Restoring Honor in Washington, DC
by Jason A. Vigorito
Part I
At 8:28pm on August 27, the preparatory phone call was made between me and my travel buddy, Barry Walsky, my former college roommate. I purposely called him at that time. I picked him up at his place in Nutley at 2am. Driving down the Garden State Parkway we discussed our common purpose for heading down to Washington, DC: because we’re fed up with the direction our country is being led in, and we want to do our part to correct that. What can we do? Like many of our fellow ralliers, we were looking for answers.
We arrived in Washington, DC, at 6am. Our destination: the National Mall. The reason: the Restoring Honor Rally. Walking from the parking garage to the Mall was an eerie experience, something out of a post-apocalyptic movie, like I Am Legend or something. Newspapers blowing in the wind, whole blocks deserted. Eventually we spotted people, they all had folding chairs and flags. And they were all headed in the same direction.
Barry and I arrived early to get a good spot. There were already thousands of people on the Mall in the early morning fog. We found one along the barriers, at one of the front corners of the Reflection Pool. 75 feet from the speakers on their dais!!! We made acquaintances with those around us: folks from Chicago, Phoenix, Colorado, Louisiana, Florida, Maryland.
The very young and very old, the handicapped, black and white and yellow and red. Some wore local Tea Party shirts, some Restoring Honor shirts. There were state flags, American flags. Picnic blankets, beach chairs, umbrellas. Everyone agreed, easily hundreds of thousands showed up by the 10am start time. They stretched out way past the Washington Monument, and flowed way out beyond the surrounding side fields and monuments. And among all those people, there was no shouting, no arguments, no jostling, no litter even!
The sun came out and beat down on us, heating things way up, when the rally started at 10am with an inspirational video. Glenn Beck came out and the crowd went deafeningly nuts! Holding back tears, he said, “So this is ‘build it and they will come.’” And we sure did…in droves!!!
