The New York Times reports that there may be as many as 250,000 protesters in New York for the Republican convention. That's mind-boggling from a logistics standpoint when you consider how many of them will be traveling to NY from other cities around the country. Where will they stay? How will they get around once they arrive? Who will feed them?

True, back in 1969 or 70, when masses of college students descended on Washington to protest the Vietnam war, we never thought about that stuff. I remember getting in a car with some students I didn't even know, having found them through a bulletin board of some kind, driving a few days from Ann Arbor, MI to Washington, and once there, sleeping in a kind of gymnasium, and having one of the best weekends ever. I marched, I met what seemed like a million sympatico souls, and it was an experience that probably contributed in large measure to my continued activism as an adult --and to my passing activism on to my child as a positive value.

Decades later, it's a little different. I've tried to think back to the Washington march days to remember whether any of us showered between leaving Ann Arbor and arriving back there days later. For the life of me, I just can't remember. I guess it wasn't an issue then. Now, it would be a big issue and I can't help but wonder, where will 250,000 visiting protesters to New York sleep, eat, cleanse and regroup when their energy sags and their funds are depleted? New York City is not Woodstock. The atmosphere will not be "We are all one." And camping out under the stars in Central Park is unlikely to be an option with New York's finest.