Oh, For Goodness Sake

I’ve had a photo on my desktop for several days. It’s not one of those running with the MSNBC article below, but I found it very moving and heartening, and it fits.

Unfortunately, the photographer deserving of credit is unknown to me.

Today, MSNBC is running an article called, “Old guard back in the trenches at ‘Occupy’ protests,” about older activists getting back in the game, joining the young OWS protesters. The photos are by Noah Addis for msnbc.com.

NEW YORK — As soon as 62-year-old William Johnsen finished his intravenous drip, he waited for the nurse to apply a Band-Aid, said goodbye to the other patients and then left the veteran’s hospital for the spot where he has been spending his days for the last 3-and-a-half weeks — the “Occupy Wall Street” protest.

Johnsen, a disabled Vietnam combat veteran who suffered a heart attack in December, can’t sleep outside overnight like the young protesters due to his health issues — he has a genetic condition that has triggered emphysema and liver disease. But though the disease tires him out, the animated New York native isn’t about to sit out the crusade, which he says has given him a new sense of purpose.

“We are awakening, we’re waking up to the fact that it’s up to us,” Johnsen said Tuesday at the camp in Zuccotti Park, not long after finishing his treatment at the hospital. “Government and our other institutions of authority are so corrupt that we cannot trust them anymore. There is a rebirth of realization that it’s in our hands.” …

Older activists like Johnsen — some hobbling along on canes and leg braces — are quickly becoming a presence at “Occupy” protests across the country. And the veterans of the civil rights movement, anti-Vietnam war protests and anti-nuclear proliferation demonstrations appear to be relishing being back in the struggle, supporting the “kids” and mobilizing other seniors to join in.

How do you like them apples?