Hugh the Activist

Meet Hugh from Chicago. Hugh is a Political Science major at Columbia College in Chicago, and has experienced his fair share of excitement for his age.At no more than age 26, Hugh is a Greenpeace liberal, and wears it on his sleeve. He claims (and I very much believe) that he has protested over a hundred times, and has been arrested “30 or 40″ times. His arrests, sans conviction, only seem to spur him on, as he has protested in Venezuela (against Taco Bell), Rome (against religion…his friend was being ordained as a priest), and in every one of the continental United States, as well as Mexico and Canada.We ride together for only a short time, but it is enough to get a taste of the vivaciousness of this young man. His concentration in college, he says, is an attempt to actually “Do something” about the things he protests about, which he acknowledges do very little, except to inform others and possibly incite anger from the public. He hopes to be a politician, if “even an Alderman” to be able to make change.He tells one story which had us laughing: at a protest before this semester, he ended up in a fight against the anti-protest protest, and punched a conservative protester (a woman) in the face (albeit, he claims, accidentally). That semester, he showed up to a class he had to take (required for his major) and looked up to meet his victim eye to eye–his teacher! Needless to say, he will probably drop the class because “She will definitely fail me.”He tells a story about crossing the Canadian-American border one time with his friends, and they had a video camera. On camera, they made fun of the fat, balding guard at the border crossing (saying something like “Anyone could do his job”), but didn’t turn the camera off in time. The guard took the camera for “security reasons” and insisted that they review the tape. The friends waited in the car, and when the guard finally emerges he was red in the face with anger. “This job can’t be done by anyone!” he insists, and then says that one of their jobs he bet he could do, too. One of the friends then said “I’m an electrical engineer” and the guard stammered, “Well, you got me there” and let them through.Also, apparently, a friend of his put a “Impeach Bush” sign on his lawn and ended up spending 180 days in jail…His stories sound more apocryphal than substantive, but aren’t all stories brushed up with a little hyperbole? Truthful or not, he made great company. Unfortunately I don’t have a picture to post!Hugh, if you’re reading this, keep up the good work. Protesters may be a dying breed, but they do come in handy.’

Brian, August 28th 2007, 9:30 pm     Filed under: Bus   /   0 Comments