“Tear gas burns, man,” my friend Jack told me. “It burns like hell.”

I glanced over at him, avoiding a slippery spot on the sidewalk. “What are you talking about?” I asked. “How would you know?”

We were walking into downtown Minneapolis from where we’d parked Jack’s car a mile away near Lake of the Isles.

Jack grinned. “Back in the day,” he said, pointing west, “I was with some friends at an open-air concert in Denver. 1969. The cops tear-gassed us on the second night.”

“Really? Why?”

“Oh, man, a bunch of jerks tried to rush the gate. Cops didn’t like it.”

“No doubt. Did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Rush the gate?”

“No, man. No way.” He smiled and gave me the peace sign. “Peace and love, all the way, buddy. Flower power and all that.”

“Well, that’s good to hear.” I pointed toward the skyscrapers looming in front of us. “No violence today, okay? Keep it mellow.”

“I got it, Andy,” he said. “Mellow yellow.”

Jack’s a big guy who carries himself with the confident swagger of someone comfortable with his bulk. He has a bit of a beer gut, is balding, and is perpetually trying to quit smoking. He’s also happily married with two grown kids and three grandchildren, and is retired after forty years of driving for one of the delivery companies in our city.

Me? I worked for the government for 50 years. I was a mailman. I come from a small town in southern Minnesota. I went to the University of Minnesota in the 60s, where I met Charlotte. Char and I have been married for 55 years. We have three kids and seven grandchildren. 

I’m telling you all of this to let you know that Jack and I aren’t radicals by any stretch of the imagination. We are two normal guys with no pretensions other than wanting to raise our families and, now that our kids are grown, hang out and enjoy our retirement. 

I’ll also say Jack and I are not political. We follow what’s on the news (sometimes) and amp it up around election time to make informed voting decisions. That’s it. We both live in South Minneapolis. We both have black and brown friends who have lived in Minnesota for decades. The fact that during the ICE surge of December 2025 and January of 2026, they were being hunted down relentlessly by government agents pissed both of us off. A lot.

Which led us to do something we never thought we’d do. We protested. In the streets.

There was a planned rally the day after Alex Pretti was murdered, and we committed to going. Our wives decided to skip the rally and, instead, went to the local church to pack food boxes. So the two of us arrived downtown around sunset and met up with a group of other people. We all walked to the Government Center and joined in a vigil for Alex Pretti and Renee Good. We listened to impassioned speeches. We chanted. We shot the breeze with other protesters. 

People were fired up, yet mellow. They hated the ICE surge and the suffering the federal government was inflicting on our state and our neighbors. Our people. It was inspiring to be around the like-minded. 

After about an hour, as the moon was rising, we hooked up with a group that was going on a peaceful march out of downtown to where Alex had been murdered. I guessed the crowd was around five hundred people. 

We marched and occasionally chanted. The temperature was below zero degrees with the wind, but it didn’t bother us. If you grew up in Minnesota, you learned to live in the cold. I wore flannel-lined jeans, three layers under an insulated jacket, double socks under my boots, double gloves, a wool stocking cap, and a thick, wool scarf. I was fine. In fact, marching like we were, Jack and I actually got warm.

Along the way, some ICE agents started following us. Their faces were covered, so only their eyes showed. They had guns. A lot of people started videoing them with their phones. You know, documenting them and their behavior. 

The stormtroopers (what Jack called them) didn’t like it. Some of them started to physically push us. We stepped back to avoid a confrontation. They stepped toward us and pushed more. 

We quit stepping back. 

“No! No!” We chanted

The masked agents got mad and didn’t relent. They yelled at us to leave. “Get out of here!”

It was our city. We didn’t budge.

“ICE OUT NOW!” We shouted.

The thugs had enough. Quickly, they put on gas masks and fired tear gas into the crowd. Oh, man, Jack was right. It stung. It stung like hell. My eyes flooded with tears. I grabbed handfuls of snow to wash them out. It didn’t help. 

“God damn you!” Jack swore at them.

“ICE OUT. NOW!” others shouted.

I shouted, too, but my eyes were watering so badly that I couldn’t see. I had to admire my fellow protesters, though. We didn’t retaliate. We kept cool. 

Finally, the Minneapolis police came and separated us from the ICE jerks. Talk about surreal. Cops kept the peace; that was the main thing. As did we.

Jack and I are in our seventies. There have been more marches, and we’ve gone to them all. So have our wives. For us, it’s the right thing to do.

Like Jack said, “Tear gas burns.” I’m here to tell you, yes, it does. But, getting out in the streets of Minneapolis and chanting, “ICE OUT, NOW!” to a bunch of government thugs? A little burn? Hell, man, as Jack would say, “It’s worth it.” 

You know what? I agree.