a river of nerds

I'm a liberal-leaning person. I don't think that's any surprise to people who know me. This does not mean, however, that I am a "professional" protester. That's not how the Rebecca do.

I attended my first protest when I was in college. Isn't that what college students are supposed to do? The cause? Ummm...I don't really remember. It had something to do with the fact that our apartment-style dorm rooms and hallways weren't being kept up, while the floor that the head of housing lived on was immaculate. I know - major cause, huh? It was a sit-in in the commons area of our housing. Pretty peaceful. Not a ton of people, not very loud or anything, but somehow the Chicago Police were called and someone ended up getting arrested. Drama! The news media was alerted and the next day I somehow ended up showing a TV reporter around our building. (I wish I could remember his name. He ended up in a movie a couple of years later and I was like - "Hey! That guy was in my bedroom!") I was even interviewed for the news (with one of my roommates watching the whole thing because she was too in awe of the reporter's good looks to speak in coherent sentences) which was kind of fun. Unfortunately, the whole story got bumped for most likely two reasons: 1 - It was a pretty lame protest and 2 - It was the same day that John Wayne Gacy was executed. Priorities. Whatever.

Aaanyway, time has gone on and causes have come and gone. Protests have been pretty frequent over the past few years - especially so in the past few months. Some I've agreed with, others I haven't. The ones I did agree with, I didn't participate in for one reason or another. Could have been that there wasn't a protest near me or their mission statement was jumbled and lost or just too vague, or I just couldn't see what a bunch of people holding signs would get accomplished.

So, flash forward to the March for Science. I've been a bit frightened of the number of people in high ranking positions who choose to ignore scientific facts. It's one thing for someone to not believe - I'm sure they've been around the whole time, but the fact that funding is being cut left and right makes me a wee bit nervous. I mean, science saved my life. Research is really important. If we cut funding, how will we ever advance? But, that's enough time on my soapbox, back to the narrative...

I enjoy science. Always have. Well, until high school chemistry defeated me and made me feel like I had no place in the scientific world whatsoever. Now I enjoy reading about science and learning things via internet and museums. I still have curiosity, I just don't have enough left-brain power to be a "scientist". As a supporter of science, and museums, and life, I decided to join the March for Science in Chicago.

Well, something like that...

When the time came, I knew the schedule, the location, but one important thing was missing - My Sign. I knew a sign was very important in the whole protesting thing. I just wasn't sure what direction I wanted to go with it. After doing a little searching, I was still at a loss. I knew what my focus wasn't, but what did I really want to say? After some thought, I came up with "Science saved me, now it's time for me to return the favor." I threw a sign together quickly - very quickly - but it just wasn't working for me. I didn't want a pity party on poster board. So, it was back to the literal drawing board. I had a direction that I wanted to go, but a big blank needed to be filled in. After talking with the hubster, we came up with this one:

Whad'ya think?
As you can tell, I'm not a professional sign maker.

Now, the train station that I go to is the last stop out of Chicago. It's an extremely rural area right next to the WI/IL border, so imagine my pleasant surprise when I saw other people there with signs. As we got closer to the city, more and more people boarded the train with signs of their own. This was a good sign (and it helped me fell less self-conscious about being on a train with a big piece of poster board). As I got off of the train and made my way to the rally point, the number of people with signs and science-related clothing grew and grew. I knew they were expecting thousands of people, but I didn't know they'd all be getting there late like me! Or so I thought.

Once I got about three blocks away from the rally point, the movement of people was basically at a stand still. I had no idea just how many people were in front of me, so I'd put my phone above my head, snap a photo and take a look at it to try to guage what was going on ahead of me, but even that didn't help.

What's going on up there?

Fortunately being there alone had its advantages, one of which was the fact that I could snake my way in between people and get up toward the front a little faster. I still never got that close. I could just barely hear the "kick off" of the march, but we certainly weren't moving anywhere. While we stood there, I took a look around at the other people around me. Their signs were now being held over their heads. That's when I knew that these were my people and I was happy to be supporting them.

Then we started moving. Yay! Slowly, but we were moving. There was definitely forward progress. We finally got to the main road of the march and people spread out a bit. We could finally see everyone around us. There were news helicopters hovering above getting footage, police helicopters in case of anarchy. People of all ethnicities, ages, genders, abilities were there - some were there for the social aspect, checking in on Facebook and Snapchat more than anything, but most people were passionate about why they were there. Another thing that struck me - everyone was kind, polite, said "excuse me" and complimented a sign if they saw fit.

I pulled off to the side for a moment to grab a quick video of the moment:

I moved around the masses, taking in the enormity of it all.

We made our way down the route. What would have normally taken me a half hour to walk ended up taking 2 hours. The ending point was the Field Museum where they were holding a science expo. As we walked under Lake Shore Drive and came out on the other side of the tunnel, I was amazed at the number of people who were still there, sitting on the campus lawn.

And when I made it to the expo on the other side of the museum, there was still another crowd over there.

Since there were so many people, I really only saw those in my section. I had no idea how far people were spread out in front of me or behind me. Only those who lingered afterwards. I figured maybe a few thousand people maybe 10,000 tops. On my train ride home, I checked social media and saw that they had estimated 50,000 people! Fifty. Thousand. (The next day they upped that figure to 60,000!) And there were no incidents. It was like a beautiful river of colorful nerds slowly meandering down the streets of Chicago.

Peaceful protest IS possible, and it was a beautiful thing to see.