You say you want a revolution?

Notes on the Women’s March on Denver

By Chuck Smythe

Fifty years ago, there was Nixon. The people took to the streets. Watching, I decided that was accomplishing nothing, so I didn’t participate. Years later, I learned that protests had in fact eventually made it impossible to continue Vietnam, and furthermore fueled the paranoia with which Nixon eventually destroyed himself. I resolved that I would show up next time. The time has come, and as a first baby step I attended the Women’s March on Denver a week ago yesterday.
    The first problem was getting there. Driving was not an option, since parking is difficult downtown even on a normal day. The bus? The Regional Transportation District was putting on as many extra busses as the rules allowed, knowing they would not be enough. They weren’t: by 7 a.m. the line was twice around the bus terminal. Charters? Every one available within a hundred miles was booked. Fortunately, my neighbor Britta, a former Democratic Chairman, knew someone who knew someone who had managed to charter a few busses. So at 7 on that bitter Saturday morning I went to an obscure little synagogue in the northern ’burbs and boarded a school bus with a charter label. No belts, no comforts, knee room adequate for a fifth grader, but off we went, my seatmate a big, cheerful man with a vast Rabbinical beard. Some of the leaders aboard tried to instigate singing, chanting slogans, and other team-building, but most of us were too sleepy.
    Half an hour later we were dropped off outside the Denver Library, with no guidance other than a command to return here at 2. Our hosts went off to do a special ceremony of their own, so I wandered off into a slowly gathering crowd, looking for anyplace warm. The library? Opens at 10. Art museum? Same. One small deli with an hour’s line outside. I finally found a coffee shop a few blocks away where I was able to squeeze into a corner to await the March. Finally we joined a general movement to the street, where we shuffled off in more or less the same direction waving cardboard signs. Very little chanting or shouting. People just ambled along chatting and laughing at each other’s signs and shirts – many lewd, almost all denouncing Trump. “Keep your tiny hands off of my pussy.” “Trump, shut up and make me a sandwich.” And so forth. A few taking one side or another on abortion, etc. About half the crowd were middle-aged women, the rest an assortment of men, children, dogs, freaks and hairys, dykes and fairies.

    Shortly arriving back at Civic Center Park, people milled around aimlessly while the drummers started warming up the crowd for the speakers. Someone had provided at least a thousand port-a-potties, thank goodness.

    I slithered into a corner where I could hear the first speaker, a woman who had been fired from one of the big newspapers, allegedly for pushing women’s issues too hard. Political rhetoric rapidly caused my eyes to glaze, so I wandered off, finding that the PA system was only good for about fifty yards. I marched on, trying to get warm. I tried to avoid dense gatherings, thinking they might be dangerous, but in fact the crowd remained eerily calm. The cops hung out on the fringes until an ambulance came in, and they were relieved to have something to do. One old black guy sat on a bench blowing soap bubbles at passersby. The whole thing had more the air of a cold picnic than a revolution. I tried to guess the size of the crowd. Perhaps a stadium worth, so I guesstimated 50 thousand. The papers the next day said 100K.

    At last I boarded the bus for home, glad of the experience and asking “Are we howling at the moon?”

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Copyright © 2017 by Chuck Smythe