John Fortier Peace Vigil, 6/24/11

Dear Reader, John Fortier is a Korean War veteran, a retired school teacher and a peace activist who has held peace vigils on a busy Pacific Coast Highway Redondo Beach, CA street corner each week since just before President Bush ordered the U.S. invastion of Iraq in March, 2003. This is a summary John wrote of his latest vigil.

Hey Dick ~

This note may be put aside until you return from your vacation; I can understand that. But my memories can't be depended on to last that long, so I'll tell them now.

1 ~ One of the young ladies of the interview group came by.

[a few months ago, John was interviewed and photographed by three Redondo Beach High School students. Subsequently they published a piece declaring John and a small group of others each as a "Local Legend."]

She has graduated and will be going on to UC [Univ. of California] Irvine. I asked if she was going to pursue writing as a major/career choice, but she has not decided just yet. She was pleasant and thoughtful and stayed for about 15 minutes before bicycling off into 'a wonderful world'.

2 ~ Before her arrival another girl, a high school sophomore, came and stayed for about an hour and a half. Turns out her mother taught at the school there. When she called her mom and told her she was chatting with me, her mom told her that she knows who she's talking about. that she sees me all the time.

When the journalism girl came by and we talked about the interview and the tape on the Internet, the address was passed and the visitor was looking forward to seeing it when she got home. She took a not-very-candid shot of the flag, sign and me before she left.

We talked about Obama, being black [she is], the war, incarceration, dropping out, etc. She is very nimble, interesting and interested; it was as nice a conversation as one could ask for.

A couple came by and the guy started taking a couple of spontaneous snapshots, then knelt down in front of me and asked if I minded. I told him if he was sure to get the sign in and 1,000 viewers, to go ahead. He said maybe 100 viewers and I said OK.

It gave me an idea. I'm going to hand people like him a card and ask him to send a copy of whatever pictures he took to me so I can include them in an album. That might be fun and have some advantage down the line.

That's the essence of it.

Have a safe, wonderful trip. See you Wednesday probably.

Adios ~

L L

[local legend, remember ?] [http://hightideonline.org/?p=2276]