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David Mandelblatt and Bob Nightingale were debating which president was worse: Richard Nixon or Donald Trump.
“This makes Nixon look good,” Mandelblatt said.
“People keep saying that,” Nightingale replied, “and I just can’t get there. But I see your point.”
Cars breezed past the Regal Lloyd Cinemas. Pickup truck drivers honked their horns. Mandelblatt and Nightingale waved. Just as they had for Nixon, the two friends, each 78, were out in the streets protesting Trump.
They are “multiple timers,” Nightingale said.
It’s a ritual now going on 13 weeks. Each Saturday at noon, the residents of Holladay Park Plaza (1300 NE 16th Ave.), a Lloyd District retirement tower, make their way one block to the intersection of Northeast Multnomah Street and 16th Avenue. Many travel with walkers and wheelchairs. For one hour, they wave signs handwritten with earnest messages: “Fire Trump.” “Hands off Social Security.” “Not in my name.”
It was Mandelblatt’s idea. “We can’t go downtown,” he explained. “If the people can’t come to the march, the march can come to them.”
Holladay Park Plaza is something of a hotbed of political agitators. Mandelblatt, a retired middle school teacher from Eugene, spent six years on the Oregon Education Association board. Nightingale tried to levitate the Pentagon, and got a National Guard truncheon to the skull for his trouble. Caroline Miller, 89, was a Multnomah County commissioner. “I’m still out here politicking,” she told WW.
With age comes a certain perspective: not just about the dire state of the nation, but also about a person’s modest place in it. Several of the seniors on the Lloyd District sidewalk said they felt a responsibility to be near the front lines of civil unrest because they had nothing left to fear.
And there are other advantages. “One of the joys of getting older is you can’t hear,” Nightingale said, gazing at the traffic. “They could be yelling, ‘I’m coming to kill you two hours from now,’ and I’d still be here.”
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