That day and the day before we encountered the most consistently hostile reaction since the walk began. The L.A. walkers said the same. This is ironic since we had heard so much about the danger we faced in the South. Paul, the twelve-year-old, was hit in the head by a stone thrown from a passing car. Luckily he wasn't injured badly. Two cars came very close to deliberately running into the walk. The police too were very hostile, especially in Annapolis. They would drive by and shout out orders, often shouting that we were walking too close to the road.

One walker, Michael, was accused of stealing money from the people he had stayed with last night. The woman's purse was missing and was found later in the wooded area behind the house. The money was gone. Michael had to leave the walk and go to the police station to be questioned. He had been with the L.A. walk a long time and everyone was convinced of his innocence. We suspected there was someone who had joined recently who was trying to discredit us but did not try to guess who that might be.

Also, Mary Jane was stopped this morning. The police wanted to check the registration on the van. Its safety inspection had expired last month and she had sent the papers to the Department of Motor Vehicles in California but had not received the new registration card yet. The police insisted she park the van until the card arrive. Our two support vehicles were already overloaded with luggage; now we would have to make do with one for a time.

Annapolis is the home of the US Naval Academy, helping explain the hostile re-action to us upon entering the city. Many people shouted at us angrily; even groups of young Blacks threatened us verbally. We stopped briefly at a downtown church, unpacked our luggage from Bob's bus, and stacked it up along the walls of the hallway. After a brief rest break, we proceeded to walk the short distance to the Naval Academy for a prayer vigil.

The Academy is fenced in and isn't open to visitors. We were stopped at the guard house at the main entrance. For the past little while we had watched an afternoon thunderstorm approaching. As we began the vigil, we heard the first thunder which soon boomed loudly, with lightning flashing about as nature joined us in condemning the war college. A few large drops of rain fell, but then the rain held off until we were safely inside the church.

We had not seen anyone at the Academy except the guard at the entrance. We also saw few people on our way back from the Academy. Maybe this was fortunate -- the few people we met shouted abuse.

We repaired to a nearby restaurant. It was small and in a half-hour seemed filled solely with peace walkers, nearly all drinking coffee. Only a few had enough money for the extravagance of ordering restaurant food -- soon we would be eating our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the church, where we were greeted by two women who were cleaning.

People were already talking about the June l4 action in New York to "blockade the bombmakers." Planned at the UN missions of the countries with nuclear weapons was CD (civil disobedience) to be coordinated by the War Resisters League which was arranging the necessary training in nonviolence on the l3th: it was essential to respect and care for the human beings opposing us while never compromising our opposition to their war institutions. The training includes role-playing their roles and ours in expected situations, as well as developing one's social philosophy. A census was taken among the walkers to see who would participate, either as a resister or member of a support group.

But I chose not to take part in the June l4th action. I was already near exhaustion and looked forward very much to returning to North Carolina on the l2th. I wished I had the energy needed for the extra commitment and resented the statement I overheard from a walker who said the civil disobedience would prove who was really committed to disarmament. The young man had been with the L.A. walk for less than a month.

I was to be the only guest that night of a man named Bish. After dropping my pack at his house, he drove me around historical Annapolis including the campus of St. Johns. We discovered we had more in common than our interest in peace, since he was a social worker at a hospital for mentally ill people. He had worked there a long time but was not very happy with his job. He was inquisitive when he found that I was a former social worker who had quit to work for disarmament. During the forties he had worked in an AFSC volunteer service in Mexico. Now in his fifties, he was not sure he wanted social work to be his life-long career. But he thought life would be too insecure if he left. I tried to convey that I had the same fears before I left social work but found that the reverse was true. Despite my fears, I never went hungry or slept in the cold. But professional people are often resistant to a change in life styles. We talked at length during the evening, but when we said good-night, I knew that my arguments had not been convincing.

   May 20, Annapolis to Glen Burnie
Today we walked 19 miles, but it was a much easier day than yesterday. The headache was gone and there was much less hostile reaction, though still lots of firecrackers from some cars.

We walked past the naval academy one more time as we left Annapolis. Some cadets were throwing a frisbee near the fence we walked along. Surprisingly, we got a very friendly reception from them. A few shouted, "Peace Now!" One cadet ran up to the fence and shouted, "Right on! I don't want to get my ass shot off!" Puzzling contrast to the hostility of other Annapolis residents.

At lunch our spirits were lifted again. We stopped next to a Catholic School and about three hundred students came out to talk with us and cheer us on.

At the Catholic Church where we stopped that night, I had a chance to talk at length with Morishita for the first time since we had arrived in DC. He explained his need to spend most of his time with the monks, told me that we would all be joining the L.A. walk in fasting for the remaining three Mondays, and invited me to attend the peace march in Japan the next summer, as one of only ten Americans to be invited. I accepted the invitation happily, but as it turned out I was unable to attend.

   May 21, Glen Burnie to Baltimore
Today was very much upbeat. We were joined by Liz McAllister, her young twins, and six other members of Jonah House for a vigil in front of the Westinghouse plant where the company works 24 hours a day, seven days a week, on its defense contracts. During the 30 minutes many employees were exposed to our message that what they do for a living could mean death for many other people

_ At lunch Liz told me that she had attended a retreat in Oxford, NC the week before where she had talked with our mutual friends Patrick O'Neill and Carroll and Edith Webber. The Webbers had ridden their bicycles to this retreat. As Carroll says, "It is convenient to ride cars. But it is convenience that keeps us on the backs of the Third World. Pardon me! But it is so convenient." That last was said as the group piled into Jim Berry's big car for the trip to Goldsboro for a regular vigil at the Seymour Johnson Air Force Base.

After lunch we had to walk continuously until we arrived at our scheduled time in Baltimore. The lack of water was worse than the lack of a rest break. The traffic was heavy and the air full of dirt and smog as we crossed over a long bridge into the city. The pollution was worse here than in any other city we walked through. The reaction of the people on the highway was unfriendly, but from the people on the sidewalk very friendly.

Police, absent at first, soon became numerous, many on horseback. They were more than a little angry because they said that they had not been informed of the walk. Our coordinator said that he had called and been told that a permit would not be needed. Communications had ended there.

We walked in a slum area and then through the crowded downtown area handing out leaflets. One middle-aged man walked along beside me. He said that he was unemployed and wanted to know our position on employment. I told him that I was in favor of conversion of defense spending to social spending. He seemed disappointed that employment was not our main concern. He said he would join us if he were paid to do so, but since none of us got paid, he walked away.

As we walked through the working class section of the city, we were told that England and Argentina were now officially at war. Later I learned that England had ships with nuclear weapons aboard within the war zone. They must have been prepared to use them.

After a long walk through the city, we came to the Methodist church. Many TV crews were waiting to cover our arrival. Supper, provided by Bread for the World, and an interfaith service were scheduled at the church. One TV station did live news coverage of our supper.

Early this morning we learned that we would have a rest day in Baltimore. This came as a welcome surprise, as we had thought that there would be no more rest days after DC. The flow of communications within the walk was now pitiful.

Doug, Bill, and I were to stay with Robert and Greta Pollard, a very interesting couple. They worked with the Alternative Press Index, similar to the Readers Guide except that it listed small, movement-oriented periodicals usually omitted from mainstream ind-exes. Robert was from England and Greta from the Federal Republic of Germany. Both were young children during WW II. Both remembered bombs falling near their homes.

I had a lot in common with Greta. She too was a former social worker and also a former member of Students for a Democratic Society. We stayed up until 1:00 a.m. talking about the class struggle and pacifism. Greta was interested in finding how I had "gone wrong." This was the first time that the goals and methods of the peace walk were questioned by people to the left of us. I was grateful to Greta for making me think about questions I had not considered in a long time. As we left Baltimore, she said that she would be closer to our beliefs if only she had seen more pacifists who were also activists. go to page 47