The March For Our Lives took place in the village of Cambridge, a small town a few miles from our farmhouse. The village has about 2,000 residents and many gun owners and lovers, almost all of them responsible and conscientious and careful people.

As a former police reporter, I had to count crowds all the time, and I believe there were between 350 and 400 people marching Saturday afternoon for sensible and balanced gun control.

No one I saw – including me – was calling for an end to the Second Amendment or marching to take anybody’s rights away.

That means a fourth of the town came out to march and make history. And this count did not include the children from the high school, they had all gone to march in Albany, an hour away.

The crowd was determined, yet jubilant. Nobody was looking for a fight, just for sanity and justice. I looked down Main Street, and could not see the end of it, the town refused to let us march in the street, only on the sidewalks. There were no speeches or bullhorns, just the march. It had a quiet yet powerful dignity to it.

We all felt enough is enough, we marched for the right of children to live in safety, and to live, period.

This was an earthquake to me, nothing like this has ever happened in our town before, and it seemed to me a portent of things to come, the children of Parkland, Fla. have touched off something much, bigger than themselves.

A great change is coming, not only regarding gun violence but, I think, many other things. The past year, working with the refugees and the Mansion  residents and the Army Of Good, I’ve seen so much evidence of the compassionate and generous spirit that lives across our country, but not in our capital.

If 400 people – if you blow up this photo, you can count them for yourself, and there were many more behind me – will march to save the lives of our children in this conservative farming village, then we are in for great change. I was exhilarated, hopeful, and I have only marched for anything once or twice in my life.

This is a crusade the children have chosen to lead and must lead, I hope I can find a positive and meaningful way to change. I do not argue my life or my views, my life speaks for how I feel about things.

I believe in listening, and not shouting. Perhaps a genuine dialogue is possible. Either way, things will be different.

This was a stirring  and emotional sight for me,  a viscerally apolitical person, as were the testimonies of the children in Washington. They say protests and marches don’t change anything, but my town changed today, and I am uplifted by it.

Many of us have had a difficult and trying year, and my fears and anger have all gone into doing good for people, not in arguments.

But still, it is a gift to walk alongside so many people who want nothing more than to protect our children – I saw hunters, farmers, Republicans and Democrats, business people and rural people who came in from the countryside to stand with us.

I will continue to focus on my Army Of Good and the wonderful work we are doing, but I hope the children will make room for people like me, I will do anything I can to help them, the angels are at their side and have their back. They seem set for a long and  hard struggle, and that is what they will get.

Today should give them some nourishment and hope. The children will lead the way.

This was a big day for my town, and for me, and Maria.