Trip days: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8-9 | 10-12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20
On saturday Bill and Janet went to do their weekly protesting. I tagged along to see what sort of response they got. We all met up with a group of maybe 10 other protesters with signs reading things like "End U.S. Aggression for Oil" and "I am excerising my right to free speech" and "Peace." Nothing too radical, and not a single sign mentioned anything specifically about Iraq... oh yeah and one guy was holding a gigantic american flag to show off his patriotism. I was really suprised at the negative response we all received from the Las Cruces citizens. It was really quite entertaining actually. Lot's of people shook their heads in unhappiness and lots of people flipped off the sign bearers. One lady pulled up to the stop light and started babbling incoherently about how "un-american and unpatriotic" we were and that we should be ashamed of ourselves... Hmmmm, "un-american and unpatriotic" for holding signs urging world peace, oh yeah and a giant american flag. Yeah right. Then some guy pulled up and started shouting out his window "You people should go to Iraq and see what they say about the U.S. overthrowing Saddam's rule." Again, someone jumped to the conclusion that we were protesting Iraq specifically. Not a single sign said that Saddam should not have been overthrown, they were all more general anti-war statements. Then the best was some guy that peeled out of a parking lot waving the middle finger at us and screaming "I hate you @#cking hippies. You're all psycho. Go to hell." Now really, who's psycho in this situation? I thought it would be great if one week all the protestors subtly changed their signs to be pro-war and pro-bush instead of anti-war and see if anybody noticed. I have a feeling they would get the same response. The community is definitely much more conservative and pro-military than everyone up in the pacific northwest. After the early afternoon excitement, Bill, Janet and I attended the early portion of the Cinco de Mayo festivities over in Mesilla. Mesilla is a wonderful old adobe structuren hispanic town with a large zocalo where the festivities were being held. It was entertaining seeing a couple different young person Mariachi bands (18-20 somethings) and the general scene. We had some really good mexican food for cheap and kicked back in the shade with a nice warm breeze enveloping us. Ahhh, tough life. I was thinking that the festivities would have been more up-roarious but maybe it was too early, or they're not quite as excitable about the holiday here in the U.S. Then again, maybe it's because it was an alcohol free venue... Back at the homestead I packed up my gear and prepared for leaving in the morning. I had a truly great time with the Whales and really look forward to my next visit with them.
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©2003 John Meloy <jam@nas.com>