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[Brian]

Montrose Peace Vigil as seen on November 27, 2015. Photo courtesy of Pastor Steve.

Montrose Peace Vigil started in January 2006 -- and we’ve advertised for peace every week since. If you can't visit us in person on the corner of Ocean View Boulevard and Honolulu Avenue in Montrose, Calif. between 5:30 and 7 p.m. on any Friday, we'd love to hear from you on this message board. It’s available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Guests may post here -- you do not have to log in or register to reply to any page.  Or to create a new thread in any of the six departments on the homepage.

Along with members of Glendale Peace Vigil, who began protesting the war in Iraq in 2002, we will march with our custom built Peace Train for the sixth consecutive year in the Montrose Christmas Parade on Saturday evening, December 5.  For more information -- and to see videos and photos of the Peace Train -- check out this thread on the message board:

montrosepeacevigil.proboards.com/thread/502/sixth-peace-montrose-christmas-parade

[Brian]

You first glimpse the Peace Train and our Montrose Peace Vigil contingent behind the marchers for Clean and Beautiful at 1:12:40 in that embed from You Tube.  The City of Glendale posted the professionally shot and edited video of the entire Montrose Christmas Parade, recorded on December 5, 2015.  Once a year, we roll down Honolulu Avenue past hundreds of people.

This month, Montrose Peace Vigil will mark its tenth anniversary -- 520 uninterrupted Fridays demonstrating on the corner of Honolulu and Ocean View as everybody else passes by us.

To see what's happening now on one page, click on the link below at least once a week. It's the only place on this message board -- Recent Posts -- where the ten latest posts are gathered from the topics that you can also access from the six departments on the homepage.

montrosepeacevigil.proboards.com/posts/recent

[Brian]

As the administrators of the Montrose Peace Vigil message board, Anni and I appreciate everybody who registers here.  Well, almost everybody.  International spammers flock to message boards like this, so we had to set up an approval process in 2013 to save us a lot of trouble removing them.  We see all registrations within a few hours.  New members using IP addresses that show no record of spamming will receive an automated notification via e-mail to please come back and Log In.

A reminder to everyone visiting: Guests are allowed to Reply in any thread -- or to Create Topic in the six department indexes listed on the homepage -- without having to register.  For some reason, spammers don't take advantage of that anymore.  But if they post spam, we delete it with two clicks.  Anni and I only censor spam, so we hope that you will feel free to add your thoughts or questions.

[Brian]

Some of the folks at the Montrose Peace Vigil on February 26, 2016.

Even though Montrose Peace Vigil has never been a religious group, for years we have glommed onto the biggest Christian holidays on the calendar, marching in local Christmas and Easter processions -- the Montrose Christmas Parade and the Palm Sunday Peace Parade in Pasadena.

Montrose Peace Vigil is returning as a sponsor of the 14th annual Palm Sunday Peace Parade on March 20, starting at 3 p.m. at the Reformation Church at 570 E. Orange Grove Blvd. and ending at Colorado Boulevard and Garfield Avenue in front of the Paseo Colorado mall.  Unlike the Christmas parade, we march on sidewalks and observe traffic signals, so no permit is necessary.  This year's theme is "Peace Without Borders:  Welcoming the Refugee."  Keep checking the Peace Parade page on this message board for more news before -- and after -- the event:

montrosepeacevigil.proboards.com/thread/509/palm-sunday-peace-parade-pasadena

Roberta and Jeanne at a previous parade.

[Brian]

Four of the ten peaceniks who demonstrated at the Montrose Peace Vigil on March 25, 2016.

That total is a little below average.  For many years, the weekly vigils have consistently drawn around a dozen demonstrators.  If all of the stalwarts and the less regular participants showed up on the same Friday, we would more than double our usual presence.  Unfortunately, we haven't had many spontaneous demonstrators join us lately, though lots of pedestrians still stop to talk.

Anni posts photos sometimes and I write brief reports every week in the monthly vigil threads that are listed here in the Montrose Peace Vigil Activities department, also accessible from the homepage:

montrosepeacevigil.proboards.com/board/2/montrose-peace-vigil-activities

[Brian]

Members of Montrose Peace Vigil face photographer Anni and the setting sun on April 29, 2016.

Many of the five dozen unique IP addresses that land on the Montrose Peace Vigil message board in an average day are bots from search engines like Google and Bing.  The bots scan and sort the content by key words, then offer links to the posts here in their search results.

Since the message board started in 2008, most threads have accumulated page views that top out in the low hundreds.  But some are particularly Googlicious.  Here are two examples.

This thread about our 40th anniversary tribute to John and Yoko's second Bed-In back in May 2009 has earned nearly 1,200 views:

montrosepeacevigil.proboards.com/thread/68/next-bed?page=5

This thread with more than 2,700 views benefited, no doubt, from its authoritative title -- "Historical Photos of Sunland-Tujunga."  It must have disappointed some visitors, because the page has only one actual photo.  But it has a link to the fabulous Little Landers Historical Society photo archive at Cal State Northridge and a little history of my hometown:

montrosepeacevigil.proboards.com/thread/2/historical-photos-sunland-tujunga

[Sharon W]

I love this photo with the Kids 'n Kritters banner above us! We should have had some peaceful dogs on the corner Friday to make it more accurate!

[Brian]

In the photo above, which was taken at the vigil on Memorial Day weekend, members of Montrose Peace Vigil pose around the Vietnam War memorial on the northwest corner of Ocean View Boulevard and Honolulu Avenue.  The memorial has stood on the corner for 46 years -- we've only been hanging around nearby for 10 years.  We honor the soldiers, sailors and airmen who die in our two current wars by posting the Pentagon's news releases during our weekly vigils, including the announcement of the death of Sgt. Joseph F. Stifter, 30, of Glendale, California, in Iraq last January.  Montrose is part of the city of Glendale.

Below, demonstrators face the traffic at the May 27 vigil.  They're standing on dichondra that the city planted last month, which along with the other plants you see replaced a few short lived shrubs and a heap of wood chip mulch, the city's first attempt at drought resistant landscaping last August.  As beautiful as the new installation is, I still miss the grass that covered that mound of earth for decades.

[Brian]

The June 24, 2016 Montrose Peace Vigil was centered on the wide sidewalk.

Since the city landscaped the three mounds of dirt on the corner in May -- now, the center one can only accommodate a few demonstrators on the strip of dichondra along the curb -- most Montrose Peace Vigil participants have grouped next to the crosswalks on Friday evenings.  I'm having more interactions and great conversations with pedestrians than I did when I was facing the motorized traffic on the opposite side of the mound.  But the drivers and passengers are still finding us -- and honking, waving, flashing peace signs and shouting words of encouragement.  I see many of the same enthusiastic people passing every week.

Like our vigils, this message board is open to everybody.  You do not have to register or log in here to post.  Feel free to click on the brown Reply buttons anywhere, or click on Create Thread in any of the six departments accessible from the homepage.  Even easier:  post a Quick Reply in the field at the bottom of any page.  You will just have to type Guest Name and do a CAPTCHA to prove that you're not a robot.

[Brian]

Some of the 17 people who participated in the Montrose Peace Vigil on July 29, 2016.

This post marks the end of another introductory page.  I start these threads every ten months or so in the Welcome to Montrose Peace Vigil! department that tops the homepage.  That way, the message board always has a spot that gives an overview of our recent activities for first time visitors.

The best way to keep up with the latest posts: Bookmark the link below and check back at least once a week. It's the only place on this message board where the ten latest posts from different threads are displayed, with the most recent post first.

montrosepeacevigil.proboards.com/posts/recent