Last week I stood in line at the LaCrosse Republican headquarters and picked up tickets for myself, three of my children and one of their friends (Tyler) to go see George Bush. Each of the kids were really excited about the chance to see the president. On Friday morning, Tyler, the friend, made a t-shirt to wear that had pro-Bush slogans all over it. My kids and I made t-shirts that were not anti-Bush, but instead politely expressed the concerns that we had over the high human and monetary costs of the war in Iraq. We went to LaCrosse and made it as a group to the last checkpoint. There a lady was asking some of the adults to unbutton their shirts so she could see if they had anything inappropriate under their shirts. When I unbuttoned mine, she saw the anti-war slogan and called security. A guy came over, grabbed our tickets and asked how I managed to get them. He looked at my 9-year-old and told us that "We don't want people like you here," then ripped up our tickets and told us to get out of the area. We had no idea that being anti-war would be perceived as being anti-Bush.

We went over by all of the anti-Bush/anti-war protestors and listened to what they had to say. No one in the protest was breaking the law, but the cops were videotaping everyone that was near the protest area. Tyler was discussing politics with many of the adults in the protest and it was really neat to see the tolerance that was displayed by everyone when he expressed his pro-Bush views. One anti-war slogan changed the day, but in the end the day turned into one valuable lesson on how the Democrats and Republicans have different attitudes towards and tolerances for a diversity of opinions.

Sandra McAnany

Norwalk