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City Woman Dreams Of Valley Peace MarchBy DAN McCAULEYNews-Record Staff WriterMaybe a few hundred peace walkers from the United States and the Soviet Union hiking through Harrisonburg would help improve relations between the two superpowers.That’s one of the ideas on the mind of Harrisonburg resident and painter Lorinda Palin, who spends part of her time now talking about a walk she made with 400 U.S. and U.S.S.R. walkers through the Ukraine last fall.She envisions 400*500 walkers coming through the Shenandoah Valley in the spring of 1990, but only if the logistics can be arranged and she is not saying they can be. But for the time being the vision is in her head.Hosting a walk would involve feeding andpossibly housing the hundreds of hikers, depending on where the group decides to stay for the night, said Ms. Palin.In the Ukraine, where Ms. Palin, her daughter Phoebe and 228 others walked from the townof Odessa on the Black Sea to Kiev in August and September, the walkers stayed with farm families and pitched tents when they could not be put up in houses.The 250-mile walk was sponsored by a California-based organization, International Peace Walk, which is trying to stage similar events during the next two years in both countries.A walk is planned this fall in the Soviet Republic of Georgia. There is talk next year of staging a similar walk through the state of Georgia, but there, are-no plans yet.Ms. Palin’s decision to walk through the Ukraine last year grew from her interest in finding Soviet pen pais, which she has been tryingto do for years.Her attempts to reach people by mail fell through time after time, so she applied to be a walker and came back with dozens of names of people.When she is not talking about the walk to various groups, she urges others to write lettersto the Soviet citizens she met last year.“I find people are open to making personal contacts,” she said, and letters can go a long way to easing tensions between people who live in countries that traditionally have been enemies.Letters are “one of the ways to end the cold war,” said Ms. Palin.Ending the cold war is the serious side to Ms. Palin’s talks to groups ranging from a JamesMadison University student peace group to more conservative social clubs in Harrisonburg.She begins each of her talks and slide shows about the Ukraine walk with a demonstration involving 1,800 BBs clanging into an iron washpan. They represents the total number of nuclear warheads around the world ready to go off at the push of a button, she said.Even the most conservative groups will react to the sound of the small metal balls pounding against the metal pan, most often with comments like “it hardly seems like we should put any money into armaments.”• -..W,Lorinda Palin
Newspaper Details
Daily News-Record
Harrisonburg, Virginia, US
Thu, Feb 09, 1989
Page 6
Full Page
Clipped by
James M.
USA 20 Sep 2022
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