So Saturday night, a few of us gathered in Sylvester Park to participate in something called the "Shadow Project." For this, we collected some large cutouts of people - men, women, boys, girls, babies, and even some little animals. We have stencils of people from last year, and made a couple new ones this year. We mix together this sort of wet chalk, and then we go around downtown Olympia with these cutouts and, with little rollers, make wet chalk outlines for each of them. This creates a sort of flash effect, like their outline is seared right into the sidewalk.

The purpose of the Shadow Project is to commemorate the anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. When our government dropped atomic bombs on two cities, people were incinerated where they stood. Actual outlines, much like the ones we put on the sidewalks, were burned into the sides of buildings. (The Olympia Police gave us their blessing as long as we put the stencils on public sidewalks, and not on the sides of buildings.) It all happened so fast, they didn't have time enough to even raise their hands in shock. This is why none of our cutout people are in poses of shock. They're still playing, dancing, hugging. Vaporized, right where they stood. Nothing left but a flash on the concrete.

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This was organized for the second year in Olympia by local superhero Jody Tiller. She's a military veteran and perpetual peace demonstrator. She was the only other Olympian I know of who participated in the September 26th action in front of the White House last year, and has demonstrated and fasted on the steps of the State Capitol Building numerous times, being a thorn in the side of our pro-war, pseudo-Democratic and illegitimate governor, Christine Gregoire. She's one of my local heroes.

But this coincided with another special event. A roving band of peace veterans were in town on their bike ride from Eugene up to next weekend's Veterans For Peace conference in Seattle. These are some of the same folks I worked with in Covington, Louisiana last year, with a couple new faces. They were speaking in Sylvester Park as I was dropping by periodically, refilling my chalk stuff and switching out stencils.

I diligently laid outlines all over town, wanting to make sure they weren't all just clumped by Sylvester Park. I met two LiveJournalers for the first time in the process, as well as several other people. Thanks to last year's Shadow Project, a lot of people recognized immediately what we were doing. Kids asked me questions about it. I heard no reports of pro-bombing people heckling anyone, although my friend got harrassed by a few individual police officers.

I took a delight in pasting a couple outlines right in front of Pizza Time, hoping to wound owner Heath Flores' pride. I tried to be all discreet as I did it, once, and then coming around again later for a second one. Halfway through that second one, I overheard one of the employees inside start shouting, "Hey Chad! Chad Chad Chad!!!" This guy walked out and started asking me what I was doing. He was a little scared, and understandably so. He's confronting somebody who, by appearances, was not afraid to just sit down and paint shit right on the sidewalk. I explained what I was doing, why I was doing it, that the designs were not permanent, and that I had been given every right to do it by the police. An employee standing behind him looked at me with this, "We caught you, You're in trouble now," expression on her face. Puh-shaw!

We were scheduled to run for four hours. I'm the kind of guy to work at it all four hours, normally. But a couple of old buddies from the veteran tour invited me to come along and hang out at a downtown bar. I left Shadow Project an hour early.

We ended up hanging out in the back of King Solomon's Reef, drinking, talking. Singing along with Journey on the jukebox. A couple of us were drawing on the paper coasters with colored pencils. This cool guy Ethan drew these different designs. I drew a ninja jump-kicking a uniformed pig.

I talked to one of the veterans. Eric, I think his name was. (I'm absolutely horrible with names.) He fought in the invasion of Iraq, but now he's against war. I listened to him, and I mean really listened. I fought the tendency to fill in the gaps of what he said, as a sort of active listening method. I really wanted to hear what he had to say, to let him fill in his own gaps. Everybody's doing too much talking. Nobody's really taking the time to listen, most of all to the people who have actually been over there. He didn't have that much to say about what he saw. I hate to unfairly judge a person, but I saw him looking depressed, growing out his hair. He reminded me so much of myself in the years after I got out of the service, back when my life was in shambles. Whatever his case, I wish him well.

Freddy and I reminisced about Covington. I told Freddy about how I left seafood take-out in Jamie's truck overnight and hid a hot-dog in her glove compartment, pissing her off almost to the point of murder, most foul. One of my most moronic, yet extremely laughable mistakes.

Freddy was egging me into going up to the VFP convention. "It'll be a Hell of a lot of fun," he told me. He encouraged me to just hang out outside the conference until someone recognized me and let me in or something. Shit, I thought. He's right. If I can't find a way in, somebody would totally let me in.

I thought out loud about the logistics of going up to Seattle for a whole weekend. I have work to do, I thought. He mistook my consideration of other matters as plain old hesitation to get out and live life, or perhaps, I mistook them vice versa. "Life's a ball," he told me. "Get out there and live it."

This non-veteran Joe was hanging out with them. I was suspicious of him from the start. Being a storyteller, I'm suspicious of anyone whose stories are consistently far superior to my own. Back inside at our booth, he saw me drawing on a piece of paper a picture of myself, climbing on top of a Stryker vehicle, in my straw hat and anarcho-cowboy shirt, holding high an anarchy flag and shouting, "Tear it down!"

Joe asked about "Tear it down." I told him it was the slogan for Olympia's Port Militarization Resistance.

Joe got pissed, and jumped on my case. "That's your slogan? Fucking do it, then! Don't fuckin' sit there and say it! Get out there and tear it down!!"

This really cute girl Lucy intervened, asking me something right then, so I ignored Joe and talked to her. But what Joe said pissed me the Hell off, and I knew exactly why. Three reasons:
1) He was right. We haven't been tearing it down lately. I miss doing that.
2) Because he was dead fucking wrong. This guy strolls into Olympia, and tells us we need to stop talking and get organized? What a pretender. >:P
3) I simply will not be told I'm not radical enough by a guy who's riding his bicycle "for sustainability," on his way to the big expensive Veterans For Peace convention.
Instead of talking to Lucy, I should have told Joe exactly what I thought, right then and there. But I didn't.

I joined Freddie again as he snagged another smoke. He was openly checking out all the girls walking around. I pointed out that, with the Homo-a-Gogo festival in town, most of the girls in town were already hooked up with other girls.

Joan Jett was in the jukebox, singing "Crimson and Clover."

"Alright, I'll do it!" The veterans conference. "I'll totally be up there next weekend! You'll see me there!" I meant it, but Freddie didn't respond. He started up a different subject.

When I wasn't looking, Joe had added to my drawing of myself, but not in mockery. He drew a shotgun in my other hand, with the words "Smash the state" in graffiti-style writing. Ironic, I thought.

At about 2 or 3 in the morning, we started leaving. Joe was griping about how he had to walk up this big hill with two bicycles. Despite all the bullshit, I offered to help him, because I'm just like that. (Who's to say I wasn't the one being an asshole?) He ignored me.

Everyone started saying their goodbyes. Cute Lucy said goodbye to most of us, and started walking off. Joe shouted after her, "Hey, what about me?" She didn't say goodbye to him, but not out of intentional insult or anything. Joe kept calling out after her. "What's that shit about?"

I looked him dead in the eye, big shit-eating grin. "Yeah, that's fucked up." He gave me this cold frowning stare, which I guess I was supposed to back down from or something, but I failed to. He walked away with his bike. Good riddance, dude.

Freddy said, "Cool seein' you again, Wally. I'm sure we'll run into each other again some time." He clearly didn't think I was going to be there for the conference. That disappointed me. As much as Joe can kiss my ass, I think Freddy's a cool, fun guy, and I want him to think more of me than that.

At the time, I would have put money on my being at the conference, but as it turns out, it looks like I really won't be going. I agreed to speak at the Peace Port picnic here in town this Sunday. Speaking out against war profiteering here, in our community, which has become a focal point of war resistance, is far more important that going to listen to some professional liberals talk about the peace movement.

And that was the thought I was left with. Sure, these guys are doing good stuff. I don't condemn people for doing things I think are too "liberal." I don't condemn people for riding their bikes in the name of peace, or attending liberal activist conferences. But sometimes, the peace and justice movement isn't a festival. Sometimes, it's hard work and no glory. And it simply ain't fair to leave that part to other people every time.

I wish I hadn't left Shadow Project early. I wish I had done the full time, and found the veterans and hung out after the work was done.