I Think I Will Leave the Torn Sign

October 3, 2008

Someone, late last night, came into my front yard and tore my “War is not the Answer” sign in half.  I find this amazing since the sign has been there five years.  It was threatened once before in broad daylight by a guy walking his dog, but my Navy officer neighbor and his two sons (then 9 and 7) ran across the street and ordered the man to leave my yard and not to come back in the neighborhood.  The Reagan Conservatives living on the other side were indignant when they were told the story.  (I don’t agree with many of my neighbors politically about much at all, but we are a tight and neighborly group.) I have always felt my lone anti-war sign was safe.

So I was surprised when my sign was torn after all this time.

I can’t decide what to do about it.  I could, of course, get a new one and put it in my yard. But I may not.

When I was a young woman in Texas I had a car with lots of bumper stickers against the Vietnam War and other such things. When I came out of church one night, I found them shredded and half ripped off my car.  I never touched them and I made sure to park in front of the church after that.  

I thought they looked defiant with their edges flapping in the breeze as I drove. It was perfectly clear what they stood for and it was equally clear someone had tried to destroy them--no doubt someone who would say that the military was fighting for my freedom of speech.

In honor of the sacrifice of those who really fought to protect my freedom of speech—those men and women who went to jail speaking truth to power—I think I will leave the torn sign.