Protests! Everywhere we turn, everywhere we look we find protests layered upon protests.

It’s nothing new. The imperative, the incentive, the energy for demonstrating in the streets and elsewhere has occurred before, notably in the 1960’s and 70’s. To present perspective and insight to this month’s events, we present an excerpt, “Hit the Road Mac,” from a memoir by Detroit-area writer Gary McDonald. The excerpt covers Gary’s involvement in protests more than forty years ago, when society seemed in even more upheaval than it does now. His narrative only begins with anti-war protests– moving on to cover other aspects of that era’s revolutionary changes; changes which surprise him. You’ll find this personal history fascinating. Perhaps revealing.

“What’s that all about,” I asked, scooting close enough to smell the lemon oil in her blonde streaked hair.

There was a tall scruffy guy with a megaphone drumming up a crowd in the plaza in front of her.

“Nixon’s bombing Cambodia now and that guy’s right, that’s total bullshit,” she said looking back and proved the rest of the theorem; she was an absolute doll. A bit young but still more woman than girl and so good looking she could have started another Trojan War.

***

For words by Bruce Dale Wise which look at political turmoil circa 2017– or, circa NOW– read this poem at our Fun Pop Poetry feature, part of our ever-morphing Interactive blog.