So we would rest in Rock Hill instead, and now Tim, a seminary student, brought us copies of the Rock Hill Herald, which had a large color picture of us on page one. The article was titled, "Monks, others brave mist". The article was primarily for human interest, dealing mainly with our lunch break. But Tim told us the paper had already run two articles on nuclear weapons in anticipation of our visit. Today's lead-off editorial supported us, calling us a manifestation of a truly grassroots movement for nuclear disarmament. In Rock Hill we found the reception extremely friendly. People had had a chance to read the newspaper and knew who we were.

It took us almost an hour to walk to the other side of the city. Everywhere people were waving at us and blowing their horns. Around 6 o'clock we reached our goal, the "Oratorio" at Winthrop College. The Oratorio is a sort of combination seminary and monastery for Catholic priests and nuns; we ate supper with some of them. It was spring break at Winthrop; we gave no program.

   March l8, Rest day in Rock Hill
All day visitors came by to talk with us. After lunch I went to my room to focus on an article on the peace walk, requested by the Washington Peace Center. Morishita had two conversations worth reporting, the first with a graduate student from the People's Republic of China. This young woman was interested in Morishita's motivation as a monk; he was interested in the treatment of religious people in China. Though a philosophical clash of science and religion, the talk was good-natured and tolerant.

His second conversation was with a Winthrop student whose role for their model U.N. was that of Japanese representative. Naturally she wanted Morishita's views on her role.

   March l9, Rock Hill, S.C. to Charlotte, N.C.
We crossed a state line again. The walk has crossed five states, over 900 miles; almost half the route was now walked. Early in the morning a driver pulled off the road and talked with one of us. She returned a few hours later with a large shopping bag full of cheese sandwiches. Rock Hill people had also prepared a lunch for us so we had plenty to eat.

The Charlotte people met us outside the city, picked up our gear, and carried us to Myers Park Baptist Church. Our coordinators thought it was unsafe for us to walk into town on the very narrow shoulders, in heavy traffic. The Mecklenburg Peace Network coordinated our stay. It is a strong network, including SANE and a Friends Meeting.

Before supper, a Charlotte man phoned about joining the walk. We arranged to meet, but he didn't show up at the meeting-place. Twice more he phoned; twice more he failed to come. I never met him.

Supper was at 6 o`clock in the church cafeteria. For the first time tickets were sold to our supporters, but at a reasonable price and for the walk treasury, and they didn't have to prepare a covered dish. There was live bluegrass and folk music; about 90 attended the banquet.

During the banquet, Jean Wood of SANE told me that Pete Seeger would be in Charlotte tomorrow to give two concerts. If interested, we could all get tickets through her to go to the afternoon concert. Only the four Americans had ever heard of Pete, but we were excited about hearing him. After we listed some of the songs he had written, the monks and Kurimori wanted to hear him too. (We had sung some of his songs at many of our interfaith services: Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream was Sakamaki's favorite English song.) Only Carole and Mercury did not want to attend. They wanted no planned event on tomorrow's rest day. I wrote a few lines to Seeger, explaining what we were doing, and asked him to support us if possible by walking a few steps with us when we left Charlotte the day after tomorrow.

Bailey Irwin of the World Peace Campaign had written him a similar letter. WPC is a network of peace groups in junior high and high schools. Members were between ten and sixteen, and autonomous of adult groups, raising their own funds, publishing their own newsletter, and holding their own peace vigils, for which they obtained the permits themselves. The young people of the World Peace Council gave us a lot of inspiration.

After supper we went to our largest interfaith service to date. The sanctuary was large and was filled. All Charlotte area religions were represented -- this was the first time we had a speaker from the Islamic faith. When the minister rose to speak, he held up the fallout shelter sign from outside the church. The church could not be a safe shelter for people in the event that a one-megaton nuclear weapon exploded on Charlotte, he said, and therefore the sign would not be displayed on the church again.

We were all renewed by the last five hours of activities in Charlotte; I felt especially good to be back in my home state.

   March 20, Rest day in Charlotte
This was a rest day with much to do. On this my last day as group leader I spent time on the phone early in the morning. Jean Wood had gotten us tickets to the Pete Seeger concert. The Mecklenburg Peace Network paid for them, $7.00 each. I called the various hosts so all walkers would know we had the tickets.

The monks were all staying at Belmont Abbey monastery; when I called, they were attending a mass. The receptionist did not know there were Buddhist monks on the grounds but took my unlikely message: "To Rev. Morishita. We got the tickets to the Pete Seeger concert, at 3 o'clock. We will assemble at 2 o'clock at NCNB plaza for short prayer vigil before walking to Spirit Theater."

Now I called my sister Dena in Lenoir, 75 miles away. She had made plans for her family to visit me today. On calling, I found that my father was to go into the hospital that day and have tests the next day for possible by-pass surgery, with the results known the day after that. I resolved to stay with the walk but phone Dena every night. The bus could get me to Lenoir in hours.

Next I called Hazel Staley, state president of the N.C. Federation of the Blind (I had been secretary) for a little shop talk. Finally, I called Jerry Lanier, a college friend and now history professor at UNC-Charlotte. We met for lunch, and Jerry added to our reminisces of bygone campus days an anecdote from his trip to the first UN Special Session on Disarmament in l978. He'd ridden there in a station wagon with Catholic priests and nuns; while in New York, he sent a card to his father in eastern North Carolina. When his father saw him later he asked, "Son, what is this about you going to a peace demonstration in New York? Don't you know peace demonstrations are controlled by the Communists?" "Not this one, dad. I rode up with a car of Catholic priests and nuns." "Catholics! They're worse than the Communists!" his father shouted.

Yes, it's good to be in NC and be with old friends, and meet new ones like Jerry's wife Jackie, who left after lunch for her work as a nurse. Jerry drove me to NCNB plaza for a short vigil. We handed out literature and, when all were assembled, walked to the Spirit Theater where the monks continued the standard chant.

Pete Seeger came out and I explained the monks' commitment to chant for peace, and hoped he didn't mind. He said he supported us completely and went back in to prepare for the concert. But a bit later the theater manager came out and asked the monks to step forward onto the sidewalk. They did. I told her Seeger

supported this and wanted us to continue. She said Seeger did not own the theater. A little time elapsed; another employee told us what was happening: the manager had called the police to have us arrested. It was true the monks were demonstrating without a permit; and the concert would soon begin. I asked that we all go inside and avoid a needless confrontation.

Jean Wood and her young daughter Rachel had good front seats; the rest of us had late-bought seats in the balcony -- still good seats. The Woods traded seats with Morishita and Ishiyama. Seeger gave us an excellent concert. With many children in the audience, he sang lots of children's songs, which the adults loved as well. He dedicated two songs to us: one, a Japanese song, he played on his flute; the other was "Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream." After the concert we went to the stage to talk with him, along with some fifty others, most asking for his autograph. Morishita quickly pulled out our disarmament petition, to get Seeger's autograph on that, and got a small guitar drawn beside the signature.

Ishiyama gave him a copy of "No More A-Bombs". He remembered how to play the song but had forgotten the Japanese lyrics. So as he played it on his guitar, the monks accompanied him, singing in Japanese. It was beautiful.

However, Seeger did not say that he would be joining for our walk out tomorrow. We did not wish to embarrass him. We knew he had a late concert tonight and would be busy tomorrow. Still we knew his dedication to peace -- he would have joined us tomorrow if he could have. We parted feeling admiration for each other.

The evening included a potluck at the AME Zion church, speeches by two children from the World Peace Campaign, the return from Florida of Mary Helms, and a 90-minute CBS program at Jerry and Jackie Lanier's house on the war in three Central American countries. go to page 26