The two sides of my waterproof sign.

I live in a tiny town on the Central Coast of California. Usually, protest marches are organized in Santa Cruz, marching through the downtown shopping district. Santa Cruz is pretty flaming liberal, and the community is usually enthusiastic and supportive of protests. But this time the March for Our Lives was cancelled—I don’t know why. So other people picked up the slack and organized a march through our tiny town.

I had purchased foam board for my sign. I tried to find clever sign suggestions for this march, but I have to say I was disappointed by the general blandness of the offerings, so I came up with my own. It was supposed to be pouring rain, and I couldn’t see slogging through the rain with a huge, double-sided sign that was running ink, so I came up with a rain-proof plan. I printed my signs out on 8×10 paper and slid them into a plastic sheet protector with a piece of cardboard to stiffen it. Then I taped the opening closed—voila! A waterproof sign, not as large as I usually carry, but clearly readable. (It did not rain, by the way.)

My husband Tom volunteered to go with me. I donned my trusty pussy hat (which I now view as an all-purpose protest symbol, and thanks again, Bernardita, for knitting it for me). We set off for the park where we were to gather, arriving at 9:00 am. I was astounded—there were hundreds of people, many with their kids. I’m no good at estimating crowd size, but I would say easily 1500 people turned out in my little town. Many had signs, many wore pussy hats. It was a peaceful, cheerful assembly of people who care deeply about the safety of children in their schools. Not to mention the safety of citizens in public spaces. I think everyone there was aware of the (hopefully remote) possibility that some gun nut would decide that this was his big moment. Thankfully, nothing of the sort occurred, at least not here.

We marched through the teensy downtown area for perhaps thee-quarters of a mile to a bridge over the freeway. People going by in cars mostly honked enthusiastically and gave the thumbs-up. A couple of people gave us a thumbs-down, and one person yelled, “Guns for everyone!” But by far, the majority of passing drivers were supportive. At the bridge, we waited for a while and waved our signs at the traffic, then turned around and marched back to the park entrance. On the way back, the line of marchers heading toward the bridge was about as long as the line of marchers heading back, and we set up a cool call-and-response on different sides of the main street:

“Enough is enough!”

“Never again!”

I found myself close to tears as we marched. My grandchildren go to school in this town. I fear for them every day. That’s just wrong. We should be able to send our children to school secure in the knowledge that no insane, violent extremist is going to murder them in their classrooms.

They are too precious to me. Not just my grandchildren–all of them. Now is the time. Now.