Pair walks with casket for peace

BY ROSE POST

SALISBURY POST

Don't freak.

Rudy Stolfer and Kraig Mottar did not pull and push a body in a casket through downtown Salisbury on the day after Christmas.

In that casket was a frying pan, an umbrella, maybe even a tent. And, for sure, a hefty supply of bungee cords. Never can tell when you might need a bungee cord if you're walking cross country —across the whole country —from Washington, D.C., to Washington state pushing and pulling a 6-foot casket on a piece of plywood suspended on a couple of bicycle tires to take a message of peace to the world.

"We're basically protesting all the people who have died or will die in war," says Stolfer, 47, of Washington, Pa. "We're walking for peace."

He and Mottar, 31, of Riverside, Calif., met at a "peace bash" during the summer, when they walked from Missouri to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and planned to go on to New York to wish the United Nations a happy birthday. "But it didn't work," Stolfer says. "We got mugged by the NYPD."

A broad smile wipes away any thought of rancor. "And we met another group protesting the drug war and ... "

Ah, the Drug War. The Battle of the Sexes. The Fight for the Environment. All good causes. All worth a peaceful, cheerful fight.

"I walk, I pray for the healing of the land," says the sign on Stolfer's back "Stand against the ignorance." And a speech. Wonderful response. Pick your war, and Stolfer speaks. And smiles, and conveys his happy conviction that, come war or peace, this is a wonderful world.

Since they left Washington on Dec. 3 with their casket, camping gear and cash (a bounteous $2), they've met nothing but kindness. "The sheriff's department in Lovingston, Va., gave us a motel room for a night," Stolfer says. In Charlottesville, an 82-year-old Quaker fed them, put them up for the night—and sent them on their way with $5 each. Between Lynchburg and Altavista a car stopped and the driver loaded them down with hamburgers and soft drinks. On Christmas Day a woman saw them walking and urged them, "Wait right here."They waited. And a few minutes later she was back with plates loaded, well, it was Christmas. What would you expect but a traditional Christmas dinner? In Greensboro, another woman gave them an umbrella and $25. And all along the way people have opened church doors and homes to shelter them at night.

So should they worry about tomorrow? One day at a time "God takes care of His people doing His work," Stolfer says. "We can only save the world one door at a time." And hope that along the way the powers-that-be will pick up their message and their journals will become a book for peace when their walk is done.

Stolfer, earrings dangling from one ear and pendants of various persuasions peeking through his dreadlocks, explains he was a Marine MP during the peace battles of the '60s and '70s, a businessman in the wooden toy business with customers like Saks Fifth Avenue and the Smithsonian in '80s and an employee of Greenpeace for two years in the'9Os.

Mottar former student and pilot from Riverside, Calif., has worked in restaurants and the instructional media department of a college.

But neither found "accessibility to a real life." So they walk.

Proposition One, a peace advocacy group that has sponsored continuous peace vigils in the nation's capital since 1981, helped them devise their traveling symbols: the casket protesting war that kills, an upside down American flag that symbolizes a ship in distress. ("I believe our country is in sheer distress, " Stolfer says) and a tie-dyed flag, representing the "rainbow family" of all races and colors and creeds.

They want to get to the Pacific coast by the Fourth of July—and attract attention all the way. "We want to wake people up," Stolfer says. "Peace and unity. That's where it's at for the human race."