In Las Vegas, there are two types of people: Those who can afford to but won't--and those who can't afford to but would ...

As awash with money as this godforsaken town is, Vegas should be funding The Revolution. Instead, we have an endless fleet of SUVs driving to and from the mall (and into fast food drive-thrus). Once upon a time, Vegas primarily consisted of what is known as "The Strip"--the main drag where all its major casinos can be found--and not much else (this so-called Sin City can't even boast prostitution since it's illegal in Clark County). Ever since some idiot made the mistake of declaring Vegas "America's Most Livable City", all these families who left their respective suburbs and trailer parks looking for jobs and new lives have flooded the region, and as a result, there are all these kids with nothing to do since they're too young to drink and/or gamble ...

"Those who can't afford to but would" usually includes those kids, 18 to 21, and since that age range makes them eligible for the draft, you would think that they'd hit up "those who can afford to", i.e., their families, for enough money to properly protest this war for someone else's oil. The young are also usually more compassionate--understanding that not every Arab is a Muslim and not every Muslim is a terrorist; understanding that we ought to be using hemp or the sun or something to power everything besides, again, someone else's oil ... especially given how polluting it is ...

Problem is, those who can afford to WON'T. And since children learn what is important and what is not from their parents--and since their parents don't think protesting warfare is more important than hitting those slots--then the children in turn think the most important thing in life is to stand in line for hours on end outside a concert of some kind (since that's the only thing--besides dying for the oil industry--they're old enough to do).

Even though there was less censorship of the peace movement in the MASS media during the 1960s (as opposed to today's reign of FOX News), that and the aforementioned still doesn't let these young whippersnappers off the hook, as it were, since kids are notorious for finding out things their folks would just as soon not have them know about. And as far as the risk of being arrested for acts of civil disobedience is concerned, hell, these teens don't seem to mind getting busted for post-concert brawls with their peers, so why not spend a few hours/days in jail for something worthwhile for a change? Again, there's nothing that'll let them off the hook because, since they're required by law to register for the draft, their own lives are at stake.

And if there is in fact strength in numbers, then this is the saddest part of all: Anti-war protests that occur within most major metropolitan areas have, on average, at least hundreds if not thousands of people participating in them. Vegas, in contrast, hasn't been a major metropolitan area for very long, so you'd be lucky if a few dozen show up at an event aimed at ending the war (hard to believe there are all these movies and TV shows currently being undeservedly based on this place).

All of this and more is why ol' Norby put the young to shame. Norbert Druhardsen was a WWII vet and later became a homestead farmer, but as fate would have it, his land was dangerously close to a nuclear power plant and he became dreadfully sick as a result. Ever since then, Norby has spent his few remaining years NOT in an old folks home BUT out in the streets, acting as a one-man protest.

Imagine a man in his seventies, wearing a sandwich sign that reads "No Blood for Oil!" on the front and "End the War Now!" on the back. Imagine the same man driving around (and living in, since Norby was homeless after that plant ruined his farm) a bright red car covered from roof to tire/trunk to hood with anti-war slogans, quotes from Ghandi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other, like-minded graffiti. Just imagine ...

All by his lonesome, Norby would begin every day at one end of The Strip and march on foot all the way downtown to the courthouse, light a candle and hold a vigil. Since he looked like a hobo Santa Claus, the cops rarely messed with him, and whenever they did, Norby would simply turn on that whimsical, Will Rogers-esque charm of his.

"Are you a vet, young man?" He'd often ask. "I fought Hitler's Nazis before your daddy was even born, son!" And if that didn't get them, Norby would finish them off with, "I'm sure you noticed this limp of mine, officer--well, that's because I was shot down at the Battle of the Bulge (I was on the front line, one of the few white soldiers there) and it hurts whenever I put any weight on it, hence the cane. Now, if you're going to tell me to leave--just for lighting a candle and sitting on these here steps--you'd best be prepared to give this tired, old man a ride back home..!"

Of course, his "home" consisted of that beat up, two door sedan with all the anti-war graffiti illegally parked (usually) in a vacant lot, but since 9/11, any mention of a vet worked better than the Jedi Mind Trick on a cop, and sure enough ... "Look, we can't have you blocking where people are coming and going, so if you'll just move to the side, you'll be fine--but when we say it's time to leave, YA GOTTA GO!"

And so it went. If anything, Norby had a much harder time dealing with and debating the tourists. Those who came from across the country and around the world to gamble never seemed to grasp the scientific truism that only a tiny minority of people actually win at gambling. And yet, despite the odds clearly being against them, they poured into Vegas just the same--never wanting to be bothered (let alone confronted) with anything that didn't have SOMETHING to do with breaking the bank, as it were. So imagine their collective chagrin when this elderly gentleman with the sandwich sign would call them over to ask if they've done their part to end the war.

"What?! Get the hell out of my face, you old bastard!"

"You're going senile!"

"I'm a Republican, I watch FOX News and I'm PROUD of it!"

"Bomb Saddam; Nuke Iraq!" Norby actually didn't mind that one so much since it rhymed and he always was a sucker for the lyrical ...

The worst were the accusations of treason since Norby actually volunteered to fight the Nazis unlike a lot of his friends who waited until they were drafted. Whenever a tourist would stand around and shut up long enough for him to finish a sentence, Norby would try to explain that the Nazis were white supremacists who wanted to, quite literally, take over the world like a bunch of comic book supervillains--whereas the terrorists behind 9/11 were betrayed by American foreign policy and ultimately no different than the fundamentalist Christians who think nothing of murdering abortion doctors (Norby hated it whenever 9/11 was compared to Pearl Harbor--especially since he was there). Norby used to say suicide bombers are simply people with nothing to lose, and if one were to ever remove them from the poverty and despair they were raised in, the bombers would no longer want to throw their lives away--for Allah or anyone else ...

A few tourists even went so far as to accuse Norby of being a "commie" for wanting to end the poverty surrounding these potential terrorists. Norby smiled and calmly quoted one of the many sentences spray-painted all over his car/home: "'When I gave food to the poor, they called me a saint. When I asked why the poor were hungry, they called me a communist': Archbishop Dom Helder Camara." That always got 'em ...Unfortunately, one day, they got Norby.

Sure, Norby was the most photographed person in Vegas other than the Elvis impersonators and he did have something of a following, but you can't piss off that many right-wingers in a post-9/11 America without making some enemies as well, which accounts for how and why two members of the Young Republicans beat the taste out of his mouth one hot, summer day--all the while, a couple of supposedly hard core, EXTREME punk rockers their same age stood idly by and snidely claimed, "Well, that loudmouthed old man had it comin' ..."

As Norby was being loaded into the back of an ambulance hours after it happened, he deliriously explained to the paramedic why he did what he did: "I went on The Strip because I was meeting the same people in front of the courthouse every day. Now I'm getting a crowd from all 50 states; they can take the message home. I don't know of any place better I could be. Not even in front of the White House, where I've been several times. Everybody comes to Las Vegas; this is where I could be the most effective."

About a month and a half later, Norby was right back out there--doing his three-hour treks along The Strip, except this time, Norby was limping on not just one cane but TWO ...

Some--like those gratuitously coy punk rockers who could've saved Norby's other leg (fitting how the Nazis claimed one and the G.O.P. the other)--actually had the gall to call him was crazy. If anything, WE were all crazy for not following his example. The difference between a hero and a martyr is a hero lives--and since Norby survived that good ol' fashioned beat down, he clearly achieved hero status.

There's no trick O'Henry ending to this story--this ain't "The Twilight Zone"--suffice to say Norby is no longer with us: While marching for peace, he accidentally tripped, fell and struck his head on the cold, cold ground--subsequently causing a "subdural hematoma", a tumor-like collection of blood in the brain--so you could say Norby died in the line of duty. At the risk of telling someone what to believe, I'd dare say he's now hanging out with his heroes, Ghandi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Before he got sick from the nuclear power plant that spawned his activism, Norby drank quite a bit, and it's easy to envision those great pacifists each downing a pint while sitting at the edge of cloud looking down upon us hapless mortals.

Oh, that car of his? The one littered with graffiti; the "Norbymobile" as it was often called? Someone STOLE it while Norby was recuperating from his beating and the poor thing hasn't been seen since ...

THE END