Back then, I didn't know what we were exactly doing, just happy we had reprieve from the boring classroom lectures. In my innocent and unpolluted mind, I was happy to "take a stand", with ACD almost always in the forefront of student activism for environmentalism, ethnic minority issues and what-have-you. I doubt the parents would have allowed us to walk for miles and I don't think they really knew we always did that.
I'm not so good in expressing my political convictions, always taking the less aggressive road- aware of the misgivings or the atrocities of the current administration and aware that people know about it as well (hence the marches) but always settling with just fixing the immediate things around me. I thought about the government and politics and it just overwhelms me. Perhaps it's a limitation, a character flaw, or even cowardice so I clam up. That is why, I've always held respect for people who are vocally so, even if I don't necessarily agree with them.
As we were crawling pass the long line, I saw a couple of them laughing, probably in their late teens, their toothless grins conveying to me that they are just there for fun, like me when I was younger. The driver told me matter-of-factly that they were paid to be there. I felt a twinge of disdain. And despair for the country. Now I won't say the driver was right. He could be right, or he could be totally wrong. I was in elementary back then and I didn't know better. Hopefully today, these people know what they were taking a stand for.
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