Two No Kings protests in one day, one in Cayucos

June 16, 2025

Editor’s Note: The following series, “Life in Radically Gentrifying Cayucos by the Sea,” to be posted biweekly includes the notes, thoughts, and opinions of an original American voice: author Dell Franklin. 

Franklin’s memoir, “The ballplayer’s Son” and “Life on The Mississippi, 1969” are currently on Amazon.

I was late to the little No Kings protest on the overpass above the freeway in Cayucos because earlier I attended the massive protest in San Luis Obispo where an enthusiastic but peaceful crowd of thousands under warm sunlight sported signs everywhere that warmed the hearts of democrats long subdued by the goings-on in America. This crowd was aroused and ready to fight over the cruelty and blatant corruption by an administration of brown shirts in suits and ties.

The signs were everywhere–Trump Public Enemy # One, Trump Is a Low-life Crook, Immigrants Welcome, ICE is Best Crushed, and the simply declared FUCK TRUMP.

It was a morning to rejoice. There’s a lot of people pissed off and losing sleep at night with no place to really vent except among family and friends, and many are having trouble dealing with friends and relatives who support Trump and his mean-spirited politics.

The people I went with and met are all older, as are Ethan, my tennis partner, and his wife, who have been to most rallies over the years and testified that they were pleased that more young people were attending.

“Well,” I said, “They’d better come. It’s their country. Most of the older people here will be checking out in the near future.”

Maybe these young people feel the same hopelessness many of us old folks feel, but also realize they will have to deal with the shit coming down for a good fifty years if they don’t step up ASAP. They do not recall a time when a president who came from a super wealthy Patrician family volunteered for suicide missions in WWII and lost a brother in that war and later challenged the country to “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”

John F. Kennedy started the Peace Corps. And backed down the Russians in Cuba over the missile crisis that had the entire country terrified of a nuclear war.

I am lucky to be of a generation when leaders inheriting big money and big power fought alongside the little guys because they would not have been able to look in the mirror without doing so.

Now we have a president who had bone spurs during the Vietnam war, feels people who allow themselves to put their asses on the line are suckers, spews lies and propaganda to airborne troops, and sends national guard and marine troops to protests in Los Angeles when there’s absolutely no need for them.

The protest in San Luis Obispo is but a small part of a protest taking place all over America, which instills in all of us a sense of reclaiming unity, a cause, something to take a huge bite out of and put our asses on the line. Goddamn right!

So later on I hurried back to Cayucos and found a friend and his wife standing at the overpass above the freeway in Cayucos. The crowd was typical of a tiny beach town, but they whooped at every car passing on the freeway and those leaving and entering town on the overpass, and my friend said, “We get about one finger out of every thirty honks and beeps.

The fingers are usually from guys in ballcaps driving big SUVs or trucks. They’re probably coming in from the Valley. So be it.”

The protest was raucous and spirited, the bridge above filled on both sides, but thinning out, as I was late and protests can be tiring. Folks were packing up their flags and signs and moving past me. One man had a sign that read—“I’m a proud Anti-Trump Veteran.”

We don’t see many of those these days. For some reason a lot of veterans seem to think a draft dodger  who regards veterans as suckers is “their guy.” Why? He hasn’t done a goddamn thing for any of us but talk shit. His “big beautiful bill” will shaft veterans, cause them jobs and health care.

I began a conversation with the man with the sign. I told him I was an anti-Trump veteran too.

“The guy’s never been in a bar fight in his life,” he said, grinning.

“He’s probably never been in a bar,” I explained. “He’s had limos and bodyguards since he was a child.”

We both agreed that Trump is a reflection of his administration: Pseudo masculine blowhards.

This man, middle aged and fit, standing beside his wife, was still furious over Trump’s denigration of John McCain, claiming he wasn’t a hero because he was captured after being shot down in the Vietnam war. John McCain, a prisoner of war and U.S. senator from a longstanding military family who was incapable of an indecent act or telling lies, would puke at the sight of Trump’s grandstanding parade on his birthday and never fit in in a senate full of Trump-fawning ass-kissers and lickspittles.

I was fired up. A King’s parade? Take me back to Ike, one of our greatest generals, or man’s man Teddy Roosevelt, who said, “Walk softly and carry a big stick.” He didn’t have to bluster. He was the real thing.