From a Suburban Mom

I saw the freeway blogging site sometime around the 2004 election, and while I thought it was a nifty idea, I didn't figure I was the sort of person to start doing such a thing. I'm a suburban mom with three kids, which means I’m damn busy, and people like me just don't rock the boat. But with outrage upon outrage pouring out of this hellhole administration, I
started getting so wound up that my anger needed an outlet. I needed to be able to do something that would help me break out of the feeling of helplessness that our government has inflicted upon millions of its citizens.

Eventually, I came to believe that one way for me to make a difference was to take a leaf from your book and make some signs. I live in a place where the traffic is fearsomely bad: daily gridlock. It seemed a shame to waste a resource like that…

My first signs were made with a party of other like-minded folk in the area. We got together one afternoon with a rented overhead projector and cardboard we'd all scavenged… we made a LOT of signs. I'm painfully shy and hate for people to look at me, so I thought hanging up signs amid our never ending traffic was going to be miserable (even after dark), but once I'd hung my first sign over a big interstate highway and circled around for a look, I was hooked. All anyone ever saw of me was my silhouette: after that, all they saw was my sign.

I was so proud of my first signs I spent the next day riding around and checking to see if they were still up. They all lasted at least a day, and one stayed up over a month. Since then I’ve hung more signs than I can remember. I keep a few in my minivan just in case an opportunity arises while I'm out running errands.

I’ve also started freewayblogging with my older kids, who are nine and ten. They love painting signs and going out on sorties in the dark of night. I get to teach them the importance of the right to free speech, the people who created this country and the things they stood for. I explain that in a democracy we have the right to hang up signs and other people have the right to take them down. And that we have the right to hang up more. Like nothing else, Freewayblogging teaches the essential spirit of the American Revolution: the importance of standing up for what you believe in as well as the importance of not getting caught.

I never would have thought of myself as a guerrilla. I drive a minivan, for Pete's sake. I'm a mother. But once I started hanging up signs, I didn't want to stop. I get an ego boost out
of seeing my work hung up there for thousands of people to see every day. I get a surge of energy and hopefulness from hanging signs that helps dispel the outrage fatigue. I love the delicious taste of revolution on a small scale, and the sense of adventure I get in scoping out places and hanging the signs. I love not feeling helpless and captive to this lousy administration. I love actively using my rights as a citizen of the United States. And I love the exercise. Really, it's everything a suburban housewife could ask for. There is no down side to freeway blogging: it's good for my kids, it's good for me, and it's good for our country.
Yours, A Suburban Mom

Obligatory Cheney-Shoots-Guy-In-The-Face Posting

On the other hand, if he hadn't gotten all those deferments, we'd probably all be speaking Vietnamese right now.


Here's a sign I put up outside a gun show in El Cajon last year. Quickly.

Banksy: Genius

http://www.banksy.co.uk/

San Francisco

Once you've done a city a couple times, become familiar with it and established a route, it's very easy to cover most of the major freeways in an hour or two.

Letter From Connecticut

Like most democrats, I was upset in the fall of 2000, feeling that the election had been stolen (it was). I felt uneasy, but thought "Well, at least George has some grownups to watch over him, Cheney, Rumsfeld, maybe it will be alright..." Then they tried to get rid of the Dept. of Education. Then they attacked the wrong country. Then they lied about it.

I got angry and would call my senator's office, but it was like talking into a vacuum. I wrote letters to the paper, but the limit is one letter a month, 300 words per letter. I was worried for my country, its democracy, and my 21 and 17 year old sons… Worried they’d get drafted into an unjust war for these men's bottom lines.

Somehow, I don’t remember how, I found the Freewayblogger. Finally there was something I could do! BUSH LIED went up right near my republican sister's house: she never knew who did it! "Get the Memo, a Buckfush production" followed: it stayed up in a busy intersection for over a week. We are proudest of that one. We made 10 WHY 2K? for therapy, the brush strokes allowing us to get our anger out in a constructive way. The state of the union saw 15 IMPEACH signs made in the living room and kept me from throwing things at the TV. To think the latest version of the Patriot Act prohibits protestors from carrying signs near an "Event of National Importance" makes me shiver... like we're living under Stalin. Last night we made “Go Scooter!”

If one sign niggles it's way into someone's head, or encourages someone to voice unspoken doubt about this administration, it will be worth it. We used to post signs at 2am, now we do it in broad daylight. Rarely do they come down before 72 hours have passed. Maybe, just maybe, we can get people with little nudges, to understand what is happening to our country, and how we must fight to fix it.

Yours, Connecticut

More Impeachment Photos

http://www.carlsheeler.com

Chicago


http://ptcruiser292.blogspot.com/

California's Scenic Highway 1

On scenic highways I'll put up signs just to take their picture then take them down. Those of you afraid to use the freeways should consider painting a sign and sending me a picture of it in front of a dramatic background.
In the cities I just stick the damn things anywhere.





The above were taken in and around Santa Cruz, California, about as liberal a town as you'll find in this country. I think the banks are closed on Wiccan holidays. People tell me I'm preaching to the converted by hitting places like Santa Cruz and Berkeley, which is partially true, but not entirely. When you put up a sign it says two things: 1) Whatever it says, and 2) that somebody felt they had the right to put a sign up.

I won't be preaching to the converted until this country is covered with signs.