On the road again

I usually don't do much to celebrate or honor Labor Day. Most of the time I visit family and when I'm not doing that I am busy getting ready for the Fall season.

This weekend I firmly joined the Labor Movement.

The adventure started a week ago when I took part in protests in downtown Detroit. One of the announcements was a trip to Charlotte, North Carolina to participate in a march against Wall Street South. The city is sometimes referred by that name because several large banks, including Bank of America have headquarters or large regional offices there. The date was chosen because it was the day before the Democrat's national convention in Charlotte.

There were 33 of us who boarded the bus just north of downtown Detroit. The first shot is of the bus. We departed at 7:25.

The first bit of rain started just south of Toledo. We went on to strip mall in Seven Hills, south of Cleveland, to pick up five more people. We got there at 10:00 in a light drizzle. The Wendy's was closing and the gas station didn't have restrooms. The only place open was a pizza shop. Several, including the leaders, thought pizza sounded like a fine idea. And that meant we were still there at 11:00. I spent the time walking several laps up and down the strip mall. The drizzle soon stopped. Just before the leaders began boxing up remaining slices of pizza and heading out the door a downpour began. The bus couldn't get close to the shops, so many of us got wet.

There was another rest stop at 2:00 in Parkersburg, West Verginia. Again, it was close to an hour before we were back on the road. Another at Beckley, WV (I don't remember the time). Breakfast at an IHOP in Wytheville, Virginia at 5:30. Yup, I wondered why so early, but this was apparently a favorite place of our drivers. One more stop at 8:30 for gas. They told us we all had to disembark before the driver could pull up to the pump. That was a good time for breakfast and it turned out we were again there for close to an hour.

With all these stops it was hard to get more than an hour of sleep at a time. I sat in front of a guy who liked to pontificate on all manner of topics (though with his inner city accent it was sometimes tough to tell what he was talking about). After each stop it could take him an hour to wind down. So, no, I didn't get all that much sleep.

We arrived in Charlotte at 10:50 instead of 9:30. The rally was supposed to start at 11:00, but you can see from this view of the park and the stage, not everyone had arrived and they weren't ready. I didn't feel so bad about putting my lunch plans in action.

I had arranged with my cousin, who lives near Charlotte, for him and his family to meet me at a particular entrance to the park. We then went to a nearby burger restaurant for an enjoyable hour together.

Back in the park the crowd had grown and the speakers were getting the crowd warmed up. Yes, that is a mockup of a drone. It was on wheels and marched with us.

A reporter from the Sacramento Bee asked if I would allow him to interview me. So I did. We talked about conditions in Detroit. Alas, my comments didn't make it into the online edition.

Some photos as we assembled leading up to the 1:00 start time for the march. A few people had clever signs, such as this one which is a variation of Star Trek's Borg.

Lots of organizations brought signs, so there were plenty for everyone.

There was a percussion ensemble close to the front of the line. There were a few other drummes through the crowd. This group also had cheerleaders, which you can see a bit of in the green outfits just to the left of the TV truck.

I'm pretty sure this guy did the whole march.

Heading out of the park.

And I'm finally on the street. The butterflies were held by a Hispanic contingent from Georgia. Their phrase is "No Papers, No Fear." This group is from Georgia, which had enacted an Arizona style "Show your papers" law.

This is the banner my group brought from Detroit. I carried a sign, "Bail out people, not banks!" One of our chants was "Banks got bailed out, we got sold out."

Yes, there were lots of cops along our route. Not all of them were from Charlotte (I recognized shoulder patches from Raleigh). They essentially marched the four miles with us. I had wondered why so many of them were walking their bikes. Then I saw how effectively the bikes could be used as a barricade to block side streets.

That pink sign was carried by Code Pink. The whole slogan was "Bust up Wells Fargo."

Here we are rounding a corner so I can see how much of the group is ahead of me.

And now that I've rounded the corner you can see how many are behind me. In the foreground are a few people from Detroit.

The original estimate I had hear was there would be maybe 10,000 marchers showing up. As we headed out of the park I saw someone counting. The Wall Street South website says 2,500. The Sacramento Bee (link above) says 400. The WSS site mentions our 15 hour trip from Detroit and has many great photos.

Part of the Hispanic contingent in front of me. Yup, most of their chants were in Spanish. One of their signs said, "No human is illegal."

This has nothing to do with the march, just some cool civic art we passed.

Yes, there was a gay contingent. They weren't too far away from the Detroit group. I sometimes walked faster than the rest and soon found I was in a different group.

We stopped in front of the Bank of America headquarters for speeches. At that point I was quite a ways back in the line and didn't hear much of what was being said. We were there because of BofA's many documented shenanigans and their eagerness to foreclose on homes.

We marched in front of the convention center where the Democrat's festivities will be, but didn't stop. A big attraction was the water bottle refilling station set up across from the center. The weather was sunny with temps in the mid 80s. I don't know the humidity level, but it was up there. It took a while for us to refill our bottles.

Our second stop was the headquarters of Duke Energy, apparently the top producer of dirty energy, such as coal. This time I was close to the sound system and could hear what was said.

From there we marched back to the park. The whole route was about 4 miles and took three hours.

There were a few more speakers and invitations to come to events later that evening and the next day. At 5:00 there was an announcement that severe weather was heading our way and could people please help dismantle the stage and clean up the park. But my bus was waiting.

We were loaded and on the highway about 5:40. We had a supper stop in Elkin at a Cracker Barrel restaurant. Back on the road at 8:30. There were stops just across the borders of West Virginia and Ohio, and a stop for gas near Akron. Our shortest stop was to let off the Cleveland contingent. It was short because nothing was open at 5:00 am., and the stop for gas (and other things) had been only a half hour before. Even so there was a stop at a turnpike rest area at 6:30 (fortunately only 15 minutes though it seemed like one stop too many) and into Detroit at 8:00 am. The trip was 36.5 hours, 30 of those hours were in transit. Yeesh.

I was home by 9:00, ate breakfast, and was in bed by 10:30. I slept until 2:30 this afternoon.

There is a lot more I want to write about this adventure, but it will have to wait. My Fall semester begins tomorrow and the schedule is suddenly crowded.