A Day Dreaming Day

As best as I remember it, I left my parents house right around midnight. We lived in a miserable part of Brooklyn and it took a bus ride just to get to the subway stop. Then I needed to take 2 subway trains to get to my girlfriend's parents apartment on the Upper East Side. Her parents were awake and with some reservations and a number of admonishments on her care and safety, turned her over to me for the trip back downtown to where we were meeting our chartered bus.

 I had also volunteered to pick up donuts for the bus ride, so on the way got a few dozen still warm from an all night place. Probably added a couple extra for the subway trip to the Village.

Anyway, it was still dark when our bus pulled out, through empty streets and the tunnel to New Jersey.  As the sun came up, we saw another bus on the highway. Enthusiastic waves were exchanged. And then there was another bus and another. Pretty soon, it seemed the road was solid with chartered buses and cars and vans filled with people all waving at each other. We all hoped for a good sized crowd that day, but right then we began to realize that his was going to be big, really big.

Most of my memories of the rest of the day's events tend to run together. I know DC police were genuinely afraid that we were going to wreck the place, which was the reason given for suspending the sale of liquor for the day. They also had the chartered buses lined up around the Capitol and the White House, parked nose to tail to form barricades which, while it might have made some politicians feel better also had us wondering how the hell we were going to find out bus again. There must have been other weird stuff going on, but those two stick.

Anyway, we have all seen the newsreel footage of the crowds and speeches. I know that we marched from someplace and ended up at the Reflecting Pool. We were down at the far end, far away from the speakers stand. I heard the speeches and I must have heard Dr. King's “I had a dream” speech. I am pretty sure I did, but it must have been afternoon and we were all pretty marched out by then.

Somewhere along the way, I purchased a button to wear. Amazingly enough, 54 years later me and that button still here. I got the button out today for this photo. Maybe I will wear it later.