Everything that you cannot see

I once knew a man with a bit of a sight problem. He called himself a wheeler-dealer, a trader, a man who would buy semi trailers to drag home to his mountain top just to fill with the stuff he would buy. Once he showed me what was inside one of those trailers full of treasure, elaborately unlocking and sliding up the door as he was unearthing King Tut's antechambers. It was crammed with yellowed and mildewing newspapers, stuffed into every crevice. They were stacked like saltines in squares to the roof, so tightly you couldn't pull out one issue or see light between between them. He hadn't read them; he bought them like that and thought I'd like them, being a writer. I'm a horse trader, he'd say, and wink, appraising every thing and everybody he came across: Is this worth something in trade or can I add it to my collection? Problem was, over the years he moved the boundaries of "the collection" to include just about everything. But he wasn't lying about the horse trade. He did indeed come across a horse at one point, an unusually fine one of a dwindling breed. Soon wealthy breeders traveled from everywhere to his junkyard farm. One day I noticed that prize stallion turning into the barn with wraps around his legs. The vet had been out to treat a cut. Must've rubbed against something jagged and metal around here, the horse trader said, standing bowlegged and confused, looking out over his property. Weeds grew unevenly around broken car parts, lawn furniture, old couches, piles of trash, as he was appraising like always. "I swear to God I don't know what on earth could have cut that horse," he said, mystified. I hadn't thought of that oddly-sighted horse trader in years until lately, as I've pondered the hue and cry of those calling for the removal of a young adult book from the curriculum at Lorain County Joint Vocational School. The book in question is John Green's "Looking for Alaska," which had been on the assigned reading list earlier this school year in ninth-grade English classes. A group of residents showed up to voice their objections at a board meeting in November, demanding the book be pulled from the curriculum, saying it is "erotic" and "immoral," and objected to content related to substance abuse and suicide. Diane Kerecz of Amherst, the parent of a ninth grader, said it made her daughter uncomfortable. Though her daughter was ultimately allowed to read a different book and was excused from the classroom when the book was discussed, she pursued it further, asking for it to be banned completely. A curriculum committee is investigating the matter and the book is not currently taught. A decision will likely come before the board this month. Some attendees said the book went against Christianity and was pornographic. "To me, as a Christian, that book is not for anybody, and if you read the Bible, if you call yourself a Christian, you hate what God hates. And I hate sexual immorality," said Lisa Brown of Lorain. "If you approve of it, shame on you," said Tim York, who attended, though he said he homeschooled all three of his children. "You're sick, you're very sick." The hint of brimstone was in the air, for sure. "If you're pushing pornographic books like this on children, you'll have to account to God for what you're doing," said Chris Chumita of Elyria, while others in the group said "amen." I started thinking about these JVS ninth graders that we're all fired up to protect. I have a ninth grader. I still call her Baby Girl, but only when I think I can get away with it. She's 14. She was 3 when Sandy Hook happened. I played blocks and cars with her and read books and we colored and did all kinds of things and I pretended I had a cold while I cried all day at the horror. How will I ever send her to kindergarten, I wondered. She was 8 when Parkland happened. She practiced making herself very still, and darting from one spot to another a lot that year. She got very good. I think of how these ninth graders have never and will never know a year without the specter of a school shooting hanging over them. There is something so brutally and absurdly American about us bickering over the subject matter of a high school English book, whether it's too mature to teach to kids who've been schooled in active shooter drills since kindergarten. Clare Boothe Luce said censorship, like charity should begin at home — but unlike charity, it should end there. I agree. I'm a Christian, so I was trying to work out what those protestors must have meant when they mentioned "we should hate what God hates." Surely it would mean hunger, gun violence, things like that? In Ohio, 44 percent of public school students live in poverty. One in seven Ohio children face hunger. Nearly half of Lorain County residents fall below income guidelines for food assistance benefits, according to Feeding America. From 2016 to 2020, the percentage of kids in Ohio diagnosed with anxiety or depression jumped 42 percent, one of the 10 highest states to jump in the nation — and that was before the catastrophic pandemic years, according to Kids Count. I wonder what kind of horse-trader blindness it must take to storm the schools over bad words these days. Contact Chronicle-Telegram columnist Rini Jeffers at rinijeffers@gmail.com.