This morning, we gathered at a downtown park at 8 a.m. for a half-hour rally with songs, brief speeches, and a reading from the Bible by Reverend Jerry Turner. About fifty people attended. All of us then walked six blocks to another small park to observe ten minutes of silence for the victims of war.

Six of the Spring Hill College students joined today's walk. Brian, a sophomore political science major, was making plans to drop out of college this semester in order to walk with us to New York. First he had to check out the student aid situation to see whether he could get his scholarship renewed next fall. Also, it would take a few days to talk with his instructors and close out the courses. We encouraged him to take more time to consider his decision.

Morishita, Nagase, Sakamaki, Shima, and I were driven to L'Arche to spend the night. L`Arche is a community for the mentally handicapped, which was founded in France. L'Arche gave people who had been wards of mental institutions almost their entire lives a "normal" life in a family setting. They worked in sheltered employment, helped cook supper, and then washed dishes after the meal. I had been extremely impressed with l'Arche, and have now worked there a number of years.

   January 23, Stapleton to Bay Minette
We stayed at a gym at a junior college in Bay Minette. Although it was Saturday, students were waiting to help us unload our gear into the gym. Three students from Spring Hill College came with letters for Julia, Neils, and Carster. No one knew where the trio was. The letters were left with Mercury until the three came back. This is important because later we learned that the envelopes contained marijuana.

   January 24, Bay Minette to Atmore
We walked eighteen miles, mostly through pine forests. In the morning, we were harassed by a county deputy. "We know who you are, and we are keeping an eye on you." In Atmore, we were joined, for three miles, by two young black women.

Diane and Jeannette were still our coordinators, and they also drove our support vehicle. In the morning, Diane stopped at a small gas station to see whether it would be all right for us to take our fifteen-minute break there. The manager asked whether we were a "mixed group." Diane, pretending she didn't know what the woman meant, said there were both men and women. The manager persisted: "Are there any coloreds?" Finally she gave us permission. But now we refused.

At the end of the day's walk, we were driven back to Bay Minette to spend the night at Pinetreat, a Presbyterian retreat where we were given the use of a large A-frame cabin.

Everyone seemed tired. Most had found a corner of the cabin in which to read or write. I had a headache. Nagase gave my head and shoulders a massage. Soon the headache and fatigue were gone. Later, Neils, Carster, and Julia left for a welk in the woods. They appeared to be high when they returned.

Morishita read aloud a few pages from "Buddhism for World Peace", by Venerable Fuji, the founder and teacher of the Nipponzan Myohoji sect. This passage was from a speech which Fuji had given at the conclusion of the Long Walk for Survival, a walk initiated by native American people.

    January 25, Atmore to Brewton
The weather has been beautiful recently. Again, the temperature was in the 60s. Most of today's walk was through rural wooded areas. We enjoyed the walk, even though we did not see many people. There were rolling hills of green pastures with grazing horses. The countryside was dotted with small ponds.

We stopped to eat lunch at a roadside state park, by a lovely winding river. A young man in his early twenties drove up to our picnic table. He just sat in his car, glaring at us. Carole walked up to him, all smiles, and kindly invited him to join us for lunch. He answered roughly, "I'm not hungry!", started his car loudly, and sped out of the park, slinging gravel at us.

Diane told us that tonight we would be guests of Jefferson Davis Community College in Brewton. I laughed and said that ole Jeff Davis would be spinning in his grave tonight. Julia was the only other walker who knew who Jeff Davis was. I gave a brief history of the founding of the Confederate States of America.

We were almost at our afternoon rest break when a car stopped suddenly in the highway. He then speedily backed up toward us on the left shoulder of the road. Carole and I were carrying the banner in front. We thought that the driver was trying to run over us. He stopped before us, jumped out, and shouted, "Do you like fried chicken?" Finally, communication was established. He was the president of the community college, on his way to pick up a dozen boxes of fried chicken for our supper. We told him that chicken would be fine. Carole and Mercury were the only strict vegetarians among us.

We finished the final five miles and arrived in Brewton just before dark. The dean of students was there to meet us, and to provide us with directions to where we were to stay. He directed us to go to this building, then go down this hall, then go through this door, etc. We followed his directions and found ourselves in the men's shower room in the gymnasium. Someone went to find the dean to let him know that we needed more directions. But it turned out that we had followed his directions correctly. So, ole Jeff Davis may have been turning in his grave tonight, but he may have been laughing occasionally as well.

As we were unloading our gear, Neils, Carster, and Julia showed up. They had stayed at the river for about an hour, then hitched a ride back to the college. They told me they were getting "bad vibes" from the rest of us. They wanted to know if it had anything to do with their not walking this afternoon.

We all went to the student lounge to watch the news and to eat our chicken box lunches. The bad news was that the House had approved Reagan's request for funds to again begin preparing for biological and chemical war with the Soviet Union. CBS news now showed the existence of a "nerve gas gap". After hearing this, no one felt like eating fried chicken wings. How can all of this be happening? How many times over must the government prepare to kill everyone and in how many different ways? This news redoubled our resolve. I went back to the showers to stretch out my sleeping bag and read Fuji's "Buddhism for World Peace." I learned that Fuji had worked with Gandhi for the nonviolent liberation of India from England; it was said that Gandhi called him "guriji" (teacher). By reading some of the chapters, I also began to gain some insight into the meaning of the Buddhist prayer for peace, which I had chanted for more than three weeks now.

Julia came in. She told me that Neils and Carster were depressed because they were not seeing as many people as they had hoped. They had decided that tomorrow they would take "radical" political action to change the focus of the peace walk. I wanted to know what this involved, here in rural Alabama. Evidently I did not show as much enthusiasm as she had expected. I too was disappointed that we were not talking with so many people lately. We were on a predominantly black college campus, but no one knew we were here, and we were sleeping in the men's shower room. Still, I believed that to change matters we should first pass the word to Pamela and to our local coordinators that we expected to speak with more people in the evenings. "Radical political action" tomorrow morning did not excite me.go to page 12