A chance happening last night gave me an opportunity to observe myself.
I am occupying. OCCUPYing with OCCUPY ANTELOPE VALLEY, our local group of Occupy Wall Street. Though I’m not there 24/7, and no one is at our site yet, we have a site and we have a group of a few dedicated individuals and we’re growing. One choice we have made is to move our Occupy site from one of the nicer city parks to what we refer to as “Plane On A Stick Park” – it’s Boeing Plaza in Lancaster, California. Boeing is a major employer in this aerospace town. The centerpiece of our encampment is a USAF Phantom F-4 mounted in a giant display 30 or so feet in the air – thus “Plane On A Stick”. The whole park is a few years old and somewhat timeworn, but still impressive. It’s within a short walk from the Lancaster MetroLink station, the end of the line for this spur of our regional commuter rail line. Across Sierra Highway is the Lancaster station of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office. The park is small, in a narrow strip defined by the highway and the rail line, Lancaster Boulevard and a parking lot. In fact, it’s not even officially designated a “Park”, but is a sidewalk according to the Parks and Recreation folks. But it’s relatively clean and well-lit, it feels safe.
Some of the local homeless people use Boeing Plaza as a base during the day. We checked with them before moving our Occupy site there, and they were cool. They are, after all, part of the 99 %, and I believe some of them are gaining a sense of empowerment just by associating with the Occupy group. There are still two groups, but there is definitely interaction and there is no ill-will between us. We have all made efforts to accommodate.
We performed our first real act of civil disobedience yesterday. Palmdale Mall was the site of a flash mob. Fifteen of us met in the center of the mall, at the display where Santa will hold court in a few days. Once there we removed our coats, revealing our home-made Occupy t-shirts, which came out very well I think. We did a human microphone for about five minutes and were politely escorted to the mall entrance by security. Once outside, they told us they were with us and asked where we were located. I really don’t want to have to go through what our brothers and sisters in Oakland are going through. I can do without teargas and mace. But it would be nice to get a little publicity. We do have some good folks with cameras and we’re getting stuff out on our Facebook pages and on YouTube as best we can. This is a link to an interview with me, if anyone is interested:
In fact, three or four of the homeless group were with us at the mall. When we got back to our encampment, one of our members had brought pizza to celebrate. It was a good day, it was a good action.
As background, in the last few years I have developed some foot problems. The first couple of General Assemblies I came to I stood. I realized that if I continued standing like that for two or three hours at a time I would be crippled. So I threw a plastic lawn chair in my car, and have carted that back and forth with me. I get it out when I get to the site. I certainly don’t mind people sitting in it if I’m not using it, but I don’t mind asking people to move if I want to sit, either. And that’s worked pretty well so far.
Last night, as the pizza was being doled out, I returned to my car to grab my jacket as I was getting chilly. My chair was already out. As I returned to the group, a man sat in my chair. He is one of the homeless group. He’s from India. He tells a rather strange and disjointed story, and I’m not sure what’s real and what’s not. I don’t think he’s dangerous but to be honest he does make me a bit uncomfortable. My first inclination was to ask him to move so I could sit. I feel sure he would have; he is always meek and mild-mannered. But then I thought – how long has it been since this guy has been able to sit in a chair and share food with “normal” people? The kitchen where many of these people get their meals does have tables and chairs to be sure. But just to be able to sit in a casual group and eat pizza – I don’t have much, but I have a plastic chair.
So he sat, and he talked, and he enjoyed himself. After a while, one of the other chairs in the circle became vacant and I sat, and the other man continued to sit and talk and eat and enjoy himself. I listened. He introduced himself but I honestly didn’t understand his name, or much of what he said. My hearing isn’t what it used to be and his accent is fairly heavy. Trains and traffic often drown out the spoken word.
I don’t really have anything left to give at this point, at least not money or material possessions – my assets are gone. But maybe I was able to give a little man from India, a man who must feel apart and alone much of the time, an hour of respite last night, an hour of feeling like a normal person, an hour of feeling a part of.
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