Chance Encounters with Bob Flaherty: A royal rout: Signs that paint a picture of regal resistance

GRANBY — The intersection famously known as Five Corners actually boasts SIX corners, if you factor all the many ways on and off a barreling 202, including the battle-tested turn onto Amherst Street.

But signs other than stop? The only ones seen as the sun rose that Saturday said Tag Sale, pointing to a spot farther up Pleasant Street, along with an ad for picking your own strawberries at a farm even farther.

That all changed dramatically as the hour of 10 rang out. While President Trump performed his regal duties at his personally-arranged military parade in DC, his royal subjects from one end of this country to the other had some things to say. And they said it with signs, hand-lettered and held high, full-color visual gut punches, with opinions enough to fill a month of op-ed space. The No Kings Rally has come to Granby.

SO BAD THE INTROVERTS ARE HERE bespoke the sign of South Hadley’s Ellen Cohen, a retired social worker and avowed introvert. “I don’t even like the attention I get from the sign,” she laughed. “But I think I need to be here to tell the world that I’m not alone.”

REJECTING KINGS SINCE 1776 came the message of Granby’s Michelle Bushey, recently retired from the National Science Foundation. “I’m so impressed with the turnout in little old Granby.”

The columnist rode his bike to the event to hang with his friend Carla Michel, she of the Elvis Presley sign: DON’T BE CRUEL. THE ONLY AMERICAN KING with the side-burned icon painted at the bottom — and the columnist expected to spend an hour or so denouncing the villainy of an American monarchy with Carla and a couple dozen diehards, Granby’s reputation as a hotbed of activism being what it is.

The sidewalks are packed — three and four deep on both sides of 202. Cars are parked a half-mile up Amherst Street or wherever else they can be squeezed. What appear to be several hundred people chanting, singing, hollering, waving American flags and signs, signs, everywhere signs. And, there, out of the hundreds, is Carla’s Elvis, except, no Carla.

“She’s not feeling well,” said Carla’s South Hadley neighbor Sue Barnard, who picked up the sign like a downed flag and made for Granby. Another neighbor, Indira Peterson, held a placard: LIBERTY EQUALITY JUSTICE FOR ALL “I did not go to school in this country but I understand the Pledge of Allegiance, especially justice for all,” she said. “So very important to know.”

WE ARE CREATED EQUAL NO ONE IS SUPERIOR seconded Beth Bachand of Granby, who stood amidst a series of smaller signs decrying the rounding up of immigrants by ICE. “We stand witness to the hate and fear that separate us,” she said.

Not everyone here was comfortable giving last names, fearing reprisal from a president seemingly bent on revenge.

SPEAK UP WHILE IT’S STILL LEGAL cried the message of Jen, a Belchertown nurse. “They’re already silencing people, removing people from the country and going after them with the military,” she said.

NO FAUX KING WAY mocked the sign of Wendy, a retired nurse from Chicopee, who worries that once Trump gets tired of rounding up illegals he’ll come for dissenters. “I’m traveling to Europe!” she laughed. “But my visa application hasn’t been approved yet.”

KINGS NO, QUEENS YES, both a nod to Pride month, said its creator, John Sarage of South Hadley, “But it’d be better if women ran the government.”

Some signs were downright educational, like the fully-illustrated KNOW YOUR PARASITES by Chicopee lawyer Pam Malchick, showing the fangs and legs of the dog tick and deer tick and the teased blond hair of the “luna-tick.”

VACCINES: SAFE AND EFFECTIVE SINCE 1793 read teacher Laura’s creation. “I work with autistic children and worry about their future if some of RFK’s plans go through.”

CLEANUP IN AISLE 47 barked the sign of Will Jeffries of South Amherst, who said, “I love it but can’t take credit. The woman who made it had to go.”

HANDS OFF OUR DEMOCRACY! warned two large identical signs framed by a dozen blue hands — painter’s gloves it turns out — created by South Hadley’s Jack and Priscilla Finn. Said the latter: “You want to get rid of Trump, you have to think creatively.” Though longtime Northampton residents, the couple chose not to attend the Hamp rally. “We feel there are more conservatives here,” said Priscilla. “It’s moral witness to those who might be driving by.”

Jack, looking around at his generation personified, worried about the shortage of young people here. “It’s definitely a senior thing,” he smiled.

As if on cue comes a teenager’s bullhorn-boosted voice: “HEY HEY! HO HO! DONALD TRUMP HAS GOT TO GO!” In fact, anytime someone hits the cross button to visit someone on the other side, Ashleigh Thayer, a junior at Belchertown High, flies into action, skipping, I repeat, skipping through every single corner while shouting. “I’m known for running all over Belchertown,” she said, “but this is the longest I’ve ever skipped in my life.

“Love your energy!” cries a passing protester.

“Whenever it’s getting a little quiet, I go,” said Thayer. “It’s keeping everybody up and awake.” The born thespian is currently playing the witch in “The Wizard of Oz,” from which she provides a snippet of lilting dialogue and plans on combining theater and political science in college. “HEY HEY! HO HO! DONALD TRUMP HAS GOT TO GO!”

“Give that girl a hand!” said another.

While even larger rallies (Northampton) had speakers on mics exhorting the crowd, signs and voices do it here, and the crowd — the passing parade of motorists, that is — responds with a chorus of car-horns, long notes and short, eliciting lusty roars from the sign-folk in turn. It sounds like a sold-out ballpark dropped in the middle of Times Square.

And our little putt-putt hybrids do not, shockingly, have the same pitched horn. There are strings, brass and woodwinds here, illogically blending like the Pioneer Valley Symphony. One car fittingly blasted Neil Diamond’s “Coming to America” while another beat out the cadence of “Jingle Bells.” And there goes a honking white car with the identical Elvis sign held out the window. How many of these things did Carla make? “At least two,” laughed Sue Barnard.

Yes, there were a couple of hard-screeching vehicles making an aggressive point or two with spewing exhaust, and one young man announced out his window: “Trump is our president, doing a great job, and one day you’ll all realize that!”

Doubtful that anyone here could imagine such a thing.

NO ONE IS ILLEGAL ON STOLEN LAND read the sign of Granby’s Laurie, who said: “If you do nothing, nothing happens.”

Directly across the street from one another were two signs with eerily similar messages: WHY DOES THIS FEEL LIKE GERMANY IN THE 1930s? begged the sign of Ellen, a retired college coach. “So many parallels to then and now,” she said. “People following Hitler blindly just as Trump people do now. The things he’s doing without the consent of the American people …”

STOP TALKING! PROJECT 2025 IS HERE! cried Longmeadow’s Sarah Marble’s sign, referring to the Heritage Foundation’s playbook, which, many say, borrows from the Third Reich. The scariest part of 2025? “That’s like asking which alligator you’re afraid of,” she smiled. “Trump wanted to stay out of jail and this makes sure of it. We’ll have an elite class who will be our sole voice and who can’t be questioned. You have to read it carefully.”

Between horn-honking lulls, you can make out the singing of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Our Land.”

Finally, speaking excrementally, the highest of all signs, one attached to a long metal pole, moves through the crowd like a bishop’s processional cross. The work of retired fire warden Trevor Augustino, the piece features Trump’s official White House portrait glowering from inside a mounted toilet seat. “I was remodeling my bathroom, so I recycled and repurposed,” he said.

His other masterpiece, DUMP TRUMP, CHOOSE FREEDOM or FORKED TONGUE SPEAKS LIES, an enormous two-sided thing attached to a trailer he hauled here by bike, is leaning over there by Cumberland Farms. All of the president’s untruths appear in the 13 stripes of a flag, and there’s Trump’s silhouette with flicking yellow tongue. “Protesting Trump is a full-time job,” he laughed.

The rally breaks up well after noon, and there goes Augustino, hauling his massive creations up 202, away from the safety of the crowd, Trump’s forked tongue inviting response, a move as nakedly brazen as Hancock signing the Declaration.

“What are they gonna do — audit my taxes?” he said. “I’ve had a good life. Do your worst.”

Bob Flaherty, a longtime author, radio personality and former Gazette writer and columnist, writes a monthly column called “Chance Encounters” in which he writes about our neighbors going about their daily lives.