My Adventure: Glenn Beck rally, #3

My Adventure with a Pass-Along Card

During the last Glenn Beck speech, I had gone up to the WWII Memorial, and had handed my camera up to a man to take a panoramic movie. That was the only part of the speeches that I really heard. Beck was saying (paraphrasing him) "Our nation must turn back to worshipping God. I don't care what church you attend, I don't care what synagogue you attend, I don't care if you attend a mosque. What we all have to turn to is God, and worship God, and begin again to believe this nation can only be protected and guided if we believe in God."

It was a very positive sentiment, and I felt good about that message. I felt great thinking that everyone in the crowd agreed with that, and that we were all wanting that same goal.

Then on my way back to join Anne and Frank G. and the K. family, I sat under a tree for awhile listening a little, but it was still hard to hear. While I was there, three men asked if they could sit there too, I said yes, and we chatted a little.

When I got up to go, I remembered I had 2 pass-along cards in my bag. I turned around and went up to the younger guy, and told him I'd like to invite him to read the Book of Mormon. He thanked me and said he might, because two of his best friends were Mormons.

Then I turned to the older man, and tried to hand him a pass-along card, but he said, no, he was a pastor of another church, and he had read it already and he didn't believe it. So he didn't take the card.

I walked a little ways to the third man, and when I handed the passalong card to him and invited him to read the Book of Mormon, he also said something negative but took the card.

I started walking the 100 yards or so to where Anne and Frank G. were sitting, and a teenage guy in a yellow Tshirt (name of a church written on it) came running up to me with my passalong card in his hand, "Did you give this to that man?" I said, yes, and he started telling me how false the Book of Mormon is. I said, "I believe its true, and I don't want to argue with you." He kept going on and on and walking along with me, telling me how I needed to be saved (I should have told him that I DID get saved at a Baptist summer camp when I was 12 but I didn't think of saying it to him until later) and I finally told him, "Listen, you believe what you believe, and I believe what I believe, and we're not going to change each other." He still kept going, and I was frustrated, and I said, "Why are you here? Do you know that Glenn Beck is a Mormon?". And he said, "I know. I agree with his politics but his religion is false."

I finally was able to shake him off about the time I arrived at Anne and Frank. The guy left, and Anne and Frank both looked at me and said, "Who was THAT?" I asked them if he had seemed belligerant to them, and they said yes, he was acting very demanding and angry, I knew it wasn't my imagination. He certainly didn't seem too Christlike even though he thought he was trying to convert me to Christ (his way of believing in Christ).

So I sat there and pondered the message I had just heard Glenn Beck give, of uniting in our belief in God and depending on God to protect and save our nation, and contrasted that with the way we definitely are NOT united, and I felt very sad and depressed.


My Adventure with Getting Back Home

We left the mall about 4 pm, had to stand in line about an hour to get on the trains at the Smithsonian metro station. I made sure to go to one of the portapotties that the rally provided before standing in line, since I knew that the metro bathrooms would still be locked "for security reasons." We were at the first stop so the train was empty when we got on it, that was a huge relief after the horrible crowding we had endured getting there.

We all had seats, there were very few people standing. We went to the next stop, and the train filled up, lots of people standing. We got to the next stop (I think it was Courthouse), and were completely shocked to hear a woman say over the loudspeaker, "You must all exit this train. All passengers must exit this train." We sat there, we didn't believe it. The loudspeaker again: "All passengers must exit this train. This train must go back to Washington DC. If you stay on this train you will go back the way you came. Exit the train now."

So we all made a stampede out that train and crossed the platform and CROWDED into a train that was already full. We were literally standing on each others feet and our bodies were crammed together. The 6 of us made it into the train, as we pulled away we could see one family, parents and some little kids, still sitting on the other empty train. And we saw that it was going in the same direction as us! We wondered why it wasn't going back to DC the way the woman on the loudspeaker said. I just assumed it was turning around at some roundhouse or something.

We had a very uncomfortable 30 minute trip to Vienna. At some stops a few people got off but mostly it was crowded all the way, most of those people were parked in Vienna.

When we all got off in Vienna, Victoria K. said, "You'll never believe this! I was sitting by a man, and I told him how crummy it was that they locked all the bathrooms for "security reasons", and he said, "Thats a load of crap. The union workers only lock the bathrooms when it is a group they don't like."

At that same time, as we walked toward the parking deck, we saw those parents with those little kids driving away in their minivan. THE TRAIN WE EXITED HAD COME TO VIENNA.

My mind was exploding with the realization: We had been sabotaged! First, to find out that the bathrooms were locked just to cause a hardship to us, Second, to find out that the Metro loudspeaker woman had lied to us, to make us be so crowded. I was sick at heart. All I could think about was secret combinations. Those people did not want us to go to the rally.

The six of us got into the van, and I think everyone was as depressed as I was. We hardly said a word for an hour.