The temperature was in the low 40s about 10 a.m., and a small group of perhaps a dozen people calling themselves Occupy Fort Wayne was assembled in a circle in the pavilion in the west side of Headwaters Park.

The discussion left me utterly confused.

One individual, in his stocking feet and wrapped in a blanket, was holding up one hand, wiggling his fingers, but no one asked him what he wanted.

They use hand signals, one man told me. Point your fingers up and wiggle your fingers and it means you agree. Point your fingers down and wiggle them and it means you disagree. Take your index fingers and thumbs and make a triangle and it means whoever is speaking is getting off the point.

The group, it turns out, was having a GA, which stands for general assembly, and they were discussing how to organize themselves. I really didn’t follow it.

A man in a leather jacket entered and started talking.

Here’s a summary: The problem with America started before most of the young people there were born, he said, when American businesses started shipping jobs overseas. We lost 56,000 people in Vietnam, he said, and now we ship jobs there. Nixon opened relations with Communist China, and now we’re shipping jobs there, he said. Businesses are hiring illegal aliens to work for cheap.

Many of the people in the circle pointed their hands up and wiggled their fingers, which confused the newcomer, who thought they wanted to speak.

They need ideas, one in the group said. They need to brainstorm and come up with ideas.

They need to create jobs, one person said, but the man in the blanket said that was something they weren’t equipped to do. They could better the community in other ways, he said.

Another man walked in and started talking about the new world order and the 1 percent that secretly engineer everyone’s lives.

TJ Ochoa, who had been fretting that they needed a plan of action by Friday or everything could stall, told the man they wanted to stay away from secret society theories. The man retorted that people have to face the truth.

Next time they have a GA, one man said, he’d bring in forms and ask people why they were there. That would give them some ideas, he said.

Eventually, the man in the blanket moved that they adjourn the general assembly, and the people in the circle held up their hands and wiggled their fingers.

On the wall were printouts showing the amount of wealth that the wealthiest people in the country have – people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet and the various Waltons – and showing how much income has grown for the rich in the past few years compared to ordinary working people.

Yeah, I thought, the rich are rich. It’s always been that way.

Other signs, including one urging people to pick up all trash, including cigarette butts, dotted the walls and columns of the pavilion.

But there was no clear agenda, no clear list of gripes or goals.

Individuals seemed to have their individual agendas.

One man passed out a five-page list of mostly liberal and anti-rich, anti-business viewpoints. Another complained that the rich control politicians with political contributions. A university instructor said students can’t find jobs so they are going to grad school to delay having to pay off their student loans.

Ochoa, who described himself as just a guy, was concerned about jobs and wages among other things. He’s 31 and makes minimum wage, he said.

For now, their ways of expressing their unhappiness include standing on street corners holding signs that are sometimes difficult to read, and camping out in a cold pavilion.

But why bother to camp out here all night, I asked? Why not go home at night, sleep in a warm house, eat something and come back in the morning?

It’s all principle, Ochoa said. “We’re so upset, we’re willing to stay out in the cold. We want to make a visual statement.”

In a pavilion that is barely visible from Clinton Street, I thought, and that sits next to the jail at the end of a dead-end street.