Watch: Bucolic North County, San Diego town explodes into fiery protest against draconian “stay at home” orders!

A love story.

I was drinking my second cup of coffee, yesterday morning, when I saw the news helicopter floating above what I assumed to be Swamis, the semi-famous surf break located in Encinitas, California.

Hovering low.

Immediately, I guessed there must be a protest of some sort. Frustration has been palpable over the past few days as North County San Diego has seen no new Coronavirus cases since April 11 yet city councils continue to close public spaces, lock the beaches and misdeamean people who dare to sit in their car, watching the sun set, or eat Asian fusion cuisine outdoors.

“Time to be a surf journalist…” I thought to myself, hoping the protest involved a defiant paddle-out.

It did not and I missed most of the scene as the protesters had marched up a street leading away from the beach and made their way through a neighborhood. A few remained, holding signs that read “Your fear doesn’t cancel my rights.” and “Free the beaches.”

As I sat on the hood of my truck, pondering these wild times, a early 2000s minivan came screeching up, its driver a early 50s hippie with frizzy brown hair, teeth clearly brushed with Tom’s of Maine and a giant placard in her window that declared “VEGAN.”

“Did I miss it?” She asked.

“I think they’re up in the neighborhoods now.” I responded.

She whipped out an early 2013 iPhone and bid me over as she was tracking the band of rebels via Instagram Live.

“I take it you think they went to far with all these closures, tickets and trouncing of our civil liberties.” She said as I got within her 6 foot bubble in order to see how many protesters there were, both of us maskless.

“It’s ridiculous.” I responded.

“A complete joke…” she interjected “…the fault of big Pharma and the industrial animal farms.”

I didn’t know what the industrial animal farms had to do with any of it unless the Wuhan bats were raised on one.

We chatted a bit more then she clunked off to find the action.

I read her bumper sticker “Billions of animals are abused & violently killed because you eat meat” and continued pondering. Never in my life have I had common cause with an aggressive, older vegan. Never been on the same team, as it were, and will this be an unforeseen but wonderfully welcomed outcome of the Coronavirus Clampdown?

A bulldozing of the incredibly dull left/right trenches and a new, funner war pitting those who love state security versus the jackboot skeptics?

Hmmmm.

More as the story develops.