April 23, Williamsburg to Barhamsville
We had no schedule and so enjoyed an l8-mile walk in beautiful weather. Dr. Nan Smith of PSR brought us lunch and walked the rest of the day. It took a sad half-hour to say good-bye to John and Susan Johnson and Dr. Smith. But no one was tired tonight and we stayed up late talking.

   April 24, Barhamsville to West Point
Ten miles, from West Point's Catholic church to West Point's Catholic church. (We had been shuttled ahead to sleep and back to resume walking.) Our coordinators Pam and Langdon hid jugs of water at the five-mile mark to compensate for lack of any support vehicle, but Langdon's ten-year-old son John needed one and had to stop, exhausted and with blistered feet after eight miles.

We walked past a gigantic pulp mill on the Pamunkey River; toothless workers and their families stopped what they were doing to stare at us blankly; it looked like the week's work (this was Saturday) had taken the life out of them.

Many of us did our laundry in the priest's washing machine; I read a book; people brought us supper but few stayed to be with us. This was an even more restful day than the day before. We went to sleep earlier than usual but lost an hour during the night to daylight savings time.

   April 25, West Point to New Kent
It was still spring-like as we walked 15 miles by heavily wooded areas as well as large wheat fields in this region where Martha Washington grew up. We passed a marker telling us we were near the church where George Washington and Martha Custis were married; there were many historical markers today along this Martha Washington Highway. I wanted to read them all, but the pace was so fast that I gave up. At lunch break some of us cracked acorns and ate them. I walked over to read the marker nearby and found that Jeb Stewart ha stopped here, to rest for several hours in an l862 campaign. One hundred and twenty years after Jeb, with his black plume, rested with his men under these oaks, their bodies war-weary, another group would rest, their bodies weary from a different campaign. Oh Jeb, don't we all long for the end of the war march, and for the end of the need for the peace march?

I heard on the radio today that England and Argentina had begun fighting over the Falkland/Malvinas Islands.

Only on that very day had Langdon found us that night's lodging, a Methodist Church in New Kent; we would sleep outdoors since there was a Bible study class that night. Fredericka was going to prepare our supper by herself and had gone ahead for this, but we were hungry already when we got to the church; we had only boxes of cornflakes in the food box and yoffled them by the handfuls. Now Mercury brought out his guitar and began to play and sing. Kurimori the seeker handed Sandy a pair of scissors and simply said, "Haircut, please." The rest of us spread blankets and rested.

Langdon discovered there were two Indian reservations nearby, and asked Morishita whether he would like to go and talk with the chiefs. The Nipponzan Myohoji had a close working relationship with the American Indian Movement. Morishita, Langdon, and Pam left to meet with the chiefs. They hoped for an invitation to spend tomorrow night at one of the reservations. Though we already had accommodations for that night, we wanted to make connections, if possible, with native Americans.

They returned several hours later, unsuccessful. One of the chiefs was sick, unable to talk. Morishita smiled as he said that the other chief was a Baptist minister and did not appreciate the relationship between AIM and the Buddhists.

The young Methodist minister, George, arrived. We persuaded him to join us for supper. He circulated, talking briefly with everyone. He had a reason. The weather was threatening rain and, before he left, he invited us to sleep indoors; he would move his Bible study class to another house, now that he had a good feeling for who we were. We were grateful, and more so in the morning when we found it had rained heavily in the night.

   April 26, New Kent to Sandston
What a strange day that day turned out to be. Looking back on our walk from New Orleans, I realize that every minute of every day is filled to its limit with excitement and activity. Every day had its special character. But April 26 was uniquely unique.

It was raining when I woke, and it continued heavily all day long. The walk was shorter, under ten miles. We were to meet our hosts at the Richmond airport at 3 o'clock, so decided not to leave the church until l0:00. Perhaps the rain would have stopped. Rainy or not, it was Sandy's birthday and we celebrated with her favorite food, corn -- she was kept upstairs until breakfast was ready: corn on the cob, corn margarine, corn bread, popcorn, and corn chips. When the table was ready she was allowed in and presented with a necklace of popcorn.

After breakfast we packed up the cars and cleaned up the church. At nine o'clock we held a meeting with Langdon to discuss our Richmond schedule. Again -- as usual -- not a lot was known. Langdon did know that a lot of meals had been planned for us.

In Virginia, even eating had become a point of contention for some of us. Yesterday, four people -- Carole, Sandy, Mary, and Molly -- had decided they would go on a three-day cleansing fast. For the three days in Richmond they would eat eight apples a day and no other food. They had heard about this diet at the Edgar Cayce Institute. Now, all we knew about our schedule in Richmond was that we would have meals with prominent religious leaders. So, the fact that four of us decided to eat only apples at these meals became a matter that concerned all of us. Most of them agreed to forego their cleansing fast, although we all sympathized with them.

The fact that the walkers lost control of what food they could put in their bodies irritated us all.

After the meeting, Sandy confronted Langdon over what she thought was the lack of respect shown us while we were in Virginia. "We can not even decide when to eat or not eat." She also confronted Langdon over the threat that hospitality would be withdrawn from us in Virginia if we did not cooperate fully. The confrontation that I had feared when we first arrived in Norfolk finally erupted the day before we arrived in Richmond. Everyone was aware of the disagreement.

The walkers were silent and solemn as we left the small wooden church. Rain was still pouring down. The schedule of the day's walk was terrible for this weather: we didn't have to walk far but we couldn't arrive until three o'clock.

Langdon and Pam left, supposedly to drive up to Sandston to unload our luggage at the Baptist Church there. We didn't see them again until l:00 o'clock when they arrived with our lunch. All our luggage was still in their cars and they left us immediately, once again to take our luggage to the church.

We walked until lunchtime, seeing no reason to stop to rest in the downpour. Then we stopped to wait for Langdon and Pam, underneath an overpass, soaking wet but out of the rain. We peeled off our rainwear and sat on the concrete beneath the bridge, and they came before long with the lunch, some left-over salad from supper and left-over corn bread and popcorn from breakfast. The two cars left as soon as the food was out. Pam would stop her car to wave goodbye to us later that day; we didn't see Langdon again until June llth in New York City.

We had a guest for lunch. He wouldn't tell us his name nor did he eat any of our food, but had brought us each a soft drink in the pickup in which he arrived, driving recklessly. He was drunk. After some sad talk, and grandiose invitations to our "wonderful walk" which he didn't really understand, he saw us leaving and kissed Sandy, Molly, and Carole on the mouth. Molly told me, "I want to throw up. He stuck his tongue in my mouth!"

But he couldn't scramble after us up the concrete under the bridge, and began to pray and cry in a loud voice. The Walk thus received yet another blessing. We looked at one another, shaking our heads.

We arrived at the Richmond airport in Sandston only a few minutes before 3 o'clock. Langdon had told Mercury, who was now our group leader, to wait at the front entrance to the airport. She had given him a telephone number for our host, but no name.

As soon as we stopped, the police began to gather, and soon there were four police cars. Bill and I joked that the police probably thought that the Hare Krishnas were making an assault on the airport.

After a few minutes, Mercury called the number, but the person who answered had never heard of us. While Mercury stood at the entrance to the airport, the rest of us went across the road to a warm, dry place. We peeled off our wet rainwear for the second time today and hung it to dry on the Howard Johnson coat-rack. We ordered coffee, all the time watching Mercury out in the rain and the still-increasing numbers of police cars.

When our drivers arrived, about half an hour later, we asked whether we could first be taken to our luggage so that we could change into dry clothes. We were told that this was not possible, although no reason was given. We were driven immediately to a house in a middle-class neighborhood for supper. Everything was so hectic that I do not recall being ntroduced to our host. In any event, I do not recall her name. I do remember that she had just driven in from the hospital where her husband had been taken after suffering a heart attack the night before. She let us put our wet socks and shoes in her dryer, and we sat in the basement game room in order not to get the upstairs furniture wet. She was busy upstairs preparing a big spaghetti supper, so we did not get a real chance to know her. She must have been an exceptional person to be willing to help us in spite of her husband's serious illness.

Our host for the Richmond area, Diantha, was there to greet us and go over our Richmond schedule. The Richmond Peace Center had done an excellent job of organizing our stay in the area. Everything was perfect, except for one point: the police would not allow us to carry any metal or wooden poles in our banners. This was a city ordinance, and there was nothing that Diantha could do about it. We seized upon this point to vent our day's frustration, though we knew we would have to obey the regulations.

Our tempers were a little short because we had walked all day in the rain and then been forced to wait in our wet clothes. We would rather not have had supper. And the cavalier manner in which our discomfort had been treated did not help. In so many words we were told, "Sure you are wet and muddy, so sit in the basement so that you won't drip on the carpet."

The problem of the poles was resolved in a call to the police department. The aluminum pole to the prayer banner would be allowed, and Diantha could get us some cardboard poles, used in carpet-rolls to replace the wooden poles. So another burning issue was resolved.

Shortly after Diantha left, Bill asked me, "Why do we have to alienate all of our local coordinators as soon as we meet them?" Since Durham, we had managed this with depressing regularity. go to page 38