Today we drove up to Western Michigan University and joined the community in the anti-NRA #NeverAgain March from the flagpoles on campus to Bronson Park.

It was surreal to park on that campus again. We walked up to the flagpoles and the crowd was quite well organized and burgeoning. Several schoolkids were there with the event organizers to speak to the crowd and offer their viewpoints and context to what we were about to accomplish. Here’s a sample of what we saw:

The group was peaceful and orderly, there was no violence and no exclamations. As we walked away from the flagpoles, and down past the entry to Sangren Hall on Western’s campus, that was the only point that I noticed any counter-protestors. There was supposedly going to be counter-protestors from the local Open Carry group, but Western’s Public Service does not allow open carry on University grounds, so the only counter-protestors we saw were some people with signs. There were very many of us and maybe a handful of the counter protestors.

The event organizers helped a lot by telling all of us that counter-protestors were expected and that the best way to interact with them is to not interact at all. This was an exercise of First Amendment Rights on both sides, the teeming horde of us in the #NeverAgain march, and the handful of counter-protestors. Nobody that I saw made contact, there were some glances, but nothing overt that I witnessed. The march downtown was met with lots of honking horns from the rerouted traffic. The police were kind, principally silent, and really to keep watch around the edges and to handle traffic. We came into contact with one police officer who was attempting a charm offensive, he thanked us for our orderly civic display and we thanked him for traffic control and keeping watch over us all.

The march itself was very pleasant. There wasn’t anything remotely provocative about any of the progression down to the central park downtown. There were no accidents that I saw, no foolishness from anyone, and we all demonstrated our political viewpoints in a very calm, exceptionally orderly manner.

Afterwards, when the words were said and the kids had their moment to shine, the march broke up and everyone drifted away. We ended up going to Kelvin & Company for a snack because we really wanted a break from the chilly wind and all that walking. After our little stop, we dropped by another new store on the Kalamazoo Walking Mall, RocketFizz. We enjoyed some Special Dark Hersheys Chocolate Bars and I bought a bottle of butterscotch root beer from a bottler in Washington State, Oh-So brand, I think. The walk back was long, and upon reflection if we had stashed the Juke somewhere downtown we probably would have had a faster way to get back to campus. Political marches aren’t very common, so that we missed out on a logistical tip wasn’t so awful. We got in a lot of walking steps on our Fitbits, at least.