We have two groups that meet outside Astoria City Hall at 5 p.m. Fridays, on either side of the busiest street in Astoria, about 50 feet apart so they don`t have to actually look at each other across the road. On one side stand the older guys waving huge flags and signs that say, “SUPPORT OUR TROOPS.” (We all do, we all dearly love our troops, nobody wants our troops to die; that is not the question.) Those are the townspeople who still support President Bush. We all wanted to support Bush once, early on, right after September 11, but along the way, most of us lost faith in the decisions he kept making. He dug deeper and deeper into our massive storehouse of global goodwill. Now, hardly anything is left in that storehouse.

On the other side of our Astoria street are the 40-something people who look like the older guys` kids, and they hold protest signs that seem to say, deep down: “DAD, WHERE WERE YOU WHEN I WAS GROWING UP?” and “YOU NEVER BROUGHT ME TO ONE FATHER-DAUGHTER DANCE” and “WE’RE IN THE MIDDLE OF A GLOBAL MELTDOWN–WHY ARE YOU ACTING LIKE NOTHING’S WRONG?”

Cars on their way home from work pass through the gauntlet and honk for their favorite. This has happened every single Friday for I don’t know how long, maybe since the Iraq war started. I’ve walked down there twice with my dog Conor, hanging out for a few minutes with the 40-somethings, not knowing whether I’m brave enough to hold a sign or to even stand there and be noticed. I’ve also passed through the other group, smiling shyly at the older men with flags, looking in their eyes for signs of hate, but they smile back, as my dad the veteran would do if he were alive today. This seems to matter, but I don’t know if any of it is helping.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 4th, 2007 at 5:22 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.