Yoshi Day -- Planting More Seeds Of Hope

It would seem a feeble response to the fury of gunfire, and yet Gordon Taylor had a perfectly good reason why, as a protest against violence, he chose to plant a daffodil.

Consider this about daffodils:

They are bright, hopeful, ubiquitous, resilient and perennial. "They're tough. They come back year after year, and that's what we'd like to do," said Gordon, who along with 50 other volunteers yesterday planted 5,000 bulbs in Magnolia to commemorate the second annual Yoshi Day.

Yoshihiro "Yoshi" Hattori was a 16-year-old Japanese exchange student who was shot to death on his way to a Halloween party two years ago today in Baton Rouge. The homeowner who shot him was acquitted of manslaughter, although a jury recently awarded the Hattori family $865,000 in civil damages.

Yoshi, whose case bewildered the Japanese and U.S. public, has come to symbolize all young victims of violence, according to the event's co-sponsors, Washington Ceasefire and Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility.

Volunteers planted the donated bulbs in the median along Thorndyke Avenue West starting at West Plymouth Street.

In Wedgwood, members of the University Unitarian Church did their part: The church building was symbolically wrapped with two strands of ribbon. The red ribbon established the church as a hate-free zone; the yellow ribbon symbolized the right of children to be free of violence.

Said Pastor Peter Raible: "The (ribbon) ceremony is meant to raise people's consciousness, and to raise the question: `Are our children important to us?' Maybe people will see this on TV or in the newspaper, and they'll think: `Have I spent enough time with my kid today?' "

In both the Magnolia and Wedgwood ceremonies, the intent was to keep the issue of youth violence a high priority, even if it only meant planting seeds of remembrance.

As one volunteer put it, the tiny effort today will bear hope tomorrow, as the daffodil bulbs will attest come spring.