08/03/2026
Dale Romney made signs of the times.
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=122215319300862883&set=a.122102251376862883
A Signs of the Time conversation with Dale in Richardson, Texas
SOTT: Dale, you have a great Charlie Brown motif with your shirt and a sign that just says "Good Grief." Tell me what good grief means to you in context of all that's going on.
DALE: Good grief is the classic Charlie Brown expression of frustration, right? So I had bought this shirt, and I thought, wouldn't this be a good thing to combine it with to take out with the protest?
SOTT: What kind of frustration are you feeling with things happening in our country today?
DALE: Obviously there's ICE, the total abuse of our justice system, the politicians that are running the Department of Defense – and not the Department of War, the Department of Defense – and the FBI. It's frustrating. We have people that are unqualified clowns, and now they're taking over the Supreme Court, especially after this last decision we had about the Voting Rights Act. It's hard to find something you're not frustrated about with this administration.
SOTT: What will it take to make some change?
DALE: I'm hoping we have a landslide election for Democrats and that the election is not tampered with. I'm really worried about election tampering.
SOTT: Concerns about election tampering. That's a big one. State gerrymandering came out so quickly after the VRA got decimated. We think about elections at the top level, but it's the state houses and the super majorities in these state houses that are doing the gerrymandering. What's it going to take to get people who are inactive or not engaged to become more engaged and vote in all elections?
DALE: That's a great question, right? People have been struggling with it forever. Literature drops and things like that help. Hopefully people will at least read what's in the literature and think about it. There's so much misinformation, especially on the right side with Fox News. It seems to be in a bubble where the truth doesn't get through. Of course, you can talk to people you work with and neighbors and things like that. All those little things add up.
SOTT: It's tough to open up conversations with neighbors about issues like politics and religion. Do you feel that same thing or do you feel that people are more open to talking a little bit these days?
DALE: We put signs in our yard. I used to worry that we were going to hear things from the neighbors, but we never have. Nobody's ever said anything. But I don't normally go up to my neighbors and talk about politics. You need to have friendliness in the neighborhood.
SOTT: Why do you feel it is important for you to be out here with your great shirt and your good grief sign?
DALE: It's nice to show up to a protest like this and see all the people that are driving by. It lets them know there's like-minded people. They're not alone. There's a lot of us that feel it's a bad situation.
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Signs of the Time is an all-volunteer collective that cares deeply about this fraught moment in time. We celebrate the creative ways people are demonstrating at rallies around the country by taking photos of protest signs and sharing the personal stories behind them. To submit your own sign and story, go to Signs-of-the-Time.com. Photos of signs and interview comments have been used with permission of the sign creators and volunteer photographers/journalists.
