The Vigil

A few months before George W. Bush launched his war against Iraq, which killed hundreds of thousands of ordinary people and sent home troops with nightmares enough to last a lifetime, the Healdsburg Peace Project reinvented itself. It has now been standing in a vigil on Thursdays in the Healdsburg Plaza for  12 years. We never miss a Thursday. Most of us are old. Many were founding participants in marches for civil rights and peace. Yet today we feel a bit like re-enactors.  We stand there with our signs and our friends. Because we live in wine country, north of San Francisco, we see a lot of tourists. Many of them wave and honk. We hold up our signs and flags and banner. I'm thinking we might look quaint. I'm beginning to suspect that the town should put us on salary. I'm wondering if the tour books list us as an attraction for foreign visitors. "If you arrive at your wine country attraction early on Thursday, you can see an authentic American peace vigil re-enacted by genuinely wrinkled old people dressed in faded denim, holding signs supporting a variety of causes. Honk and they may throw you the original two fingered peace sign. This is a rare chance to experience 1969."