Did I expect to find myself, in the year of our Lord 2026, standing on the corner of Main and First, along with 20 other people holding signs?

As my granddaughter would say, “Yeah…nope.”

But the insistent newsletters from the local “Indivisible” political action group got under my skin. Yes, I was faithfully sending emails to my representatives and writing postcards and donating money here and there. But I still felt prodded by the notice about the physical gathering of souls every Sunday at 1 p.m. I’d even seen the group of protesters when running my errands. I’d participated in the Women’s Marches that marked the first Trump administration, and my husband and I had shown up at the nationally organized “No Kings” march in response to the second Trump administration. But this weekly protest seemed like more of a commitment, with perhaps more personal exposure, than I wanted to make. Every Sunday? With just that little group? 


I thought I’d go once. Just to show support.

That was about six months ago.

Now I’m a regular. Now I’m sad when some other obligation prevents me from being on my corner for the Sunday hour.

When I decided to keep going to the weekly protest, I first bought some stiff poster board from the dollar store. Then I compensated for my lack of artistic ability by brightening up my sign with artificial flowers, also from the dollar store. Lastly, I taped the whole thing to an old yardstick to make it easier to hoist up high. 

Over the weeks of standing on the corner, I’ve realized that the signs themselves don’t matter as much as the intent. Our signs are as varied as the people holding them. The most effective ones are simple and readable at a distance. But some of ours are roughly lettered on a piece of old cardboard. Some are in Spanish. All of them basically express some sentiment along the lines of “No Kings” or “No War” or “Freeze ICE.” One of my favorite signs is “Grantifa,” a portmanteau coined by a fellow granny who says that, as Americans, we are automatically members of Antifa, that phantom anti-fascist group. 

When we stand together, it’s obvious that in our group, which ranges from about 20 to 40 protesters each week, we seniors outnumber everyone else. We may move a little slow, but we’ve been here before. We remember the movements for civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, anti-nukes, and we fear that everything old is new again. But mostly we’re here because we’re the ones who’ve got the time. Our kids are grown. Our jobs are in the past. Our bones may be creaking on colder days, but we understand the assignment: that every single one of our bodies on the street is a tangible, meaningful statement of resistance.

But we can’t let our endeavor go to our heads. It’s a function of our privilege to feel safe while standing here protesting in public. We’re not heroes, just concerned citizens. We’re here because we just don’t feel right doing otherwise.

I had to steel myself for the inevitable feedback: After all, by standing on the corner with a sign, aren’t I inviting a response? The intersection where we gather is regulated by a three-way traffic light, where cars can have long waits at the red. I’m used to seeing drivers and passengers who pretend we are not there or shake their heads or throw us a disapproving look. But I’m heartened that most folks seem receptive. They react positively, giving us a wave or honking their horn or flashing a peace sign, all of which thrills us and makes us whoop. I’ve realized that I often judge drivers by the make of their cars: I am surprised when a Subaru doesn’t honk, and even more surprised when a Cybertruck gives me an enthusiastic thumbs-up. So I can only be grateful to the Cybertruck’s driver for the reminder to judge less and accept more.

Every now and then someone only holds up one-half of a peace sign—just the middle finger—and these folks have taught me another valuable lesson, which is that returning the gesture, returning nasty for nasty, would achieve nothing. Instead, I smile. I show a little joy that we both can exercise our American right to express ourselves. 

I make a point to greet and thank any young people who have taken the time to join us for the hour. When I remember the pace of my jam-packed schedule when I was their age, I’m pretty sure I would not have made time to do the same. My hope is that, when they get to be my age, maybe they’ll remember, when it’s their turn to keep the faith and fight the good fight, to pass on a kind word to somebody younger.

I can attest that, as with any routine activity, watching the clock can slow down time. An hour on a Sunday afternoon feels longer when it’s chilly. When it’s raining. When there are fewer of us. The hour feels shorter when the sun is out. When there’s a lot of honking and waving. When there’s a sense of camaraderie with the folks I recognize after a few weeks, but don’t actually know a lot about, other than our names and our shared commitment. 

After many weeks, I’m surprised to find that we know each other well enough that the whole group sings “Happy Birthday” to me. What a lovely gift that my birthday fell on a Sunday this year. 

I’ve gleaned some practical tips for protesting, a few the hard way: Like, sunscreen should be worn, even if it’s cloudy. That all I really need to bring with me is water, chapstick, phone, ID and keys. Those are the prosaic things. The poetic things are that every time I make myself and my sign visible to every passing car, I am actually representing the founding fathers, the Constitution, the Statue of Liberty, the colorful history of these United States, the right of dissent. That I am helping to tell the story of our nation one Sunday afternoon at a time, and that my time on this corner matters. Because one person plus another person plus another person adds up to the power of community. 

Over these past months, it has dawned on me that if Sunday morning is for church, maybe Sunday afternoon is for the point of church. That if we learn in the morning that we’re all God’s children, we can show in the afternoon that we are our siblings’ keepers. That if we pray in the morning to do God’s will, we can spend an hour in the afternoon trying to do just that, to stand for the rights of the orphan, the stranger, the immigrant, the prisoner, the sick, the hungry, the lonely, the marginalized. That if our congregation sings hymns in the morning, we can congregate to the strains of Pete Seeger singing “God’s Counting on You; God’s Counting on Me” in the afternoon. That if we go to Communion in the morning, we can participate in civic communion with the body of Christ here on the corner in the afternoon. Maybe holy communion happens in unlikely places, especially if we believe that we faithful are both gathered and sent. 

I think of the words often attributed to Mother Teresa, now St. Teresa of Calcutta: We can do no great things. Only small things with great love. She actually did do great things. Most likely we will not. But the small things add up. The small seeds are planted. The small roots seek deeper ground. Maybe the sight of a small group of sign-holders, die-hards for democracy, stays in the mind of someone, maybe even those kids in the back seat of one of those passing cars. 

Time to head out for the small intentional hour I am blessed to offer.

Valerie Schultz is a freelance writer, a columnist for The Bakersfield Californian and the author of Till the Moon Be No More: The Grit and Grace of Growing Older. She lives on the Oregon Coast.