You can't spell Greenbelt without GBLT(-:

[lavendertook]

And the above subject header is the slogan of the little GBLT Pride group that formed this summer in my little town of Greenbelt, the one thing this town needed to make it a completely good town to live in. Many of us call this town The People's Republic of Greenbelt because of the socialist underpinnings to the town, being one of the planned communities built under Roosevelt in the 1930's. They do a big Labor Day festival with rides, artery-clogging foods, and lots of bands--mostly local--but yesterday they had Herman's Hermits and I got to see "Henry VIII" performed live by the originals--are you jealous yet? They did put on a really fun show.

So today GreenBeLT Pride marched in Greenbelt's Labor Day Parade, and I have to say, we were just adorable. (-: I did a lot of organizing in the queer community in Chapel Hill back in the 80's, and have attended some of the events in the DC scene the past decade, but I got to say, this little town event was just the cutest.


There were about 20 of us with our bright pink t-shirts with the GreenBeLT PRIDE in white letters against a logo of forest green trees. One of our members drove a black convertible with a rainbow arch of balloons over head, out of which we blasted the best 80's queer music--ABBA, Madonna, Smaug Dr. Frankenfurter, etc. Folks did a nice banner to go in front, and we had a couple women doing color guard twirls with rainbow flags to lead. Behind the car we had had long swaths of red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple clothes with poles on each side, that people marched along with to form rainbow billows.

And we had little plastic rainbow flags that we gave out to the crowd lining the road we marched down. I was part of the flag-dispensing function and it was fun to watch how people would react. About half the crowd received the flags I'd offer happily, with smiles and thank yous, and most with an understanding that these were queer flags. About a third would steely-mouthed shake their heads in refusal when I offered flags--none were rude, however. Most of the little kids wanted flags and were so cute with them, though some with the steely-mouthed adults looked solemnly at me or down so I suspect they were warned before we approached. Most of the women who accepted flags did so with smiles and without hesitation. The men who took flags were split even on taking a flag happily and hesitating--the hesitating guys were funny--you could see the wheels turning with either, "OMG, if I hold one someone will think I'm gay . . .buuuut, I'm supposed to be for gay rights, so . . . OK" or "OMG, there's a lesbian smiling at ME, but if I take a flag someone will think I'm gay, but I'm supposed to be for gay rights, and that's a lesbian handing me something and when will that happen again? . . . OK" Ahaha!

But most everyone was friendly and it was a gorgeous day to be out (yeah, I know.) And our group won one of the parade prizes and then immediately started plotting what to do for next year. Ehehe! I wish I had had time to help out more, but there will be more times. Twas fun. And it's nice to finally have a local queer group where I can just walk to functions. (-:

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/lucid_dreamer_/]

Yay!!! ^^

We looked for You

[tacnukesoul.livejournal.com]

We were down there yesterday at the parade. DW was working the Greenbelt Art Center food booth since the play she's directing (Six Characters in Search of an Author) is performing at the GAC.

It was funny because we ran into all sorts of people we didn't expect, but we didn't see the one person who lives there.

Re: Where wre you?

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

I took off a little before the mobil station to run home and then dashed back when we had reached the judges stand at the end, so if ya'll were standing there, that might be why we missed each other. . If you were standing before there, maybe I was giving out flags on the other side of the street and missed ya'll. )-:

I didn't do the rounds of the festival on Sunday, though I was sitting with a bunch of GBLT Priders under a tree almost right behind the art center stand while they were reading out the parade prizes, so we just missed each other. )-:

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

:-D

Re: Where wre you?

[tacnukesoul.livejournal.com]

That's exactly what happened. We we in front of the gas station watching the parade. She was working the booth on Monday, so you wouldn't have seen her.

Erin got a flag, which she liked very much. DW and I were both amused by the sticker. I'm not sure what the Baptists thought because while we were waiting for DW to finish up she was in front of the church booth waving her flag around.

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Eh, it's good for them Baptists. Gets them sputtering and pointing, "See, they ARE recruiting children!" and gets their cardiovascular rate up a bit and that circulation going.