Indian Elders Open for Al

Change is good . . . I can be more vigilant about recycling. I can turn out lights when I leave a room.

But Al Gore is doing a whole lot more than that. He's mobilizing young and old across cultures and time zones to ramp up the volume on global warming.

Saturday, July 7, I drove down to the Museum of the American Indian at about 10 am to see if I could take a picture or two at the last-minute "Mother Earth" event here in DC.

Opening the event, an American Indian grandmother and a midwife offered prayers to remind us to cherish the ground we stand on.

Besides Al, his wife Tipper was there. But not the bad boy Al III. I'll bet he was grounded for driving 100 miles per hour, etc.

Trish Yearwood and Garth Brooks were there too. And some Indian rockers and blues artists.

I parked up on Louisiana Avenue near the Capitol and walked five blocks to the museum.

Crossing in front of the Capitol, I walked around all the fencing and cement blockades. Did you know there's even a little fence around the statue on top of the dome?

At the museum, I joined a short line inching forward towards a temporary gate. Students, families, some tourists, all mixed ages and colors, moved with little sound.

But as it ended up, I was wrong about the line. It was a whole lot longer than I thought.

But I didn't find out until I was already inside with a pack of 20-year-olds who were grumbling that I had cut in line.

I apologized, but I didn't give up my spot. "I'm just taking a couple of photos and leaving," I explained.

I later found out they had been there since 11 pm the night before. Why I have no idea.

In short order, we were all behind a metal cattle guard to keep us from moving up towards the stage. Then it got noisy. "This isn't fair!" People yelled. "We've been here since last night, and we can't even see the stage!"

As it turned out, people who arrived last got perfect, unobstructed spots right in front of the stage!

As a child of the 60s, I'm happy to remind young people that playing by the rules and joining a line that started yesterday, isn't a great idea . . . but nobody listens to me.

Not even me.

How goofy am I to cut in a line that ended up with no good spot to take a photo! Plus those cattle guards are interlocking, so you can't get out when you want to!

And meanwhile, the latecomers could move around without any barricades at all! Plus they had big buckets of ice filled with water bottles for free.

Life isn't fair . . . but then we were there to think about the planet not ourselves, right?

And who better, than Al Gore to send the wake up call . . .