& Albany County Post - The Altamont Enterprise
& Albany County Post - The Altamont Enterprise
& Albany County Post - The Altamont Enterprise
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
2 <strong>The</strong> <strong>Altamont</strong> <strong>Enterprise</strong> – Thursday, December 20, 2012<br />
From the editor<br />
In the face of tragedy we feel powerless — we’re not<br />
One of the great things about <strong>Altamont</strong> is it has a village square — a center,<br />
a place where citizens can meet. Sometimes they come together for summer<br />
concerts put on by the library, moved by music; kids dance, grown-ups tap<br />
their feet. Sometimes they gather to hear speeches after the Memorial Day parade, as<br />
patriotism is lauded and taps are solemnly played.<br />
Last Friday evening, as darkness fell, the streetlamps came on, the colorful lights<br />
from the Christmas tree glowed, and a solitary figure stood stock still on the edge of<br />
the square, holding a handmade cardboard sign.<br />
His name is John Walkuski; a one-time <strong>Altamont</strong> resident, he lives now in Knox. He<br />
struck a mournful pose — head down — as he held the sign across his chest, arms outstretched.<br />
He had written in black marker, in capital letters: “Ban all assault weapons.”<br />
And then, in smaller letters, at the bottom: “God forgive us.”<br />
All day long, reports had been unfolding of the news about the massacre of schoolchildren<br />
at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. <strong>The</strong> count kept rising<br />
— to 20 children and six school adults — as the day went on and the details were<br />
discovered. Police said that 20-year-old Adam Lanza, after killing his mother in the<br />
house they shared, drove to the school and went on a killing rampage, before shooting<br />
himself; he used a Sig Sauer and a Glock, and police also found a Bushmaster .223 M4<br />
carbine at the scene.<br />
“I was stunned,” said John Walkuski. “I had to do something.”<br />
As he stood on the edge of the village square, facing Main Street, passing motorists<br />
honked approval and waved.<br />
Walkuski, who is 77, has been an active protester for most of his life. He<br />
worked as a city firefighter for 26 years before being injured; that re-set<br />
his course to become a nurse. He liked working in emergency rooms. “You<br />
know you’re really doing something,” he said. “You have to deal with<br />
whatever comes up.”<br />
Walkuski was in ’60s war protests and in later protests against<br />
corporate wrongdoing.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> kids were totally embarrassed with Dad marching up<br />
and down in front of some corporate building in Manhattan,”<br />
he recalled.<br />
But now his children, in their 50s, and his grandchildren, too,<br />
have done their share of protesting, some of it global, on issues<br />
ranging from civil rights to environmental preservation.<br />
His daughter walked with Native American friends from<br />
San Jose to Washington, D. C. and asked him to join them.<br />
He remembers tramping through the “flat, flat cornfields<br />
of Iowa.”<br />
<strong>The</strong>y arrived in D.C. on Columbus Day with this message:<br />
“You didn’t discover us. We were here all the time,”<br />
he said.<br />
As Walkuski stood on the village square in <strong>Altamont</strong><br />
on Friday evening, Jerry Oliver, a minister, walked by.<br />
He clapped Walkuski warmly on the back.<br />
“Amen to that!” said Oliver, gesturing to Walkuski’s<br />
sign.<br />
“Thank you, brother,” responded Walkuski.<br />
Edna Litten stepped up to Walkuski to shake his<br />
hand.<br />
“I’ve stood with peace signs for I don’t know how<br />
many years,” she said.<br />
Indeed, we remembered her standing in that very<br />
village square in March of 2003 as the networks were<br />
airing President George W. Bush’s comments on impending<br />
war with Iraq. About 130 people gathered in<br />
<strong>Altamont</strong>’s square that night to be part of a worldwide<br />
candlelight vigil for peace. <strong>The</strong> boy standing next to<br />
Litten that cold, dark night professed he was scared.<br />
She comforted him by leaning over and saying, “I’m<br />
scared, too.”<br />
He smiled a little around the corners of his<br />
mouth.<br />
Litten called <strong>The</strong> <strong>Enterprise</strong> this week to say that,<br />
when she shook Walkuski’s hand last week, she hadn’t<br />
known about the Sandy Hook killings. “I just knew we<br />
needed to ban assault weapons,” she said. “<strong>The</strong> only<br />
thing they are good for is to shoot large numbers of<br />
people. If they had been banned before, there wouldn’t<br />
have been a shooting in Connecticut.”<br />
She added, “Statistics show that having a gun in<br />
your house increases your chances of being shot; it<br />
doesn’t make your house safer.”<br />
Litten concluded by saying, when she saw the pictures<br />
of the children who had been shot, she cried.<br />
President Barack Obama made a televised speech on<br />
Friday as Walkuski stood alone in the village square.<br />
<strong>The</strong> president gave voice to the nation’s grief as he<br />
spoke of the beautiful children who had died. “<strong>The</strong>y<br />
had their entire lives ahead of them — birthdays,<br />
graduations, weddings, kids of their own,” he said.<br />
Other politicians issued statements, too.<br />
“President Obama rightly sent his heartfelt condolences<br />
to the families in Newton,” New York City’s<br />
mayor, Michael Bloomberg, said in his statement. “But<br />
the country needs him to send a bill to Congress to<br />
fix this problem.”<br />
Under President Bill Clinton, a flawed ban on assault<br />
weapons was enacted that has expired. How many<br />
massacres will it take before high-capacity bullet clips<br />
and assault weapons are banned?<br />
<strong>The</strong>y aren’t needed for hunting. <strong>The</strong>y aren’t needed<br />
for self-protection.<br />
President Obama said on Friday that, to prevent<br />
more tragedies, the nation, regardless of politics, has to<br />
take meaningful action. He’s right, but the massacres<br />
to date haven’t produced any movement.<br />
What can individuals do in the face of powerful<br />
lobbies?<br />
Asked why he was standing in the village square<br />
on Friday, Walkuski answered, “Most people will say,<br />
‘Yeah, they should do that’ — whatever it is. It starts<br />
with one person.”<br />
We stand with him.<br />
— Melissa Hale-Spencer, editor