Inactive Activists

    Well, yesterday Sean and I took the T into Boston to do a little petitioning in the name of Lori Berenson.  Unfortunately for us, people dont take kindly to two teen agers dressed in band shirts and jeans nagging them for signatures to free a woman who has been sitting in a Peruvian jail cell high in the Andes mountains with no heat, and very little sunlight for over four years.  While most people completely ignored us, a few did acknowledge us by just saying "no".  Anyway, here is a more detailed description of our day:

    The day started off when I awoke at about Nine thirty.  I called Sean and we made plans to meet at his house at eleven so we would make it into Boston by noon.  Yeah right.  What ended up happening was, I got to his house by eleven, and we hung around wasting time for almost an hour.  When we finally did get going, our first stop was at Staples to buy two clip boards to hold all ten pages of petitions that we had.  We planned on taking the T into Harvard Square, but then decided to get off at Central, so we could walk the rest of the way, and stop at a few record stores on the way there.  Our first stop was at Looney Toons Records, a pretty decent little record store that has a lot of old stuff, but doesnt really carry any new records.  The next stop was Second Comming Records.  This record store had a great selection of hardcore and punk records, CD's and what not.  If your ever in the Cambridge area, check it out.  Continuing our journey towards freedom for Lori Berenson, we noticed all the Futon stores.  Why the hell are there five stores that specialize in selling futons within a quarter mile radius??? why??? There was Futon Express, Futon Dream On, Boston Futon, Futons and Bedrooms...what the hell??  Anyway, our next stop was the Revolutionary Book store.  A book store that has TONS of information on various political parties, prisoners of concience, and political books in general.  The guy that was working there was really cool, and gave us some free stuff, and signed one of our petitions.  Feeling a bit victorious after our first signature, we decided it was time for us to grab a bite to eat.  I have another question.  Why is it, the only place you can get affordable food in Harvard Square is Store 24?  There are NO fast food resturaunts in there at all.  So, while Sean and I were wandering around looking for scraps of food to steal from the pigeons, James Taylor (not the famous singer) from "Spare Change" approached us asking for a donation for a homeless shelter.  As he was talking I realized that I recognized him.  I bursted out "I know you!!!" and he replied" OH yeah!!! Newbury Street!!!" haha.  back in December, Adam, Chris, Mike and myself were chillin on Newbury street when he approached us.  We actually saw him later on that day again on Newbury street after Adam spent 130 bucks on records for his new turn tables.  But it was really wierd that he remembered me.... Anyway, he then signed our petition, and after giving up on finding a fast food resturaunt, we settled for a couple frozen sandwiches from Store 24 and some nutty bars.  After eating all we had, we decided it was time to do some real petitioning.  We stood outside of the T stop for a while trying to get peoples attention, but noone would listen to us.  A few people glanced in our direction, but they just kept walking.  Finally, this kid who looked like he was probrably in college walked by and seemed quite interested in Lori's case.  After explaining why we were petitioning, he came to the conclusion that there was more to the case than what we presented, but he was convinced that she did not deserve to be held in solitary confinement twenty two hours a day, only drinking out of a bucket of water, so he signed.  The next guy we asked stopped to listen, and claimed that he had already signed a petetion for Lori, in Colorado.  After explaining to us how signatures are "only good once" he decided not to sign our petition.  whatever.  Then, because our hands were becoming frozen, we decided to go down into the T station, and bother the people who were waiting for the train.  After spotting a punked out teen ager, we decided to proceed with caution, seeing as how you never know how those rowdy kids may act.  So, after circling him for some time, and finally deciding that he was harmless enough, we approached him and asked for his signature.  He kindly agreed to sign, and we were on our way.  We found ourselves playing hackysack next to a popcorn stand, and asking a few more people for signatures with no luck.  So, with the four signatures we had, we decided to call it a day and headed home.  Over all, I would actually call the day a success.  We got the idea of what it was like to actually go in there and do something on our own for once.  We may have got little accomplished, but at least we didnt sit home on our asses all day and complain.  So i guess the moral of this story is to go out and do something, no matter how small it may be, after all chances are you cant possibly suck as bad as us!

Derek