While the powers of Reading and Schuyler County have realized that sending the We Are Seneca Lake protesters to jail is costly and only fuels our movement, many in my activist cohort believe that Judge Berry's hesitance to sentence me runs deeper than that. They joke that he sees me as an incarnation of his own young granddaughter, who, according to Berry, refuses to speak to him when he sends people to jail.

Before myself and my comrades began lining up in front of Crestwood Midstream's gates on Route 14 just north of Watkins Glen, I never put much thought into the area jails. I had no clue that there was a jail in Watkins Glen right across the street from the picturesque state park, and I admit to not even knowing that there was a jail in each county. Now I find these various jails to be at an almost constant forefront of my mind.

I clarified to him that our blockade was not going to let anything in or out. "Well, I'm going to open the gates, then!" He declared in a tone that said, 'alright, you asked for it.' The negotiation phase was over; now, they were using intimidation. When he opened the gates, the driver climbed into his truck and lurched forward, blaring his horn.