[...] I brought a handful of fat-tipped, black markers and I saw some cardboard in the dumpster in the workers’ parking lot. We took the cardboard and wrote messages like “Our contract sucks!” (and on the back, “So does Zuckerman,” the president of our local), “Drink Milk,” “Fuck this Union,” and so forth. We didn’t want to simply write that we were on strike since, legally, we weren’t on strike. As we walked back and forth along the stretch of sidewalk in front of gate eight, cars began to honk at us and their drivers raised their fists in support. Dilapidated cars and trucks began to fill the parking lot behind us and to our left, while folks with lunchboxes stood along the entrance watching us, not budging. A heavy-set fellow approached me and asked what the hell these people were doing walking around with signs, people he’d never seen before, people who didn’t work at the yard, outsiders. I told him they were people braver than he was, people doing what he should be doing. He looked around then asked me where I’d gotten the signs and I pointed to the dumpster. He returned with some cardboard and I handed him a fat-tipped marker. Other folks joined him. No one entered the shipyard at gate eight that morning.