Peace Marchers Bear Up in Mud

Rain was dripping from the gray sky and off Carole Schmidt’s green tent Friday in Reseda. Her outlook, however, was sunny.

“This kind of weather is good experience for us,” the 24-year-old Chicago woman said. “We’re learning how to handle the worst before we leave. There’s nothing more they can give us, except snow.”

Schmidt is one of 150 supporters of nuclear disarmament who have moved into tents at 14700 Victory Blvd. to prepare for a nine-month cross-country march promoting world peace.

The group is expected to double in size today and keep growing until about 1,300 have assembled. Marchers will pack up and leave Reseda on Feb. 24 and start their “Great Peace March” on March 1 from Los Angeles.

Ends Nov. 15

The 3,235-mile walk will end Nov. 15 with a peace rally in Washington.

Early arrivals for the march have found themselves worrying more about storm clouds than war clouds, however.

“There have been some leaks in the tents. One man said it was like Chinese water torture--a drip formed right over his forehead one night,” said march organizer Carol Kinsey, 24, of Los Angeles. “But it’s the mud in the morning that’s not nice.”

It certainly wasn’t nice for marcher Stephanie Nichols of Berkeley on Friday morning.

“My feet got stuck by suction from the mud to the floor of the Andy Gump,” said Nichols, also 24, pointing toward a portable toilet across the field from her tent.

“I thought I’d have to bang on the walls to get someone to scrape me loose. The mud is pretty intense.”

A portable toilet also was almost the downfall of David Mixner, executive director of Pro-Peace, the sponsor of the march. He slipped while stepping out of one earlier this week and severely sprained an ankle. He is on crutches and may be unable to walk during the first segment of the march.

No ‘Tea Party’

“It’s not been a tea party the last few days, weatherwise,” acknowledged Mixner, a 39-year-old Los Angeles businessman. “We’ve already had 28-degree temperatures, 50-m.p.h. winds, and we’re expecting four to six inches of rain tonight. We’re waiting next for the locusts.”

Cathy Lurie, a 30-year-old writer from Boston, said she was disappointed by the less-than-warm California welcome.

“I’d thought it would be in the 70s and 80s and sunny,” she said. “But it’s not as bad as back home, where there’s snow and ice.”

Colin Forsyth, 20, of Brookhaven, N. Y., searched for the highest spot in the soggy field at the edge of the Sepulveda Basin to pitch his tent. He was wearing foul-weather gear that he wears back home at his boat-yard job and looking on the bright side of things.

‘Heat Wave’

“To me, this is a heat wave,” Forsyth said.

It apparently felt the same way to Joe Orlins, a 20-year-old physics student from Seattle. He was sporting shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. “I’m in my element in rain like this,” Orlins explained.

Campers said they were taking precautions to keep the mud out of the two-person dome tents that are being issued to marchers. Balancing to keep from falling into the mud, they were removing their boots before crawling inside.

“The philosophy of tents is that this is going to be our home for the next nine months,” said Gary Stonelake, 25, a Los Angeles political canvasser.

Added his wife, Vicki, 26: “We want to keep this just as comfortable as our apartment.”