One of the girls, probably 15 and wearing beaded hair, immediately picked up that I was doing a little Cartman routine. We started bonding over favorite episodes of South Park. I didn't quite get her name, but she gave her buddy Lilli her camera phone to get our picture. She promised to email me my pictures with her and Lilli.

Anyway, a couple of tv news crews were on the scene. If I were less philosophically inclined, I might have been annoyed that they weren't interested in the candidate for US Senate out protesting. They were much more interested in my new friends, and their friends with the face paint and drums. In fairness though, those girls weren't quite old enough to vote, but they're far cuter than me.

Also, we're standing along the road, hollering at the cars passing by. I'm not particularly expecting them to hear anything I might say, so I'm really just making noises to attract their attention to look at my sign.

In short, it didn't much matter what I said, which is asking for trouble. Following the South Park theme, I found myself literally yelling "rabble, rabble-rabble." I know that's not right, but I really couldn't help myself. I'm not sure if this made me the rabble rouser, or if I was actually the rabble being roused. I think that's one of those "chicken or the egg" deals.

This generated an amusing moment as one of the hippies tried to gently suggest that hollering "rabble-rabble" in the middle of our protest rally might not really be cool. I'm standing there in the suit and tie, hearing from the hippy about trying to act normal so as not to put off average voters. He really was trying to be nice, and he did at least halfway have a reasonable point. Still.

All this seemed funny to me. In my own past, I'd probably have mostly been more likely taken for a hippy than any kind of Chamber of Commerce guy. Still, I've always much preferred Merle Haggard to the Grateful Dead. On the other hand, the Dead did cover a Merle Haggard song on their first album.

Anyway, I eventually worked my way down the crowd, handing out my own cards. Hey, I'm there supporting their cause, and hippies get to vote like anyone else.

This left me down toward the north end of the lineup on the curb, meeting my very bestest new friend at this event. Miss Tori is 10 years old, and full of the most charming earnest childish enthusiasm for the environmental issues that brought her hippy daddy and her out. Besides the money and the eminent domain, this I-69 project would tear up and pave over a lot of nice, clean land. It would certainly tear up a lot of natural wildlife habitat.