Walking With The Kids By Myself

   

     On Tuesday, March 13, I read online that our local high school would be participating in the March 14 national student 17-minute walk-out in memory of the 17 students and staff members killed one month ago at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and as a protest against gun violence in this country.

     An organization called The Action Network was calling for for the community to come out the high school and stand in solidarity with the students when they walked out at 10 a.m.  
     So I signed up and RSVP'd that I would be at the demonstration the following day.
   I wondered whether people would be carrying signs and banners as they generally have at previous gun violence protests and sit-ins at Congressional representatives' offices that I've attended in the past.

     Figuring that would likely be the case this time, as well, I made myself a sign,

...by cutting up an old cardboard box from among our garage-stash of old cardboard boxes. (Anybody need cardboard boxes? I got cardboard boxes),

...and covering the cardboard with some old wallpaper from among my basement-stash of old rolls of wall paper (Anybody need an old roll of wallpaper?  I got old rolls of wallpaper).

     My sign, not fancy, I figured, but to the point.

      However, on Wednesday morning when the time came and I'd parked in a shopping center a block from the high school, a little voice in my head coming from I know not which quadrant of wisdom in my brain suggested that, this being a high school, and perhaps everyone's purpose possibly not aligning with mine, and there being children and perhaps concerned parents present, maybe I should leave the sign behind this time. So I did.
      As I walked from the shopping center towards the school I expected I'd soon catch up with fellow demonstrators, but by the time I arrived at the high school,     

...there was no one in front of the school,

...or around the side of the school.

     True, the announcement gave no exact location where the demonstrators would be meeting, but if I'd had my wits about me I would have walked around to check the back of the school.
      Instead I did something in retrospect kind of dumb, definitely naïve and most assuredly tone-oblivious to the fact that this walk-out was not planned or necessarily condoned by the school administration, whose members' feelings about the walk-out might well range from the ambivalent to the antipathetic: I walked into the high school to ask where student the walk-out would be taking place.
       I was met inside the front entrance by a tall, muscular, no-nonsense-looking police officer and an equally no-nonsense-looking man sitting at a desk next to the officer. I was asked what could be done for me, and when I, all smiley and good-natured and a little nervous, asked where the walk-out would take place, I was sent by the police officer to the principal's office.
       Now, the police officer hadn't been especially unfriendly, just - to me - scary; nor was the principal unfriendly, either, in fact he was quite nice, and he told me that the walk-out would be from the school to the football stadium directly behind the school, but he did make it clear to me - in a nice way - that this was the students' event and it was the school's wish that outsiders not participate or be in the area. So I thanked the principal, the police officer, and the man behind the desk and I left the premises.
       On my way back to the shopping center where my car and protest sign were parked I passed a group of high school kids who were walking from one of the school's annex buildings back to the main building, presumably to participate in the walk-out.

    It occurred to me as I was walking back to my car that there was no reason I couldn't walk over the the football stadium and stand outside the gate while the students were gathered inside the gate. In fact I later learned that this was where those members of the Gahanna community who showed up to stand in solidarity with the students gathered, outside the stadium gate and behind the line of police officers who were guarding the perimeter of the fence around the stadium.
      But I figured, well, I asked, and was asked to leave, so I'd leave.
      I'm a peaceful demonstrator at heart, not a rabble-rouser.
      By the time my sign and I arrived home it was a few minutes before ten, the designated time for the walk-out nationwide.  I decided to walk around my neighborhood alone for 17 minutes, - without my sign -  not because I thought taking a pleasant walk by myself would make any difference,

...but because, really, I didn't know what else I could do.

    But as I walked I thought about things that I in fact could do for the cause of better gun control laws,

...like leaving yet another phone call on the answering machine of my Senator, Rob Portman, and sending him another email,

...even though it's well-known that Rob Portman is among those law makers who are deepest   down in the the deep, deep pockets of the National Rifle Association,

...I can take my sign to future anti-gun violence, pro-gun control demonstrations,

...I can continue writing my blog, hopefully provoking thought and spreading my belief in this cause,

   And I can vote.