Commentary

EXISTENTIAL THOUGHTS FROM THE VIGIL LINE
By Kristi Nebel

United for Peace of Pierce County
May 19, 2006

Twice a week I stand for an hour on the busiest streets of Tacoma holding huge signs of protest against the war in Iraq. I’ve been doing this now for more than three years.

Yawn.

Epithets are hurled at us. More often, praise is heaped upon us. It’s so predictable.

Time passes and the odds become greater that unusual things may occur in one’s life amidst the terribly usual. Of course there were the two death threats. And equally notable, two assaults on our signs while they were being held by human beings. There were several instances of signs taking flight on windy days, hurling themselves across four lanes of rush-hour traffic. But one might expect all these things to happen in our city. We have, after all, around fifty thousand military employees in two military bases and their sentiments are fairly uniform in support of our administration.

Yawn.

Last Thursday an incident emphasized my landmark age of 55. While standing at a busy street corner something besides an epithet landed on me. A low-flying adolescent seagull relieved itself on me. Birds don’t dump on eight-year-olds. They don’t splat on 25-year-olds either, because the odds haven’t yet stacked up on them. They don’t poop on fat accountants I suppose, either, because they stay indoors. In fact, they don’t in all probability crap on Republicans because most aren’t on the street with signs protesting the war.

So there may be some merit in my suspicion the bird aimed at me. More likely, my time was up, after all these years of standing outdoors.

It had to happen someday.