No Kings 3 in Boulder Creek

 

Yesterday we spent a few hours downtown in our little mountain community. There was a great turnout again for a No Kings demonstration., around 410 people by official count. Across the street from us was a marathon Jazzercise class going on for two straight hours. Very impressive and entertaining too. As people walked by they would join in dancing for part of a song.

Here's DH, along with a big crowd along the street in front of our fire station. The whole age range was represented from young to old, lots of dogs (some with costumes or signs included), people on crutches and mobility scooters.

A selfie on the bridge that heads into town, my sign says NO KINGS SINCE 1776. It was a lovely spot in the shade over the river. We were happy to have so many positive responses from drivers, people honking and waving, thumbs up, etc. We took note of the work vans with business names that honked.

This was the image on the other side of the sign I'm holding, an illustration from one of my favorite political comic artists, Tom Tomorrow.

Over the whole country, 8,000,000 - 9,000,000 of us were out there protesting at over 3,300 separate events. There were at least ten within a half hour's drive for us to choose from! There were also international events, at least one on every continent, even Antartica!

No Kings in Los Gatos

Saturday morning, my family joined up with one of my mom's groups, a local branch of the AAUW for a spontaneous gathering for No Kings day. Most of their members live in a retirement community nearby, so there were mostly older folks. DS was one of the youngest people showing up. We had 120 people, flags, signs, cute dogs, walkers, wheelchairs and enthusiasm.  And yes, that's $4.99 a gallon gasoline, (car wash included)!

We found a nice shady spot to expand the demonstration when the corner got too full.

Mom was glad to have some shade, and to have us show up. She got to introduce us to a bunch of her AAUW friends which was super cute. She's holding her sign from the first Trump presidency, a vintage yet still true item. We got a whole lot of supportive honks and thumbs up and only one middle finger that we noticed. That person actually stopped and videoed us, so we waved and said "have a nice day!"

After the first group tired out we went about a mile and a half down the road to one of the larger Los Gatos protests where there were about 600 people gathered in front of a Tesla dealership. They had music and two of those car wash dancers that had slogans that went with the demonstration, "Protect Our Democracy"

And "Trump Lies", DH seen grinning like a maniac because he thought it was funny (and true). I had no idea you could buy one of those with your own slogan on it, they're not very expensive.

It was super fun seeing both of these groups, one average age of about 80, and the second closer to 40 being so passionate and engaged and fired-up. We skipped the demonstration in our little mountain town that had a turnout of 400 people. Turns out on that day, all around the whole country there were between seven and eight million people out on the streets at various sizes of demonstrations or marches. There were even international efforts like the No Tyrants rally in front of the US Embassy in London (note, not a No Kings rally). I really recommend going to one of these, it made me feel all the things: Proud to be an American, happy to wave our flag, thrilled to see so many others in our communities out there too.