Vigils in July 2022

[Brian]

Ross' photo captures most of the participants at the Montrose Peace Vigil on June 24, 2022.

Predictably, traffic was light on the streets and sidewalks during this Friday's Montrose Peace Vigil, the beginning of a three day holiday weekend and the first after schools ended their year.  Since Independence Day is celebrated on July 4, many people took advantage of the holiday occurring on Monday by leaving town as soon as Thursday evening for a four day vacation.

As a reminder, we stand on the northwest corner of Ocean View Boulevard and Honolulu Avenue near the Vietnam War memorial in Montrose, CA 91020 every Friday from 5:30 to 7 p.m. without regard to the weather or holidays -- we haven't missed a vigil since January 2006.  Please stop by sometime if you can.

Twelve of our weekly stalwarts and a rotating cast of regulars participated this week -- in order of appearance:  Anni, me, Roberta, Ross, Dennis, Mike L. (briefly), John the Realtor, Bruce, Jim, Mary, John B. and Nancy.

Since October 2011, we have printed and displayed every Defense Department news release announcing the deaths of soldiers, Marines, sailors and Airmen in our many ongoing military operations around the world.  The Pentagon reported no uniformed U.S. casualties in the previous seven days.

[anni]

Here are Brian's photos from the July 1 vigil. Where are you?

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[Brian]

Justeen put together that lovely 38-second montage of the folks seen at this Friday's Montrose Peace Vigil. (The title card photo was taken a few years ago.)  I've enjoyed the video several times already -- it captures so much of our spirit.  If you're wondering why I'm showing the front page of Thursday's California section of the Los Angeles Times, I posted about the photos documenting nonviolent civil disobedience for abortion rights at Los Angeles City Hall here because the Times didn't publish them online.

Pedestrian traffic was brisk on a not too warm summer evening while fewer vehicles passed by, continuing the pattern since the school year ended in June.

Montrose Peace Vigil had its best turnout since 31 people came last September 10, about half of whom were there to demonstrate against recalling Governor Newsom.  This week's 16 participants, in order of appearance:  Anni, me, Roberta, Dennis, Russell, John Q., Elizabeth, David, Jeanne, Frannie, John B., Justeen, Mike L., Jim, Nancy and Mary.  Thanks to Roberta's family for giving us a boost!

The Department of Defense reported no uniformed casualties in the previous seven days.

[Brian]

I don't think that you could blame the heat and humidity when light traffic has been the pattern for weeks.  Yet we seemed to get lots more honks and waves per capita from the passing vehicles at this Friday's Montrose Peace Vigil and no signs of disapproval, continuing the trend since Russia invaded Ukraine at the end of February.  Peace is popular again.

Ten regulars came to the corner within the first half of the vigil -- in order of appearance:  Anni, me, Roberta, Frannie, Justeen, Jim, Jeanne, Nancy, John the Realtor and Bruce.

In the previous seven days, the Department of Defense reported no military deaths in Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq and Syria or in any of the other named U.S. operations underway around the world.

[Brian]

We received more than our usual share of goodwill from passing pedestrians at this Friday's Montrose Peace Vigil -- a flash of a peace sign, a hand over the heart, kind words, even stopping to talk.  A bunch of kids strolling by with their parents asked what we were doing, and when we answered that we were standing for peace it seemed there was a chance that they might join us, but they got shy and moved on.

They would have boosted our numbers significantly above the nine regulars on hand for a beautiful evening with a light breeze and temperature in the mid 80's.  In order of appearance on the corner:  Anni, me, Roberta, Dennis, Jeanne, Frannie, Bruce, Nancy and Jim.

No U.S. military deaths were reported in the previous seven days.

[Brian]

Ten regulars came to this week's Montrose Peace Vigil:  in order of appearance --  Anni, me, Dennis, Roberta, Frannie, Jeanne, Bruce, Jim, John the Realtor and Nancy.

I started posting the first names of the participants in these weekly reports during the Omicron surge when attendance bottomed out at six participants around Christmas so that peaceniks who were quarantining could see who made it to the corner.  Having the names handy allows me to figure out that five stalwarts showed up all five weeks in July.  Four people missed just one week while several others attended more than one vigil in July.  Three men are named John.  A total of 18 individuals demonstrated this month but no new faces joined us, unlike last May when we had six spontaneous participants.

Because of rounding, we would have averaged a dozen weekly participants if one passing pedestrian had stopped and picked up a sign:

• July 1 - 12
• July 8 - 16
• July 15 - 10
• July 22 - 9
• July 29 - 10

This month's weekly average rounds down to 11 participants, after averaging 10 in June, 11 in May, 8 in April, 10 in March, 9 in February, 10 in January, 9 in December, 10 in November, 12 in October, 22 in September and 30 in August (when we were joined by anti-recall demonstrators) and 11 in July 2021. Twelve peaceniks was our average attendance for many years before the pandemic.

For the 22nd week in a row, the Pentagon reported no U.S. casualties.