When I got there the crowd was thin, but I could tell it was going to be a good event. Nice setting. Interesting signs. Thoughtful crowd control measures. Things like a couple of porta-potties in the corner of the field.

     

     

One of the sponsors was a group called "the robin hood tax". Vi is totally into them right now.

        

     

After a while busloads of nurses started showing up. Many of them had on these red scrubs with messages like "Our Planet Our Health" on them. About then that Irish group took the stage and led us in labor songs with rousing choruses like "which side are you on boy, which side are you on?" The lyrics made it clear that the populist position was the right side to be on.

        

The red shirt nurses also had nicely printed signs. It's like their whole National conference took two hours out of their busy schedule to march across the Golden Gate Bridge with the rest of us.

Every time I looked over that-away another bus was disgorging another 50 nurses by the road. Other people were also joining us in large numbers. It was becoming a happening scene.

     

        

     

     

Then a group of people took the stage.

  

  

     

The lady at the podium explained that we can't have the amount of carbon pollution the tar sands represent in our energy supply. The atmosphere was stable for thousands of years, and we have already pushed the carbon concentration in it far above what it should be for the ecosystem to stay in balance. Because tar sands oil is so much less efficient than light sweet crude every gallon of gas that comes from it will be a bigger hit to the atmosphere than before.

     

The blonde woman spoke well. She might have been the one that talked about the cancer clusters around the oil refineries, and how that is a problem that is symbolic of the whole oil issue. What I remember was her acapella version of an Al Green song from the '60s with updated lyrics. It was great.

The Australian Nurses Association guy said something that boiled down to "we are with you in your struggle against wall street!"

The Asian Pacific Islanders Environmental Network guy said that his group is organizing to bring a lot of people to the march on Chevron on August 2nd. He urged us all to join them there.

  

The woman from the Sierra Club said that we need to get beyond coal and oil.

The woman from 350.org said that everywhere Obama's gone for the past few months "we have organized to get people in the streets to give him the clear message "NO KEYSTONE XL PIPELINE!"" She also wanted us all to get out to the Chevron protest at the beginning of August.

By this time there were MANY people on the field.

  

This guy made a point of mentioning that not only were the nurses doing a ground assault to walk the talk, but we had an air team, the plane dragging the banner, and a sea team, a ship with a similar banner on the water that we'd be able to see crossing the bridge.

Then the nurses left the stage and were replaced by a contingent of Native Americans. Their spokesman explained that the Keystone pipeline has to cross many Native American sacred sites if it is built, and that represents an illegal taking of Indian land. He assured us that his people are fighting it every way they can figure out. Then his group did a very spiritual song for us.

  

While the singers wailed and the drummers beat out a catchy rhythm he blessed us and then gave out AIM buttons to all that wanted one. Then it was time for the march to begin.

     

     

  

When I got near enough to the bridge to look around it was clear that there were many, many people ahead of me, and many more behind me. It was quite a crowd.

     

I walked along with the woman in blue for about half the span. We just chatted. She was nice. There were constantly bicycles going the other way with people on them in a hurry to get someplace. Also, the crowd was so thick that it was hard to pass people. I just accepted that I was doomed to enjoying a few people and went with it. The weather was perfect.

I did look over the railing and see the big sailboat with the banner on it, but no way was I going to lean my camera out there and take a picture. Sorry. We were very high off the water.

        

     

That Chief Joseph quote was on the back of one of the Native Americans. I'd not read that quote before, but I can believe he said it. Cheif Joseph was an awesome guy who saw some very trying times!

Somebody gave me this flier before I got on the bus to go back to the start.