"Hands Off!"

 

 

I live in a small, mostly "red" college town. Public demonstrations here tend to be few and very far between, and mostly attended by a handful of what I would call die-hard liberals. So when I finished my stint as a historical interpreter yesterday afternoon and drove through a still growing crowd of what looked like hundreds and hundreds of vocal activists in front of our local courthouse, I knew I would have to return and join in just as soon as I could park my car and grab my camera.

 

Now, people will say (and I have been among them) that protests like this don't count for much. Sure, they allow people to vent and to show their support for various causes and beliefs. But, in the end, they accomplish very little. True enough.

 

But some strange things happened yesterday that have given me some pause. 

 

First, a man came rushing up to me to shake my hand who identified himself as simply "that guy at the gym." Yes, I'd seen him there as well as elsewhere several times. I had even exchanged a few casual and very brief conversations with him before. But this time was different. He greeted my as if I was somehow his long lost friend and comrade in arms, leaving me with the distinct feeling that our relationship had just undergone a significant change.

 

Also, I had an even more unusual encounter only minutes after leaving yesterday's rally. I was taking a long and somewhat unfamiliar route back home when I stopped to ask someone on the trail for directions. She seemed pleasant enough. We explained how we both lived in essentially the same neighborhood, talked about the nature of the trail we were on, and about how we had both just come from the same rally. But then, with a smile and quick laugh, she suddenly and unexpectedly sought to excuse herself from the conversation by admitting that she was "pro-Trump" and had only attended the rally out of curiosity. 

What do you make of all that? I know that it's got me to thinking that there actually may have been just a little bit more to yesterday's rallies than people might suppose. People met. Relationships changed. Ideas were exchanged, and important questions raised. Will this change the world? Will it alter the course of history? Who knows? But what if yesterday's rallies had NOT taken place? I wonder . . .