Report from Traverse City
While our numbers were small this year (72 people...down about 100 from last year), spirits were "high" and wonderful things happened. As usual, there was the abstinence of local media coverage of our march and a couple of things might have contributed to our low numbers. One is that it seemed to be raining & cold all around Northern Michigan....but not in Traverse! We had sun & warmth pretty much the whole day.The second thing is that our ad in Northern Express read May 4 instead of May 14, a mistake that I totally missed when I proof-read the ad. This was an extreme failure on my part which I do not wish to repeat next year.
Now, the "wonderful" things that happened.
Mr. Richard Clement, our main guest speaker from Lansing, MI and Director of MINORML's Minority Outreach, took several pictures of our march to be displayed on our website at www.minorml.org and passed out MINORML brochures. But more importantly, using a megaphone provided by Adam Z., he led our merry little band up & down Front St. to an African/American tune called "AMEN" with the words "FREE THE WEED" substituted for amen. This "on fire" cheerleader and our group were met with horn-honks,smiles,hand-shakes,pats on the back,and even water to drink! Jay S. (up from Detroit), brought up the rear of our group using his megaphone. On a side-note, I never saw one policeman during the whole event!
But, the "wonderfulness" of the day did not stop there. When we got to the U.A.W. Hall for our rally which was to begin at 4:20pm, it seems that the U.A.W. people had double-booked the hall and the letter-carriers were sorting food donated to their food-drive that day to be distributed to area food pantries. ALL OF US pitched right in to help....what a sight to see....people wearing tye-died marijuana t-shirts & marijuana leis working side-by-side with the other volunteers while I played a mix of "patriotic" and "marijuana" protest music on my dee-jay system and a friend of Matthew & Laura Barber's played guitar & sang. We made new friends, turned alot of people's thinking around about us and our issue, and most importantly, WE GAINED "YES" VOTERS FOR OUR MM INITITIVE IN NOVEMBER! And, there is already talk about doing this together again next year!
It would be hard for me to remember everyone's name to say "thank you", but I want to say a special thank you to Laura, Melody, and Tracie for all of their hard work,time,& money put into this and to Lance for the great mop job on the floor at U.A.W. (we left it cleaner than when we started). Also to those that helped me unload & load my dee-jay equipment. And a very special thank you to Richard C.& his companion, Jay Statzer, and Kathy Kennedy for taking the time & money to travel up to our northwoods all the way from southern Michigan and be a part of our event.
Yes,our spirits were high because we realize that each one of us represent many who for one reason or another just couldn't be there for the march this year. I hope & pray that they will realize the importance of attending our conference at the Civic Center in Traverse on July 23rd and make their plans now to attend. If we truly want change, then each one of us must set our differences aside, committ our time & money, and learn to work together so that it doesn't fall on just a few to get the job done.
UNITED WE STAND....DIVIDED WE FALL!! THERE IS STRENGH IN NUMBERS!