It’s a dreary Sunday. Cold with heavy cloud cover. I’ve got half a bottle of Jack in the kitchen, and I’m two steps from downing the wicked thing just to get the day over with. That’s where I’m at, readers, but for once, when I look out the window, I see something aside from the lackluster weather. Saturday’s “MarchForOurLives” event was something I wish I could have taken part in, if only to cover the event that took place in cities across the republic. Alas, the mindset in Wayne is not there just yet, and the best I could do was take it in through pictures and videos spread across social media.

Living life on the outside, that seems to be what I’m good at. Nothing more than an observer on the battlefield. Seeing this, our newest revolution, it brings another round of history on repeat. We’ve been here before with the college students rising up to bring down the military complex that got us into Vietnam, but now it’s the high schoolers who are taking to the streets, and it’s the NRA that they have in their sights.

While my time student teaching left me in a bad state regarding teenagers, I must say that these kids have got guts, far more than the politicians who have turned into nothing more than gun runners in three-piece suits, and the courage of the student protesters is indescribably stronger than that of the opposition that hides behind Facebook profiles, believing they are prophets of the digital age. They feel intelligent when they say we should strip teenagers of free speech because they’re just causing trouble. To them, the Bill of Rights applies only to those they agree with.

People said things similar to this during the anti-war protests of the 1960s-70s and the Civil Rights Movement, but back in those days, they had to get right in the faces of those they disagreed with. Over the years, the bigots have lost their backbones, but they still are the type of people who believe Jesus is coming to save them, too blind to realize that we’ve been abandoned, given up on as the species that condoned slavery and the atom bomb, a race that has driven the white rhinos to extinction, but still press on without a second thought.

I realize I’m coming off rather harsh with this one, readers, but it’s time we knock off the pleasantries, the false smiles and the backstabbing. We need to roll up our sleeves and get something done. Our administration is crumbling, and high schoolers are taking to the streets. The sane finally have mobilized to a degree that’s scaring the gremlins we have in power, and we can’t surrender the momentum. There’s a chance to right the wrongs, to redeem ourselves for at least a few of the sins we’ve amassed over the years and it’s all thanks to a group too young to vote, but loud enough to be heard. Now it’s up to us to listen.