Lawsuit Filed Seeking Judicial Authorization of Charleston Demonstration for US Rep. Nancy Mace (R, SC-1)

Lawsuit Filed Against City of Charleston Seeking Judicial Authorization of April 5 Ace Mace Demonstration on Daniel Island

From William J. Hamilton, III, Atty at Law; Pettigrew Free Speech Defense (A project of Lowcountry Up is Good, PAC, Inc. 

To Lowcountry Press and Media

Date March March 29, 2025, 12 Noon

Image, Above. Rev. Thomas Dixon attempts to speak to the crowd at a rally at Hampton park using a 25 watt bullhorn in March 2025, which rendered him inaudible to many people in the crowd. Several high quality sound reinforcement systems were available to use, but the city would not permit it. Use of a sound system at this location would not have violated the City noise ordinance. 

Lowcountry, SC, USA- Louise Brown, Thomas Dixon and Attorney William Hamilton filed Federal Court for the District of South Carolina, Charleston Division on Friday, Feb. 28 seeking an injunction authorizing conducting the “Ace Mace, Chip and Charge” Demonstration outside the office of Congresswoman Nancy Mace on Daniel Island on Saturday, April 5. The federal case also seeks declaratory judgment that the current “Free Speech” ordinance regulating First Amendment activities in public space within the City of Charleston is unconstitutional, null and void and the City's payment of Attorney's fees and costs expended by Pettigrew Free Speech Defense (A project of Lowcountry Up is Good, PAC, Inc.) to bring the free speech protection action. 

A copy of the Complaint Filed with the Court can be read online. The supporting exhibits package is also online and available for public view. All filings and court orders in the case can be retrieved on the federal PACER system at https://pacer.uscourts.gov/find-case

The Plaintiffs

Image, Left, July 18, 2015 March to the Sea from Mt. Pleasant to the front beach of teh Isle of Palms. Permitted by both the Town of Mount Pleasant and IOP. Hamilton began leading the march but was retired to the sag wagon. 81 year old Lousie Brown assumed leadership and finished the march with Thomas Dixon. Transit to the Atlantic finally resumed after four more yeas of struggle.

The Plaintiff's have asked the court for an expedited hearing the first week in April so  a decree authorizing the demonstration on the date and in the location can be requested. Organizers have asked to hold their constitutionally authorized gathering on April 5, Charleston biggest tourism day of the year. Plaintiff's have chosen that date because Congresswoman Mace's neglect of the issues of transit, affordable housing and a living wage for Charlestonians endangers the future of our tourism and medical industries. 

The City of Charleston has been emailed the documents filed with the Court and will be formally served on Monday, March 31st when copies will be delivered to Mayor Cogswell at City Hall. 

Louise Brown, lead Plaintiff, is Charleston's revered “Mother of the Movement” and has been fighting for freedom, equality and social justice in the Holy City since marching at her mother's side during the Cigar Factory Strike in 1945-6. Brown was one of twelve nurses who challenged employment discrimination at the Medical University of South Carolina in 1969 and stopped Armored Personnel Carriers during a march with Coretta Scott King and Rosa Parks near the intersection of King and Morris streets while singing, “We Shall Not Be Moved.” She was exiled from Charleston for years following the strike and lived in New York city, finally returning with her growing family years later. Brown is the matriarch of a tribe of over 100 children, grand children and great grandchildren and their wives and husbands, many accomplished in their fields.  

In 2014, Louise was peacefully arrested at the Statehouse protesting the state's refusal to extend medicare with the SC Progressive Network. In July 2015, in 95 degree heat, Brown took over leadership of and completed the five mile March to the Sea to the Isle of Palms as part of a successful seven year campaign to return of CARTA public transit to the Atlantic.

Rev. Thomas Dixon is Charleston's leading contemporary social justice activist. He has held dozens of demonstrations, marches and rallies in the Charleston area. He's fought against gun violence in N. Charleston, using marches to drive drug dealers and criminals out of suffering communities. He's run for Mayor of North Charleston and the US  Senate. He is Associate Pastor at Life Community Church in Mount Pleasant. Dixon is National Board Member of Brady: United Against Gun Violence. He was recently elected Chairman of the Charleston County Democratic Party. Dixon appears in this legal action in his personal capacity and not as a representative of those organizations. 

William Hamilton is an attorney, writer and activist. He has been in practice since 1985 and has litigated hundreds of cases including the 1994 Burke v. Charleston case about the free speech right to paint murals in Charleston. Hamilton is the author of over 1000 published essays and columns about social justice, history, town planning, public transit and Lowcountry culture. Hamilton was the first person to be awarded the I'On Community's Civitas award for transformational neighborhood leadership and has also won the City of Charleston's Spotlight award. Hamilton is the leader of Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit and Lowcountry Up is Good, PAC, Inc. He is a graduate of the USC School of Law and the USC Honors College.

Pettigrew Free Speech Defense

Image, right, May 2024 protest outside Unity City meeting on John Street. Unity City sought to take over local government, churches and schools. It is believed that after community push back the effort, funded by hundreds of thousands of dollars in right wing funding, abandoned their efforts in Charleston.

Pettigrew Free Speech Defense, the legal team, representing the Plaintiffs is seeking sworn affidavits from citizens whose rights to assemble and practice free speech within the City of Charleston have been abridged by the City's government under the new ordinances. Please contact William Hamilton by calling (843) 870-5299 or emailing wjhamilton29464@gmail.com. Updates about the case will be posted on the Lowcountry Up is Good Facebook page and BluSky at https://bsky.app/profile/wjhamilton29464.bsky.social online

END END END

Image, Left, Our Mary flag honors the memory of the late Mary Smith (represented by the fairy on the moon in the canton of the flag). If the court orders the City to permit this demonstration, the Mary flag will fly proudly in her memory.

An Online version of this Media Notice has been posted at https://lc-up-is-good.blogspot.com/2025/03/lawsuit-filed-seeking-judicial.html

Issued March 29, 2025, 12 noon

Authorization to use content in this release and the included images, all of which are property of William J. Hamilton, III is granted to all persons and media. 

Media appearances by the Plaintiffs Hamilton and Dixon live in the Charleston area and online via zoom are available. Brown can be available on zoom by special arrangement, but is currently in the Raleigh, North Carolina area. 

Petigru Free Speech Defense Reactivates in Charleston, SC

Petigru Free Speech Defense Reactivates in Charleston, SC

Petigru Free Speech Defense (https://www.facebook.com/petigru.free.speech.def) will be reactivated by Lowcountry Up is Good, PAC, Inc. under the leadership of Activist Attorney William J. Hamilton, III, (Admitted to the SC Bar in 1985). Pettigrew Free Speech defense was founded during the time of Occupy Wall Street in Charleston in 2011 to provide counsel and legal assistance to Occupiers arrested during that movements actions. The organization has been reactivated several times since. Over a dozen SC attorneys have been involved. Some members have been involved with free speech issues in Charleston since 1994. We've worked with the ACLU, Unions and national free speech advocates.

14 Years of Protecting Free Speech in Charleston, SC

While Charleston's tight historic public spaces (increasingly privatized) and tourism focused governments do present special challenges to activism and free speech, the area is not so unique that the Constitution of the United States do not apply here. Challenges regarding activism vary throughout the area. We have assisted in filing and assisting others in filing applications for permits. 

We and the ACLU were able to end the illegal prohibition against political activity in Summerville's public parks in 2019. We've helped plan demonstrations to avoid predictable roadblocks and fine avenues for activism which evade Government's desire to silence local citizens so tourists can enjoy “Confederate Disneyland” for Black Lives Matter.

Current Free Speech Issues in the Lowcountry

We're familiar with the speech regimes of the area's various governments. While the landscape is changing rapidly, we've had good luck helping people stay loud and effective in a red state culture which regards citizens as a nuisance.

We have several serous issues which need to be addressed now, including unnecessarily restrictive limits on the use of amplified sound and where people can gather. The Customs House steps, traditionally used for local demonstrations have had their use restricted.

The work group is named after Charleston Attorney James L. Petigru who defended the rights of Northern property owners during the American Civil War here. During the secession convention he famously told a Northern newspaper reporter that, “South Carolina was too small to be a sovereign country and too large to be an insane acylium” during the reporter's visit to his Law Office on St. Michaels Ally (which still stands today).

If You See Free Speech Rights Being Violated or Want to Help

If you are aware of issues arising please take notes, capture video and get the names, addresses, phone numbers and contact information of witnesses. Legal actions aren't won with principles and ideas, but with facts. Dates, locations, times, names, distances and other details matter. Judges do not grant injunctions based on a vague sense of oppression. They will still protect our rights if we can prove they have been violated in ways the law and court decisions prohibit.

To Join the Effort

If you are an attorney, paralegal or private investigator interested in assiting with our work please email William Hamilton at wjhamilton29464@gmail.com or call (843) 870-5299.

We post on blue sky under https://bsky.app/profile/wjhamilton29464.bsky.social and maintain a Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/petigru.free.speech.def Posts include the hashtag #chsresist 

Updates and Timeline #chsresist

This page provides a timeline for known and planned local resistance events and planning updates on events in development. It is presented in reverse chronological order, most recent first. See listings at bottom of this page for other sources of current information on the resistance in the blue County of Charleston, SC.

April 5, 2024 promises to be a busy day for Social Justice. At least four demonstrations are planned around the Lowcountry including Ace Mace demonstration outside the office of Nancy Mace on Daniel Island from 1 to 4 pm, a  demonstration on Hutchison Square in Downtown Summerville. This is the Lowcountry's busiest tourism weekend and a prime opportunity for national witness that we are a real, vital community that is no longer content to stumble forward towards a future as "Confederate Disneyland."

March 29, 2025 Lowcountry Up is Good files suit against the City of Charleston in Federal District Court to obtain court approval for April 5, 2025 demonstration outside the Daniel Island office of Nancy Mace. Read the press release. 

March 28 - First "Cadet Mace Tolerates Those Who Do" buttons distributed at Mount Pleasant Town hall skipped by Rep. Nancy Mace. Image of design on right. Try to pick one up at some of the upcoming progressive events in her Congressional district. Mace began her tenure in Congress by voting to impeach lame duck President Trump in 2021, but now she's a believer. As a cadet she subscribed to the Citadel Honor Code which says, "A Cadet will not lie, cheat or steal or tolerate those who do." Mace the first female graduate of the Citadel, whose father was the Commandant of the Citadel has abandoned those core values for a more flexible approach that if Trump can help me get the  Republican nomination for Governor, anything he does is good. Like our Senator Lindsey Graham, who ran against trump in the Republican prirmaries in 2016, the rabid red base has persuaded her to abandon her core values, making a mockery of the Citadel and her fellow cadets. 

March 28- Maceless Town Hall Held in Mount Pleasant. Huge, orderly assembly of Citizens demands better reorientation from US Representative Nancy Mace (R, SC-!) in packed Town Hall Meeting in Mount Pleasant. Meeting ends with stirring rendition of America the Beautiful from crowd. Mace dismisses gathering as "fake news" and unsafe, insulting constituents in Mt. Pleasant. 

March 17 2025- Application for police permit for Ace Mace- Chimp and Charge Demonstration filed with Charleston PD.

Pettigru Free Speech Defense Reactivates in Charleston, SC - Pettigrew Free Speech Defense (https://www.facebook.com/petigru.free.speech.def) will be reactivated by Lowcountry Up is Good, PAC, Inc. to provide legal cover for resistance Free Speech activities. Attorneys, paralegals and investigators needed. 

March 16, 2025- #chsresist hashtag deployed to help local efforts cohere on Blue Sky and other social media outlets.

Other Sources of Information on the Resistance in #CHSSC

• Charleston Good- Runs a website featuring many of the local events and organizations working for a more sustianable and just Lowcountry. See https://growpurpose.com/charlestongood/community-events/
• Facebook page of Rev. Thomas Dixon. Rev. Dixon's personal Facebook page posts regular graphical promotions on local progressive and community events. 

Lowcountry Resistance will Cohere and Grow Using #chsresist Hashtag

The growing size and energy of Lowcountry resistance efforts since the election of the Trump/Musk/Putin administration is encouraging, but it's nearly impossible for anyone to know what is going on.

Image, Right, Protest Music from throughout America's history of Struggle, some updated for the moment, was a sing along concert at the Unitarian Church on March 15

Join the #chsresist 

Effective Immediately DiversCity Charleston, Lowcountry Up is Good PAC and Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit will begin inserting hashtag #chsresist in all our resistance related posts. We invite other progressive resistance and community support efforts to do the same. 

While many local progressives are attempting to migrate to Bluesky, finding a Lowcountry progressive focus within that online community has been difficult. A simple hashtag will fix that. If you haven't signed up for Bluesky, please do so. Evidence mounts that Facebook is becoming too dysfunctional to rely on. My feed there is https://bsky.app/profile/wjhamilton29464.bsky.social

Until this hashtag is widely adopted, your best chance of getting a comprehensive feed of what is going on is to monitor the Facebook feed of Pastor Thomas Dixon

Local print and broadcast media are under tremendous pressure to black out progressive activity. They and their advertisers are threatened when they cover us. While we continue to agonize over decisions about boycotting businesses, an organized effort in place for over 15 years threatens to boycott any organization that advertises on media which covers our activities. While a few reports are published to avoid outing the existence of this effort, we can't rely on media to do our communicating for us any longer. 

Using #chsresist will allow us to use apps to monitor all our social media, connect with our friends and make our stand on this precious blue island along the coast more effective and rewarding. 

Image, Presenting former Congressman Mark Sanford with the big petition for Transit at a morning constituent meet and greet in Awendaw, 2017 (probably). 

April 5 Efforts Building

There is a massive cluster of local resistance actions developing around April 5, a day selected for National Resistance which is also Charleston's biggest tourism weekend of the year. The Bridge Run, Tennis Tournament and Charleston Festival (Formerly the House Tours) fill our city with tourists. It's the day to show 50 thousand visitors that #chsresists. We'll be organizing a demonstration on Daniel Island entitled Ace Mace, Chip and Charge! to offer Representative Mace the opportunity to return to representing her district instead of working for Trump/Musk/Putin. 

As much as we often disagreed with Mark Sanford, he did respond to us, was always friendly and clearly respected us as citizens. We contributed to his defeat in the 2018 Republican Primary. Mark even though we still believe we needed different policies and contributed to your defeat, we have to admit we miss you and the old days now. 

More  Information

about Lowcountry Up is Good, PAC and our 10 year effort to build a Lowcountry which has functional public transit, affordable housing and a living wage. 

• Call Executive Director William Hamilton at (843) 870-5299 or email him at wjhamilton29464@gmail.com
• Follow us on Blue Sky at https://bsky.app/profile/wjhamilton29464.bsky.social

Released March 16, 2025, Mt. Pleasant, SC

Ace Mace, Chimp & Charge Demonstration Planned for April 5 on Daniel Is.

 

Social Justice Advocates Plan April 5 Demonstration near Daniel Island Office of Nancy Mace

Updates: see our Charleston Resists update page for a timeline and updates. 

March 28- The City of Charleston has refused to grant a permit for this time and location. Lowcountry Up is Good, Inc. filed an action in US District Federal Court on March 28 to obtain a Court Order authorizing the demonstration. Please return here for updates and revisions based on what happens in court. Your presence at the hearing will help show the court that this demonstration and the issues it raises are important to the Citizens of the Lowcountry. Full details on the Lawsuit being filed.

March 27- We're looking for experience in making and deploying some puppets for a political puppet theater as part of this demonstration. We're also seeking musicians to play for some of the time we'll be by the road. We hope to have a sing along as well. Please bring us your suggestions so this can be more than a shake sings and chant demonstration. 

The fight to save the Lowcountry's future as a component of a diverse, social democracy will be the motivation for a major social justice demonstration action being planned for Saturday, April 5 near the Daniel Island office of US Representative Nancy Mace. The demonstration will include delegations from a coalition of human rights and economic justice organizations from the 1^st Congressional District and Lowcountry including those committed to healthcare, reproductive rights, civil rights, the living wage, education, affordable housing and transit. 

The demonstration will prove local opposition to the recent decision by the US Congress to surrender it's Constitutional authority to control and protect the public purse to Trump/Musk which Rep. Mace chose to endorse with our vote. 

Justification for Ace Mace Social Justice Action

Charleston is rated the best place in the US to vacation, but low wages and a rising cost of living drive citizens to desperation. Working residents spend hours snarled in traffic, missing time with their children who struggle alone to learn through homework what their schools seem incapable of teaching. Mace ignores her constituents and these issues while pursing the Republican nomination for Governor or SC and seeking profile on right wing media through sexuality connected culture war issues. On the only weekend of the year when every Charleston area hotel room is full, we will point out the lack of focus leaders like Rep. Mace have on issues like reliable transit, affordable housing, a living wage, education, healthcare and human rights. 

As progressive South Carolinian's we accept the reality of living in a red state, however, that does not mean it is acceptable for a US Representative to dodge contact with the people she represents while they stagger under collapsing federal safety net programs, a rapidly rising cost of living and the loss of the cultural and environmental opportunities which once made living in the SC Low country more attractive than it is now. Our position as working citizens here is unsustainable, even for conservative Republicans. 

Our Congresswoman should be holding town halls, connecting with the people she represents and working towards a better future for all our children, red and blue. While we cannot hope to find common cause with MAGA Trumpublicans, it is the duty of our Congresswoman to hear and represent us all. In areas where our interests coincide such as cost of living, traffic and housing, it continues to be her duty to act in the Congress in the best interest of our entire district. 

Image, right, William Hamilton, outside the Office of US Representative Nancy Mace on Daniel Island after an advocacy visit to her staff on Feb. 26, 2025. 

This demonstration is scheduled to commemorate the 158^th anniversary of a demonstration in downtown Charleston where African Americans and their supporters confronted a city guard (the police department of that era) composed of former Confederate soldiers at the four corners of law. This confrontation was a part of the two month long successful struggle to desegregate Charleston’s then new, horse drawn streetcars. During the demonstration (also called a riot by some observers) the US Army of Occupation turned out a company of Black Federal soldiers to protect the African Americans and preserve order. No one was killed during the tense confrontation, which took place in the first weeks of Federally enforced reconstruction. Mary Bowers, the Rosa Parks of Charleston would go on to help lead the struggle, demanding the right to ride on Meeting street two weeks later and ultimately winning it for all Charlestonians in early May.

You can read a detailed account of this and other related events in spring of 1867 in Voices of Black South Carolina by Damon L. Fordham, pp. 29-33, History Press, 2009.

Demonstrations and social justice actions executed in Charleston and the Lowcountry this Spring will be linked to events in that historic struggle to win the right to ride which will continue to Memorial weekend, when it is hoped the long fought for Beach Reach CARTA Shuttle will survive budget cuts to return transit to the Atlantic. 

Image, Left, Protestors demonstrating support for Ukraine, Charleston, SC at the US Customs House, Feb. 24, 2025

The Organizers, Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit, Inc. and Lowcountry Up is Good, PAC, Inc. plan to seek a permit for the demonstration from the City of Charleston Police Department. No violence or destruction of property is planned as part of this peaceful demonstration. Participants will be required to sign up online prior to participating. An overflow standby area will be established and the demonstration will be three hours long, conducted in two 90 minute shifts. An after event is being planned.

Education advocates will be asked to wear red; healthcare & reproductive rights advocates blue; Transit advocates green; housing advocates brown; labor advocates yellow (reflective vests) and gender identity advocates pridewear.

Image, left, Louise Brown, "The Mother of the Movement" (wearing the green mask) a veteran of the 1960s Civil Rights movement, One of the Twelve nurses who led the MUSC Hospital Strike of 1969, will help lead the effort. 

This demonstration is scheduled to take place during the finals of the Credit One Charleston Open, the largest women’s only tennis tournament in North America. It will be conducted on public property in accordance with the rights and privledges reserved to citizens under the First and Fourtneenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States and with the supervision and help of a team of Experience, SC Licensed Attorneys trained in Civil Rights and Social Justice Advocacy issues, led by William J. Hamilton, III, Lowcountry Attorney,  activist and writer.

For more information contact

William J. Hamilton, III
Ex. Dir.
Best Friends of Lowocuntry Transit, Inc. & Lowcountry Up is Good, PAC, Inc.
wjhamilton29464@gmail.com
(843) 870-5299
Bluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/wjhamilton29464.bsky.social
Monitor #chsresist for details

 

Remember Rosa Parks and Fight for Transit, #TransitEquityDay 2025 in CHS

 

Don't Give Up Your Seat in Feb. Remember Rosa Charleston, SC, USA- This year's Transit Equity Day (Feb. 4)  is important because we know a major effort to defund public transit in the United States is on the way. The MAGA agenda is anti urban and destroying the quality of life in our cities is a central tactic. Nothing robs people of their freedom more effectively than rendering them immobile. Charleston's excruciatingly slow progress towards construction of the LCRT might end if the Trump administration manages to defund Transit. Like Rosa Parks, we need your help to prepare to hold on to our seat, our place, our dignity and our rights.  Project 2025's anti transit agenda Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit will begin our effort with a public information campaign on Martin  Luther King Weekend promoting our local effort to the Lowcountry Progressive Community. its important that people wanting to be involved step forward so we can promote their contributions to this effort. Local media is no longer strong or effective enough to help us, so we need to reach our own people and activate the community.  Starting Feb, 4 We'll be putting posters honoring Rosa like those at the top of this email on selected CARTA buses. You can sponsor this entire effort for $100.  Right, Social Media Banner Promoting Rosa Pancake Effort, from 2022. We'll also be doing several pancake breakfast efforts that week to connect the community with the memory of Rosa's struggle with our own Civil Rights Hero, Louise Brown. If your church, organization or business wants to serve the pancakes, we'll provide PDF versions of posters and handbills to drive participation and raise awareness not only of Rosa, but also Charleston's own Mary Bowers and Esau Jenkins, Charleston's Transit Equity Heros. We can be present with multimedia content to empower your members or customers.  If you would like to help, now is the time. We'll soon be involved in a fight to save the millions of opportunities to ride transit provided by CARTA and Tri County Link At little organization now, we'll prepare us for a much stronger effort later. We're not going to give up our seat and the opposition will learn that, however if we're strong at the start, the damage the conflict will cause can be reduces and get us to a better future sooner.  We'll be announcing the effort at next week's CARTA Board Meeting, so anyone who can pitch in now will really help. If you can help, reply to this message or Contact William Hamilton at 843-870-5299 or wjhamiton29464@gmail.com

Copyright © 2025 Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit, Inc., All rights reserved. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

Charleston Burners Celebrate Festivus 2024

 

Charleston Burners Celebrate Festivus 2024

By William J. Hamilton, III

The Charleston, SC Burner Community celebrated Festivus a bit early this year at their weekly burner’s gathering, Weirdo Wednesday at Container Bar.

Being burners we’ve been elaborating the limited guidance provided in the essential Sienfeld episode. We’re always looking for things to do at our weekly gatherings. Immediacy means doing, not just talking about it.  Learn more about Festivus.

The Charleston Burning man community gathers at Container Bar on Mt. Pleasant Street in downtown Charleston, SC from about 7 to 9 pm most Wednesdays. We often have wandering burners from around the world join us. We're always having some fun or planning some fun. 

Ed brought out a really impressive Festivus pole from the Magical Bamboo Forrest. The cut down flag pole was mounted on stout metal stand, which kept it erect, but not stable enough for use a dance pole.

The burners sampled the mulled wine from the bar, redolent with holiday spices, and aired their grievances around a Festivus feast of fake Samoas from the discount Aldi grocery store, artfully laid out on a paper plate. Various grievances were aired with the goal of reinforcing the community by recognizing our failure to live out the 10 burning man principles. One memorable grievance was the complaint that people had failed to practice radical inclusion by not inviting a friend for a hair dying party to they could practice radical self expression. The pink and orange haired lady offenders assured her that they would not repeat this offense in the year ahead. It wasn’t very clear that there had been a hair dying party this year, but it was obvious that there will be one in the future.

If the default world is getting ugly, what real incentive is left to conform?

Not everyone had remembered to bring their Festivus gift for the exchange, which is supposed to consist of items worth little or nothing, usually one toss from the recycle bin or next yard sale. We resisted commodifiction by gifting packages of teriyaki flavored dried seaweed misdelivered to Wendy by Walmart earlier this year, cast off candy dishes my mother in law slipped into a bag after a family dinner with severe instructions never to bring them back twenty years ago and a snap  on bicycle light. Someone brought a plate of stones which those assembled concluded might be turned into a game activity of stacking them on someone’s chest or back.

Those who had failed to plan for the gift exchange were driven back to their cars to pick through trunks, back seats and glove compartments in desperation. Everyone participated. No one was disappointed. Burners have an abundance of cast off stuff just waiting to be creatively reused, Festivus presents an obvious opening to gift some of that away. Leaving No Trace always means accumulating baggage. Ed scored an impressive propeller beanie. We even shared some of our gifts with the other patrons on the outdoor bar’s deck.

Noone found or remembered to bring a doll. However no one rained blows upon anyone else. There is a better way.

But what do you do with the pole? In lieu of the Feats of Strength we concluded our observance by gathering around the Festivus Pole, each of us reaching out for a firm grip. The pole symbolizes, Communal Effort, our shared will to gather, to share, to focus and to invent.

Festivus is a made up holiday, but they all are. Burners just refuse to surrender the making up of special days to corporate marketing departments. We can invent a city in the desert and sprinkle burns around the world. We can repurpose a private family holiday, transformed into a sub plot by a TV writer in a long cancelled situation comedy and make it our own as well.

Image, right, a Festivus gift of dried seaweed and mulled wine at Container bar. 

We celebrated our Festivus early, but Dec. 23 is the actual traditional day. I hope everyone has a happy festivus and a wonderful holiday season.

END END END.