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“What a field day for the heat,

A thousand people in the street,

Singing songs and they carrying signs,

Mostly say, ‘Hooray for our side.’”

 

In 1966, when those lyrics to the Buffalo Springfield song “For What It’s Worth” began coming through the radio speakers of my old Ford Coupe, I knew exactly what they meant.

The Vietnam War was raging. Young people were fed up, tired of their friends going into battle and not coming home. Tired of their parents not listening to them. And they were afraid of what was happening.

Over the next few years, as a reporter for a daily newspaper–a job that helped put me through college–I often found myself on the front lines of that battle being played out on my college campus. No, I wasn’t on the front lines protesting. I was on the front lines reporting what was happening.

During those days of upheaval, I learned pretty much everything there was to know about being an impartial news reporter. I called them like I saw them, even when it meant I watched friends breaking and destroying campus property. Likewise, when I saw them being pushed, shoved and assaulted by police officers. What I saw, I reported.

There was an electricity in the air that was palpable. I could see it on the faces of protesters. I could hear it in their voices.

 

“There’s battle lines being drawn,

Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong,

Young people speaking their minds,

Getting so much resistance from behind.”

 

The daily newspaper where I worked was only a few miles from the campus where I attended classes in hopes of a degree. At the same time, I served as the editor of the college weekly newspaper with a staff of reporters also covering the campus protests, sit-ins, and anti-war speakers at the campus union and in the parks.

When I saw the headline in the Tryon Daily Bulletin, “Protest Held In Downtown Tryon On Saturday,” above a story of how hundreds had participated in a “Save Our Democracy” protest on the main drag downtown, a bell rang in my head.

 

“There’s something’s happening here,

But what it is ain’t exactly clear.”

 

It all reminded me of the front page headline and photo in The Daily Courier, Rutherford County’s daily newspaper of record, just a few weeks ago: “Courthouse Lawn Rally Draws 200 People On Monday.” They were protesting an effort in North Carolina to overturn a Supreme Court election.

Hundreds more showed up in Polk County to do battle with the planning board over a developer teed up to hit their quiet country town with a slew of houses, coming in hot like a bowling ball in the alley on a Wednesday afternoon. We need more housing, they said, but not this.

But if you looked closely at the photographs these two newspapers published of the crowds, you would have seen one commonality. These definitely were not young people rallying for their right to vape. The protesters were someone’s grandparents, parents, an elderly neighbor, the nice lady in the checkout line of Ingles, the retiree volunteering at the animal rescue, the plant whisperer, the “older man” who plays the guitar really well just for his friends.

The 1960s fossil hippies and their friends are speaking up for democracy, speaking out about what they believe is wrong. And if anyone thinks they aren’t serious, think again. They are armed–with voting ballots.

Larry McDermott is a local retired farmer/journalist. Reach him at hardscrabblehollow@gmail.com