Still sobbing

Yesterday I sat down to rest my stupid leg on my trip back to my room. Sometimes I break out the phone and read some news while I wait. This time I pressed the Local tab, and for fun selected Akron.

Akron, Ohio that is. The home of every important tire company when I was a child. Goodyear Aircraft, who employed my father all his life to work on, first blimps, those wonder aircraft that escorted ships across the Atlantic during the war, and finally space craft. What a city.

I've written about growing up in North Hill, home of all the Italian immigrants and infiltrated in my childhood by immigrants from all over the country and world for employment in the factories. We had to tell mom if we were going to the black Wagners for the afternoon, or the white Wagners.

The International Institute of Akron was on the other side of the street from my junior high school. It welcomed immigrants and refugees from around the world to their new home in Akron. We went to school with children for whom English was a second language. I walked to school with Sonja Jones, who lived with her grandparents a street behind me. Sonja's family was from East Germany.

Where am I going with all this? The headline on the local, Akron news yesterday was the lockdown at Forest Hill Elementary School because ICE was patrolling the neighborhood. Driving their stinking cars up and down Damon Street, so the kids couldn't go out for recess.

Tears rolled down. A friend stopped and asked and I told her, the effing feds are trolling for immigrants at my elementary school. She said "Well, they voted him in!" and I lost it. I have not checked, but I sincerely doubt Akron voted red. Never, ever! Those children did not vote. They just went to school, like kids. Babies, five year old kindergartners. Ten year olds off to middle school in a year. Still walking to school, no one lives far enough away for the bus. She apologized.

I am overwhelmed by the knowledge I cannot throw enough sand, support enough marches, write enough letters, weave enough towels to abate this cruelty from the capital.