Introduction to our message board

[Brian]

Montrose Peace Vigil started in January 2006 -- and we’ve advertised for peace every week since. If you can't visit us at Ocean View Boulevard and Honolulu Avenue in Montrose, Calif. between 5:30 and 7 p.m. on any Friday, we hope to hear from you on this message board. It’s available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Guests may post here -- you don't need to register or log in to reply to any page or create a thread.

This photo was taken on March 27 while I was standing in Montrose’s new diagonal crosswalk.

Only eight of the 15 peaceniks who demonstrated during our 90 minutes are pictured above. Montrose Peace Vigil averages more than a dozen participants per week.

The biggest change in our nine years on the corner came last February -- diagonal pedestrian crossing, a three-month trial by the city. All four directions of vehicle traffic get red lights at the same time, while all four crosswalks have walk signals. The city painted short parallel stripes leading from the crosswalks to the vast middle of the intersection, and put up temporary signs encouraging diagonal crossing. Now, we're regularly surrounded by pedestrians, having more brief conversations with them and simultaneously with people stopped in cars and trucks. Some of us are inspired to march:

Bill and Kathy demonstrate legally in the middle of the intersection at the vigil on March 20.

To see the most recent posts on this message board, click here: montrosepeacevigil.proboards.com/posts/recent

[Brian]

Roberta made a sign to commemorate Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day for the vigil on April 24.

The Glendale City Council voted unanimously on April 7 to end the diagonal pedestrian crossing experiment at Ocean View Boulevard and Honolulu Avenue in Montrose. Because it will take the city 45 to 60 days to reprogram the stop lights, last week we still enjoyed protesting in the middle of the intersection and greeting pedestrians face to face from all directions.

We're usually the only people standing still. Please come by -- and help Montrose Peace Vigil demonstrate for peace and justice -- any Friday from 5:30 to 7 p.m.

[Brian]

Diagonal pedestrian crossing is gone, but we're still at the intersection of Ocean View and Honolulu every week, advertising for peace with our own sign:

Almost every month right after a Friday vigil, Montrose Peace Vigil cosponsors screenings of documentary movies followed by discussions and snacks with RAPP, the Read and Practice Peacemaking group, at Crescenta Valley United Methodist Church in Montrose.  For more information, click on the link below.  The message board's Community department is also accessible from the homepage.  Or stop by the corner!

montrosepeacevigil.proboards.com/board/3/community

[humanistweddingceleb]

Thank you for having the vigil. I see it all the time and have been meaning to join. Roberta invited me recently and I plan on joining by myself or with my family some Friday soon. Keep up the good work.

[Roberta]

Greetings Joshua! You are very welcome on any Fridays, and your family also. Thank you for your kind words about the vigil, and glad to have you as an In Theory writer also. I won't be at "the corner" the next few weeks, will be back in town the last week of July.

Jun 24, 2015 19:55:29 GMT -8 humanistweddingceleb said:

Thank you for having the vigil. I see it all the time and have been meaning to join. Roberta invited me recently and I plan on joining by myself or with my family some Friday soon. Keep up the good work.

[Brian]

The grass under our feet had turned brown before this photo was taken at the June 19 Montrose Peace Vigil.

By the next week, the dead grass was gone, leaving only hard, uneven dirt mixed with tiny pebbles.  We enjoyed the three patches of green grass on the wide northwest corner of Ocean View Boulevard and Honolulu Avenue for nine and a half years of weekly vigils -- and throughout Montrose as residents and shoppers for many decades.  The city finally had to do something radical because of California's drought.  I need to find out if it has any further plans to implement.  If the city tills the soil and covers the patches with native plants, we may have to take up new positions every Friday from 5:30 to 7 p.m.  Stay tuned to the Montrose Peace Vigil message board.

All of us are grateful to humanistweddingcelebrant for joining the message board last week!  However, you do not need to register or log in to post here.  For proof of that, click on almost every one of the six departments on the homepage, especially Policy and Politics and Life.  In the "Created By" column next to the topic names on the index page, members are highlighted in blue and guests name themselves in black.  Recently, one of our oldest stalwarts on the corner posted another round of thoughtful, heartfelt and skillfully assembled threads.  He wishes to be anonymous on the Internet, but we want to acknowledge his contributions here as well.

[Brian]

Montrose Peace Vigil occupys two patches of decomposed granite on July 17.

Buses have trouble turning right from Ocean View Boulevard onto Honolulu Avenue on the wide northwest corner where we've gathered every Friday evening since January 2006.  The corner takes in sidewalks, trash cans, a concrete bench, the Vietnam War memorial and three patches of ground with trees and utility poles.  Every so often, the rear wheel of a bus slips over the curb.  Nothing changed on the corner until the devastating wind storm in the fall of 2011 deprived us of much of the shade we used to enjoy.

Come 2015, Montrose Peace Vigil's tenth year, we've watched diagonal pedestrian crossing successfully implemented and then abandoned.  The grass we used to stand upon was removed in mid-June.  (The city, which also capped the sprinklers, has no plans to change the current dirt landscaping anytime soon.)

Yet nothing changes in Afghanistan, where U.S. troops have resided for 14 years.  We hope you will join us in speaking out on the corner -- or here online.

[Brian]

The city added landscaping right before our vigil on August 28.

There are still plenty of places to stand without stepping near the plants.  Last week, Glendale's Public Works Department spread thick beds of wood chip mulch in the middle of all three mounds of decomposed granite along the corner, and planted blue eyed grass and lantana sparsely enough that people and dogs can walk around the drought resistant greenery.  A drip irrigation system is replacing the sprinklers, which were capped in June.

For the past six Montrose Peace Vigils, the dozen or so regulars who come every Friday have been joined by 5 to 12 demonstrators from the bigger and very active Glendale for Bernie Sanders group.  We're enjoying their company, making new friends -- and getting a lot more reactions from passersby.

[Brian]

Glendale for Bernie -- whose members have combined with Montrose Peace Vigil for the past ten Fridays from 5:30 to 7 p.m. -- posted that ten second video shot at the September 18 vigil on You Tube, capturing all but three of the sign holders stretched along the corner at that moment.

By pausing the video once every second, I was able to count 18 of the 29 total demonstrators who came to that week's hour and a half long vigil.

[Brian]

From left:  Anni, Roberta and Jeanne at the Montrose Peace Vigil on October 30.

Each page on the Montrose Peace Vigil message board contains a maximum of ten posts, so this post ends a page that chronicles many remarkable changes on the corner.  What a year we've had so far.

What's next?  To see all of our current activities in one convenient place, click on the link below regularly.  It's the only page -- Recent Posts -- where you can read the ten latest posts gathered from different threads on the message board:

montrosepeacevigil.proboards.com/posts/recent