Mom Used to Mix...
the watchers, with their eyes that never close...
hmmmmmmm... can you say Lunch?
hmmmmmmm... fuck if i know what it's about...
okayokayokay, enough fun hangin' in the Mission...
now we rejoin the marching throngs as they arrive at the Civic Center
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so, by this time, it was nearly 3 in the afternoon...
my dogs were bigtime weary, and we'd had enough of the crowd,
but we felt good, really good,
sort of unusually optimistic & hopeful,
more than I'd felt in a really long time...
picture above was provided by Unknown Camera-person in the employ of Channel 4 News
who was kind enough to take the shot from his perch atop the station's van.
It doesn't really get across the actual numbers of people in the Civic Center
at that moment, but take my word for it, my guess was well over 7,000,
the newspapers estimate larger amounts than that, both in S.F. & Washington, D.C.
All in all, a very fine day, and I came away feeling much reassured, although still
very much aware of the amount of work ahead of all of us, to begin to engender change,
small steps indeed, but let's make them purposefully, for the sake of the children...
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