Just before my recent trip to New York this fall, protesters began to Occupy Wall St.

They were protesting - in a big way.

Before the trip, we watched on the news as the protesting grew - and then branched out to other cities.

I started to become a little concerned.  Not only were we going to be in New York, but we were staying on Wall Street.

My husband's cousin, Carli, lives in New York, we were going to visit her.  She let us know that days before we were going to be there, the protesters were banging drums - and whatever else they could do to make noise - at all hours of the day, and night.

It made me nervous.  Would my husband hate New York after dealing with the crowds that I knew were going to be flooding the streets?

Then Carli reminded me of something.  She said, "I feel like most of us (me included) are so ignorant of our history, our roots. In this instance, we forget how much our country was shaped by "protests", by people uniting especially to get worker's rights against the big corporations or companies in the early part of the century."

That made me step back and look at it in a different light.  There are so many times that I get trapped in my own world, that I don't see the big picture of the world around me - the real world we live in.

It made me excited.  All of the sudden, I realized we were going to witness history in the making.

Then we arrived in New York.

I asked the cab driver...and the person working the front desk at the hotel.  "Is the protesting crazy?  Has it been out of control?"

The answer I got from both was that it wasn't crazy - it was no big deal, as far as loud and obnoxious goes.

They were right.

The first day were were there, we went looking for the protesters.  They were no where to be found on Wall St.  They had moved to Zuccotti Park and that is where they were camping out.

The next evening, we were able to go to the 9/11 Memorial.  Zuccotti Park is not far away - that is when we saw them.

 

 

Many of the protesters were preparing signs.

 

And it seemed like they were getting a system together to do laundry?

 

 

And to this day I am still not sure how they did it.  These piles of clothing and bedding were every where around the outskirts of the park.

 

 

Whatever the stance you take on worker's rights against the big corporations, you have to hand it to these people.

They took time out of their lives to stand up for what they believe.  Many of them had their families with them.

It doesn't take anything to sit at home on your couch and bitch about what is going on...or look down your nose at the protesters because it's "weird" and not something we've seen people do on a daily basis until now.

But it does take courage to get out there and voice your opinion, to fight for what you think is right, and do all you can think to do to make this world we live in a better place for all of us.

It's easy to say those protesters are crazy when you have a job, when all of your family members have jobs, and you all have food on the table everyday.  But for so many Americans, that isn't the case.  They have been without jobs, some for years.  Many of those families have young children to provide for.

I'm not saying anyone should believe a certain way.

I'm asking you to just listen to what people have to say.

Get out of your little world and see the world around you.

 

If you have a job right now, be thankful for it.

(I know that is hard sometimes.)

 

And be thankful that it's Friday...for most of you that means this is your last day at that job for a few days.