A most delightful march

With crisp blue, sunny skies and a nice cool breeze, yesterday the Grande Enchilada marched down Broadway in what must be the most enjoyable march for peace ever. Luckily my friends and I caught up with the parade at the very beginning (actually we walked right towards it, very cool) and we squeezed in right behind the celebrities (Susan Sarandon, Al Sharpton, Cindy Sheehan and Jesse Jackson). There was calm and quiet, there were people chanting the obligatory silly chants, and there was almost no police presence, (or at least none too abrasive) and so the marchers could join the march at several points along the route and it was truly delightful. I was worried that there would be a cacophony of lefty grievances that would drown each other out (not that anybody's listening) but the consensus was against Bush and against the war in Iraq, so that turned out fine. The only bad moment was when someone decided to start singing Give Peace a Chance, a song so awful and stupid it should be banned from any such event. But soon people realized it was bumming people out (it makes me violent) and they stopped. As we passed Canal St, there is a bit of a hill and we turned back and could see a river of people behind us all the way up Broadway, which was very encouraging. What I like about these marches is that you see all kinds of people, not only the sock, sandal and patchouli crowd which is out there in force, but just concerned, outraged people from all income brackets and all stripes, including Matthew Modine. It was very well organized, beautifully handled by the police and probably useless, but it felt good. I thought that when we got to Canal, the entire parade was going to disperse for dimsum. The thought was very tempting but we finished the march and then went for soup dumplings at Joe's. They tasted like glory.