On the last night of the Republican National Convention, I left Madison Square Garden and went outside to gauge the mood on the streets. It was easy to see that the tension from Tuesday night had returned.

As I walked just outside the Garden, a police captain with a bullhorn started yelling at a group of about five protesters, and told them that if they wanted to protest, they had to go to the designated protest area on 9th Ave. Four of them started to move in the direction indicated, but one of the protesters started to walk in the other direction. [It's important to note here that lots of other people were moving in the same "other" direction at the same time.] The police captain yelled even more at the young man. Then the police captain roughly pushed a barricade out of the way and moved aggresively towards the young man.

Suddenly 50 other cops appeared out of nowhere. The young protester had literally not moved an inch since the captain had yelled at him the second time. He hadn't raised his hands, or made ANY kind of threatening gesture. It was totally the reaction of the police captain that the police themselves had reacted to. You would have thought the young man had pulled a rocket-propelled grenade from his backpack.

The young man just smiled, shrugged and moved in the direction that the captain had indicated. He probably didn't need to aggravate the police in the first place, but the reaction to his decision to "disperse" in the wrong direction was, in my view, WAY out of proportion.

That's when I saw her crossing the street. It was the picture that she carried that captured my attention. It was a picture of a handsome young man in uniform. Underneath the picture were the numbers "1944 - 1967."

"He was my first love," Clare Englandr told me. We were walking and talking together, since the police had told Clare that she wasn't allowed to stand still. "As if I might do something dangerous," she laughed.

The young man in the picture was Dick Allen. In 1967 he and Clare were dating. Dick received his notice to go to Vietnam.

"We weren't sure what to do. Back then we tended to do what we were told. He didn't want to, but Dick went. Two months after he got there he was shot through the eye."

Clare told me that Dick's death was devastating. She admits she fell apart for a long time. She believes that Dick's mother died of grief at the death of her only son.

"I kept thinking, why didn't I tell him to go to Canada or to do something else? I just couldn't forgive myself for not doing something."

So for the past 30 years, this soft-spoken woman from California had been protesting war. And now she was in New York to protest the war in Iraq.

"I really believe that Bush and Cheney are masters of deception," she told me. "I can't really believe that President Bush believes that God wants him to do this. I really can't. I'm a Quaker. The Bible says blessed are the peacemakers

"I know that Saddam Hussein was not a good person, and I'm not defending him. But war is not the answer."

We walked and talked a bit longer. She told me that she thought the police had done a good job and said several of them had been very nice to her. She also said she was more than a little afraid.

"I don't want to be arrested, but I want to do this."

After I left Clare, I moved up toward 7th Avenue. That where I met Jennifer Roberts, a young woman from New York. She was carrying a sign that said "Report the facts, not the rhetoric."

"This is my third night protesting," she told me. "But this is the first time I've been near the Garden."

So why did she come here tonight, I asked.

"Because George Bush is here. I try to protest whenever he comes to town. I just don't think he's doing a good job."

Like Clare, Jennifer also had good things to say about the police.

"Yea, they've been pretty good. One night we even started chanting 'Give the cops a raise.' "

Jennifer also did not want to be arrested. She wasn't interested in violence. That is why she had not come downtown on Tuesday night, when anarchist groups had said they would create havoc. But she wanted to make sure her voice was heard.

I left Jennifer and wandered more through the crowd. It seemed to me that the protesters gathered tonight were different from the ones I had seen on previous nights. They were older, and looked more determined. It looked as if many of them had come directly to Madison Square Garden from work.

I saw Clare once more. Then the police "locked down" the streets around the Garden and I was pushed up toward Times Square.

I saw Jennifer again on a street corner.

"Don't get arrested," I said to her.

She laughed. " I'll do my best."

And then she and Clare were gone. I hope they're OK.

Not all the young people you meet on the streets near the Republican National Convention in New York are here to protest.

Ian is a College Republican from New Jersey. When I talked to him this afternoon, he was standing in Times Square selling Kerry "flip-flop" T-shirts. [The words "flip-flop" were imposed over a Heinz ketchup label].

"It's been a long haul," Ian told me with a smile. "People have been giving us a pretty hard time. My friend who's with me actually got pushed around this morning. Another guy debated me for an hour." He laughed. " It's pretty cool."

Ian says that the money he makes from selling the T-shirts will go to fund College Republican activities.

"I was here 13 hours yesterday and I've been working since nine o'clock this morning. My feet are killing me. But a lot of the [Republican] Senators and the delegates have been stopping by to tell us what a good job we're doing."

I asked Ian if he wasn't a little concerned to be selling pro-Bush T-shirts in such a Democratic town. "No," he said with a smile. "They wouldn't put me out here if I didn't know what I was doing."
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Meanwhile, literally just down the block, Carmen, Tiffany, and Joseph are selling Kerry 'flip-flop' flip-flops. Joseph, who designed the sandals, told me his products are "way better" than anything that's being sold in the hotels where the Republicans are staying. "See, it's got Kerry's picture on it. So, everytime you take a step, you walk on his face."

I asked Joseph if he was a Republican. He gave me a sheepish grin. "No. We're all from Boston. I'm just here trying to make some money."

So I said to him. "Wait, according to Arnold [Schwarzenegger], that means you are a Republican."

"Yeah, we thought about that," said Carmen. "But we need the money more."

"Yeah the next thing you know I'll be using sweatshop labor," said Joseph. "After all these sandals do come from Thailand."

As I walked away I could hear the competing yells of "Get your Kerry flip-flops" coming from different ends of the block. Ah, real American entrepreneurial competition at its best.