GrillN4Peace

Well, that was goofy, and fun -

A couple of years ago, a guy named Tom Barry (with help from a lot of people including my good friend Chris Quandt) made a peace sign out of leftover Christmas trees, on frozen Lake Mendota, the bigger of the two lakes in Madison WI. ('course, typical for Madison, there was a contingent of folks who regarded all those trees on the lake as nitrogen pollution, and others more right-minded, who regarded all of it as whiney lefties ...)

This year, the same guy decided to get people together to make a peace sign out of (lighted) Weber grills. A grill-in for Peace. So there were about 100 people and 40 some odd grills out on the ice on another smaller lake (Lake Wingra) for about 3 hours this morning. We got all the grills out there, got them all lit, then got all the people and excess claptrap off the ice, so that the photographer up in a cherry-picker could take a shot. Then we all went back on the ice and grilled - I made flat bread with cardamon and salt. The thing was also a benefit for the homeless, so there were kids going around with foil pans for any extra donated food - there is a meal for the hungry every Sunday; Savory Sunday.

Then there was supposed to be another shot, the money shot, with all of us manning our grills, with food on them, giving the peace sign. I slipped the photographer some warm bread so surely that improved his chances of taking a good picture. But, after all my bread was gone, I decided to start walking home - it was snowing pretty hard - so I think I missed the money shot - I heard everyone whooping it up when I was climbing up the one giant hill, one of the only hills in Madison, on the way home.

Click this picture for the link to a bunch more.