When I worked as a reporter, I wouldn't join a political party or sign a petition. I was an "unenrolled" voter. I wouldn't have a bumper sticker on my truck. I never donated to any candidate. I didn't attend marches or protests unless an editor sent me. It's not a big deal. It's just the job.

I'm a newspaper columnist now, and my opinion is my business.

And last Friday night, I sat in our living room, after supper, drinking a can of American beer, and I told my wife, Deborah, I was going to the next day's "No Kings" protest in our town.

"Maybe I'll go," I said.

"I don't wanna make too big a deal out of it," I told her. "But on Mom's side, my ancestors fought at Lexington and Concord. If I go, it'll be because of them."

My ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War, not me. I don't own any part of their bravery, or their glory, and their fighting doesn't mean I'm more of an American than some woman who took the oath last week. Attending a No Kings protest is a helluva lot less risky than swapping musket balls with the British Army, even if Americans today like nothing better than shooting into a crowd of people. The damn dollar store is risky in 2025.

And the next morning, she watched me put on a 20-year-old cowboy shirt with green, black and gray stripes and pearl buttons.

She lifted one graceful eyebrow at my choice of shirt. I have nicer shirts, and newer.

"Hell," I said to her. "If an old white man like me is going to this thing, I wanna look as redneck-y as possible."

She had to go to the grocery store. Men are always bellowing their opinions, but women do the work of the world and always have.

"Stay safe," she said as she left. "You know what it's like these days."

The protest lined both sides of a road across the street from a cemetery. One of my grandfathers is buried there, the one who served in World War I. So is an uncle who served in World War II and Korea. A few blocks away is my mother's childhood home where one winter, in the depths of the Depression, her family chopped up their dining room furniture and burned it in the furnace because they were too poor to buy coal. We belong here like the stripes belong on the flag.

It was a good-sized protest for a town that still has some farmland, and there was a guy in a unicorn costume, and a woman in an American eagle costume, and an army green jeep with two flags propped up in the back kept driving by so the two guys in the cab could give us the finger.

"Go back to Venezuela," one of them shouted.

"Hell," I said to the guy next to me. "I've never even been to Venezuela."

Two young girls giggled while they made signs, writing "No Kings" on pieces of lime green posterboard. They took the signs and stood next to a guy in a T-Shirt with "Marine Corps Veteran" on the front.

I'm old enough to remember protests that started as shallow puddles of disagreement and became big enough to stop the Vietnam War.

I'd never taken part in a protest, but I figure some of my ancestors hadn't ever fought in a revolution, and they did just fine.

To find out more about Marc Dion and read features by Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com. Dion's latest book, a collection of his best columns, is called "Mean Old Liberal." It is available in paperback from Amazon.com, and for Nook, Kindle, and iBooks.

Photo credit: Koshu Kunii at Unsplash