The Posse Joins Hands Across High Street

         It was many and many a year ago that I and a group of my gal pals began meeting at Panera once a week for bagels, drinks, and conversation.

        At some point along the way we nicknamed ourselves the Panera Posse.
        Then about a year and a half ago we moved our weekly meeting place from Panera to a different local eatery,

...and we stopped calling ourselves The Panera Posse; now we're just The Posse.
     I'm not sure which of us came up with the idea of The Posse showing up for the August 9 Hands Along High Street rally, but five of us decided to go.

 ​       Hands Along High Street, sponsored by the pro-democracy group Indivisible, took the form a human chain in protest of the inhumane policies being promoted by the Trump administration, such as: 
       Cutting Medicaid and SNAP benefits to millions of Americans in need;
       Cutting off the humanitarian aid that has saved millions of lives worldwide;
       Building immigrant concentration camps in this country and sending immigrants to horrendous overseas prisons;
        Raising an army of masked ICE agents who use cruel and violent tactics to terrorize immigrants;
         Forcing career transgender service members just a few years short of retirement out of the military with no retirement benefits;
       Gutting the staff and funding of FEMA, the National Weather Service, our National Park Service, the National Institutes of Health, the EPA, and other public agencies that provide Americans with essential services;
       Arming and/or supporting authoritarian regimes that are seizing another country's land or committing genocide against a vulnerable population;
         Firing thousands of doctors, nurses, and other medical staff from the Veterans Administration;
          Cutting so many benefits to Americans while giving tax breaks that overwhelmingly favor the super-rich and crazy-rich and that will add $3 trillion to the national debt.
            And so on.
           Anyway, the Hands Along High Street chain was to stretch for 8 miles along High Street, a major Columbus thoroughfare, starting downtown and stretching north through city neighborhoods up to the suburb of Worthington.
​            The Posse decided that we would come to the rally bearing posters, signs, and/or flags. My artistic ability being limited, I printed, cut, and pasted together this poster,

...​with some technical help from my daughter Theresa.

      Me with my poster.  

       One of our Posse members offered to drive us, so we all went together. My friends and I were assigned to a section of the chain that ran through the pleasant urban neighborhood known as Clintonville.

      Here we are, all fired up and ready to peacefully protest.

      We walked down High Street looking for a good spot among our fellow links.

     Along the way we came upon a fiddler who was providing some music,

...and a utility poll covered with stickers,

...including a "No Stickers Permitted" sticker.

     We ended up splitting up, three of us choosing a prime corner,

...and the other two of us finding a good spot on the street.

       My friend and I did have one scary moment. We were actually standing in the street in a "No Parking" zone, which we figured was okay to do since there were no cars allowed in that space.
         But then a police car came zooming towards the space where we were standing. "Uh-oh," I said as we jumped back onto the sidewalk. A female police office hopped out of the car. 
​           "Don't worry, you're fine, you're not in trouble," the officer said to my friend and me, but she said it with such vigor that I feared we might be in trouble, anyway. 
             But it turned out we weren't. The officer walked down the block and spoke for a few moments with one of the Indivisible organizers,

...then she returned to her car and she and her fellow officer drove off.
          I walked over to the organizer and asked him what the officer said.

      He told me she was a member of the Community Police Dialogue Team,

...and she had stopped by to ask if everything was going all right and if we needed any assistance. She then gave the organizer her card and told him to call her if there were any problems. I developed an immediate warm spot for the Columbus Police.
​        Many of the cars that drove by gave us a beep, a wave, or a thumbs up,

...and some flashed homemade signs or posters of support as they drove by.
      At 3 pm we put down our signs and held hands for a few moments of silence.
       Soon after that Hands Along High Street was over and we headed back to our car.

       We all agreed it was a good protest. And yet it occurred to me that there we were, in what was probably among the bluest, most liberal areas of Central Ohio,

...and where most of the people passing or driving by and cheering us on were likely of the identical political persuasion as we the protesters were. And so we were  heartening and buoying up those who existed on our same ideological island. 
      But, I asked myself what difference does a demonstration along eight blue miles of Columbus make in the rest of Trump-red Ohio? And though my question to myself was a rhetorical one, the answer came to me,  and it was this:
      If the day ever comes when enough residents of small-town and rural Ohio are ready to come together to form a protest chain against Donald Trump's policies, then we'll really have reason for  hope.