It was almost forty-two years ago that I attended my first large protest march in DC. The November 1969 Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam was only a stones throw away from Freedom Plaza where the Occupy DC people were set up. I dragged my twelve year old son off the couch and onto Metro telling him stories about being tear gassed and chased by riot police when I was only a few years older than he was now. He's so jaded by video games that he was actually hoping to see a line of S.W.A.T. cops roping down the Willard Hotel.

We got off Metro at Federal Triangle and walked over to Freedom Plaza  on bright and warm Sunday afternoon. The protesters had been on the plaza since Thursday and were permitted to be there until 6:00 that evening. The Taste of DC was going on and the entire plaza was surrounded by food tents and my son was immediately ready to abondon his radical beginnings to go to the moon bounce.

The plaza itself was very sedate, maybe two hundred people scattered around the large space. A handful of tents set up around the perimeter and lots of handmade signs both on stakes and scattered on the ground. A stage set up at one end with a large copy of the Constitution as a backdrop but no one speaking. We walked around, spoke to some people in the few booths set up and took some pamphlets. We sat down for awhile hoping something would materialize until a woman came by and told us there was another group at McPherson Square and apparently there was a lot of "action" going on over there. So back onto Metro we went and rode the two stops back to McPherson and headed over to the square.

Unfortunately the only action we found there was a bunch of homeless guys hanging around on the benches in the park. By this point my little boy was getting hungry and ready to support corporate America, the 99% be damned. "Is there a McDonalds anywhere around here?" I told him that McDonalds wouldn't open up in a neighborhood like this since it virtually shuts down on the weekend. "Well can we go back to Arlington then?" I told him we could but there was food at home he could eat. His introduction to left wing politics would have to wait for another day.

That evening I heard that the protesters were going to refuse to leave the Plaza and later the city had granted them an extended permit. I'm planning on going back and I'll be taking my son, hopefully his sister and maybe even their older brother. In the past ten years my retirement savings have all but disappeared. I struggle every week to put food on the table and pay my bills despite working six days a week. I drive a ten year old car, buy my clothes off ebay and haven't been on a real vacation in years. I will most likely work until the day I die. I am the 99% so don't tell me I don't have a clear idea what I'm protesting about.