After receiving a couple of calls about a man walking east along U.S. 40 pulling what looked like a casket, it seemed only right that I investigate. The man, Rudy Stolfer, of Washington, Pennsylvania said he started out from Washington, D.C., on December 3, 1996, with four others. Three of them dropped out the first week before they got out of Virginia. The other person walked to Alabama where he was hit by a car and got his legs broke. Stolfer continued by himself.

WALT ROOT is an acronym which stands for "we are living the results of our thinking." The walker says the neatest thing he has found while walking down the road was God. He is not funded by any organization but accepts donations from people as he passes through an area. An area woman had befriended him and was at the park with him when I interviewed him.

He attended college during the times when protests were an everyday occurrence. He spoke of one where they were being peaceful and were arrested and forced to leave. He says he helped the Green Peace Environmental activist organization which endorses Ralph Nader's platform.

After hearing him voice opinions against the government and saying we had many political prisoners here. I asked how he would change the world if he was president. He said the first thing he would do is shut down all the nuclear power plants. If I understood him correctly one milligram of plutonium from the power plants can cause cancer. I asked about the cigarettes he had laying on the picnic table beside him causing cancer and he informed me that the paper around the tobacco was much more toxic than the tobacco. Citing the fact that the bleach used to make them white posed a greater danger than the tobacco. This danger was included in most of our common household items, even toilet paper.

He feels he has been harassed and judged because of his appearance. He pointed out that serial rapists and murderers look like normal people.

He has attended college for over two years and had been trained to work on radios while in the Marine Corp, where by the way he says he learned about hypocracy.

EDITORS' OPINION: I left feeling rather turned off by his lifestyle and the waste of an education. (He was studying to be a teacher.) I guess maybe it worked for him after all as he hasn't worked in two years. He says he is exercising his right to free speech and that is why I am conveying the contents of the interview.

My freedom of speech tells me that he isn't living the lifestyle he says he believes in. The followers of Christ worked for the their keep as well as speaking about their beliefs. Read the letters of Paul to the different churches for verification.