“No Oaths to Trump” veterans protest, Paramus NJ, 11-11-25 (Vets’ Day)

On November 15, 2025 - Uncategorized

The Event (on the Route 4 pedestrian overpass):

Since I couldn’t do my Veterans Day shoot of the huge George Washington Bridge U.S. flag (“Too windy to fly it today”…..“But those are the best shots!”), I had time to devote to shooting this worthwhile protest on the Route 4 pedestrian overpass in Paramus.

I followed the “letter carrier” (not a mailman) up onto the overpass. I’m guessing that the letters are already in their proper sequence and that the message will begin with a “V” (not a lot of brainpower required for that guess) Click to enlarge:

The spell-out takes place. First dopey guess: “Vets fought fast”?

Oh, OK………….“Vets fought fascism” (but I’ll bet it wasn’t slowly):

Man, it was already pretty cold out, but then it got incredibly windy – especially on that overpass. It got so bad that the woman who had carried the letters for the eastbound cars to see and set them down against the west wall (on the right), saw the wind suddenly pick up her letters and FLY them across to the east wall, where you see them wind-stacked together:

Only the O didn’t get tossed.

Back to the messages:

So we know what the east-facing message says. Let’s see how the west-facing one is doing: “No P Pies”? I certainly hope not!

Lettering out of sequence to spell “No Purple Pies”? Why not?

“No Pup Pies”? Better not be any of those!

Ohhhhhh………“No Puppies”! Wait……….why not?

I walked across the overpass and down the south-side ramp while they completed the message and got this:

…….and then brought the image to the creators (who couldn’t see what the drivers would see) so they could give the E and the S a little more space.

Quick aside: While I was walking back up that ramp, I noticed something strange: two U.S. flags flying in the Bergen Town Center (formerly the Bergen Mall) were at half-staff on Veterans Day:

Somebody there needs to brush up on holiday flag etiquette. Veterans Day is not a mournful holiday and flags should always be at full-staff on November 11.

Not a good/intelligent look, BTC!

Back to our show:

A few smaller signs were added to the westbound side:

……..and the eastbound side’s E and S got some breathing room:

I couldn’t stand the freezing winds anymore, so I took one almost-full-length PANO shot of the overpass’ current residents (click twice to fully-enlarge and then scroll side-to-side):