Sunday, we get up at 4 a.m. to catch an early train to New York City to visit my granddaughter Robin, who I haven’t seen in months. She seems to no longer be a baby, but a young person.
I’m bringing a sack of books, some 3D bookmarks, and possibly a digital camera made expressly for the young. Robin is one and a half years old, and the camera might be too young for her, and I’m thinking of giving it to one of the refugee children instead.
Many of them are desperate for digital cameras, and V Tech is making some very good and inexpensive ones (see below) for kids, usually a bit older than Robin. I’ve been researching them for the RISSE after school program. And Robin has a lot of toys.
Our visit won’t be that long, but hopefully we can have lunch together and I can do some reading. I’m also bringing her some stickers.
I’m leaning towards giving them to the refugee kids, Emma’s parents can get one for her if they wish, and she probably is a tad too young. Yet I have this instinct she would handle it well and it would open a creative window for her, one of my things.
The camera is made for 3 to 9 year olds, and has a chip that works with computers. I’ll have to read the Amazon reviews more carefully to get a better sense of it.
Even going so early, we won’t have that much time to spend with Robin, but I’m really going to get a look at her, real bonding will have to come later. We’ll be back Sunday night, i have so much to do next week.
I liked the family feeling of the march today, and I especially liked meeting some very young people who were aware of the issues and passionate about them. It makes sense, I suppose.
According to a study by the Washington Post, more than 187,000 children in America have been affected by gun violence, and it changes their lives for ever.
It is unacceptable for any moral person to fight against saving the lives of children, or to try to demonize the people who are brave enough to do it. The children seem to have had enough and good for them. I am so sorry we failed them so completely, it was our responsibility to fight harder.
I saw lots of children today marching. If I were a politician trying to ignore this day, I would be very nervous. I put up 14 photos from the march on my Facebook Page.
The March For Our Lives took place in the village of Cambridge, a small town a few miles from our farmhouse. The village has about 2,000 residents and many gun owners and lovers, almost all of them responsible and conscientious and careful people.
As a former police reporter, I had to count crowds all the time, and I believe there were between 350 and 400 people marching Saturday afternoon for sensible and balanced gun control.
No one I saw – including me – was calling for an end to the Second Amendment or marching to take anybody’s rights away.
That means a fourth of the town came out to march and make history. And this count did not include the children from the high school, they had all gone to march in Albany, an hour away.
The crowd was determined, yet jubilant. Nobody was looking for a fight, just for sanity and justice. I looked down Main Street, and could not see the end of it, the town refused to let us march in the street, only on the sidewalks. There were no speeches or bullhorns, just the march. It had a quiet yet powerful dignity to it.
We all felt enough is enough, we marched for the right of children to live in safety, and to live, period.
This was an earthquake to me, nothing like this has ever happened in our town before, and it seemed to me a portent of things to come, the children of Parkland, Fla. have touched off something much, bigger than themselves.
A great change is coming, not only regarding gun violence but, I think, many other things. The past year, working with the refugees and the Mansion residents and the Army Of Good, I’ve seen so much evidence of the compassionate and generous spirit that lives across our country, but not in our capital.
If 400 people – if you blow up this photo, you can count them for yourself, and there were many more behind me – will march to save the lives of our children in this conservative farming village, then we are in for great change. I was exhilarated, hopeful, and I have only marched for anything once or twice in my life.
This is a crusade the children have chosen to lead and must lead, I hope I can find a positive and meaningful way to change. I do not argue my life or my views, my life speaks for how I feel about things.
I believe in listening, and not shouting. Perhaps a genuine dialogue is possible. Either way, things will be different.
This was a stirring and emotional sight for me, a viscerally apolitical person, as were the testimonies of the children in Washington. They say protests and marches don’t change anything, but my town changed today, and I am uplifted by it.
Many of us have had a difficult and trying year, and my fears and anger have all gone into doing good for people, not in arguments.
But still, it is a gift to walk alongside so many people who want nothing more than to protect our children – I saw hunters, farmers, Republicans and Democrats, business people and rural people who came in from the countryside to stand with us.
I will continue to focus on my Army Of Good and the wonderful work we are doing, but I hope the children will make room for people like me, I will do anything I can to help them, the angels are at their side and have their back. They seem set for a long and hard struggle, and that is what they will get.
Today should give them some nourishment and hope. The children will lead the way.
This was a big day for my town, and for me, and Maria.
I have never been prouder of my lover and my wife than I was Saturday afternoon when we both marched in the March For Our Lives demonstration in our small town of Cambridge, N.Y., one of 800 demonstrations occurring in the country.
Nobody needs my views on gun control, people will can and will make up their own minds, but Maria and I wanted to support the articulate and passionate – and intensely patriotic – young people from all over the country who are asking us to help protect our children and force our representatives to do their jobs and undertake responsibility rather than the cowardice and greed so many have demonstrated on this issue.
To me, these kids are like a Tsunami gathering steam, they will change the history of gun violence in America, I have faith in them. Our country will never be right until we come together to fix this.
Maria took an old pellet gun molding in a drawer and a baby blanket and created a work of art that tied guns and children together. I was shocked by how many people were touched and amazed by this artwork and came up to praise her and take her picture.
I can’t imagine thinking as creatively as she did after the Parkland shootings in Florida, and I so love her quiet strength and dignity.
As someone who expresses himself only in words, I am sometimes in awe of artists who find other ways to make eloquent statements. Maria is intensely conflict-averse, she does not argue with people or hate people or tell them what to think. But people were blown away by her crochet gun and I got a powerful lesson in her great gifts and in the power of art to touch people.
Many people needs lots of words to express themselves, Maria uses her art. This crocheted gun says it all without words. I was just blown away by the reaction of people in our town.
I think the age of argument and anger is slowly coming to an end, and the age of compassion and accomplishment is coming. Change is in the wind,I can smell it and feel it. There is a great awakening. I am grateful to be around to see it, and as prophesied, the children will lead the way..
Maria has put postcards of her crochet gun sculpture up on her Etsy arts page. She is offering them for free to any students who want them (they cost $12 a pack for adults. You can see them here. Students can e-mail her (or parents on their behalf) at [email protected].
Maria was startled at the number of people who thanked her for her crochet gun sculpture, I was slow to get it when she made it, but I see women and mothers and teachers got it right away and were touched by it. My girl.
The new RISSE Amazon Wish List today focuses on crafts – tools for making jewelry, necklaces, beaded bracelets. I’ve bought one spool for $10.82. They are seeking nine more spools from $10-$11, and other crafts. I can’t wait to see them on their necks and wrists, for them crafts often give them the chance to remember their countries and their families and their lives overseas. It’s a creative wish list, and colorful one.
