PAWS for PEACE: First Annual…fur sure!

It’s not often we can drag our friends to these things.

Those of us passionate about changing the status quo for the betterment of…well, darn it!...the World. We just can’t seem to help ourselves. We just kinda show up: Anytime, anywhere, despite weather or nuisance or chagrin or expense or lack of food (yeah, right!) we throw on whatever and meet up wherever. A week doesn’t go by our friends aren’t bombarded with emails or phone calls of persuasion to “Be part of the solution! Come on! You’ll love it.” They smile wryly, wag their heads and hit “DELETE”!

Until today. It dawned gorgeous and stayed gorgeous. Sunny skies, fluffy clouds, bit of a breeze. Lovely. And, our friends…the REAL ones…were downright delirious to be ‘dragged along to this Thing’: “PAWS FOR PEACE”!

“Come on! You’ll love it!” we urged, gathering up leash and bottled water. And, they did love it! They smiled candidly (drooling, really), wagged all over and hit the Park at Round Lake with every ounce of pluck and pleasure only a four-footed Peace Activist can pack. Their two-footed companions did okay, too. Real okay. Between 11am and 5pm, that park at Round Lake near Downtown St. Petersburg was wonderful mayhem, music, friends old and young, neighborhood folks and a flurry of fur. One brave soul even toted her cat along (who curled up – peacefully – in the crook of a tree)! 

Lead by Jim and his trusty megaphone, Women, Men and Kid’s best friends of the St Pete Paws for Peace Parade marched the message: “Frisbees not Bombs!”, returning to grassy knoll, trees and lake for a good slurp of water, homemade dog biscuits (this writer DID witness two grown men challenging each other to eat one!), great music by Bruce Wright & Friends as well as our special guests, the Gainesville Liberation Orchestra!  Terrific. Lynn’s delicious oblation of pizza wasn’t too rough, either. St Pete for Peace does enjoy its pizza!

And, was it worth it? Well, I counted at least 5 or 6 folks who were new to it all, neighbors, passers-by, former strangers who quipped: “This is wonderful! Tell me more.”