Encinitas Couple Joins Their Son at the End of 9-Month Trek for Peace

“Today (Saturday) was a beautiful day, but the goal of the march was in the towns along the way. We reached the small towns the best. The march reinstilled in people the need to keep active (in working for peace). We have to be in there for the long haul because it’s not going to change overnight.”

Immersed in the sea of thousands who marched into Washington Saturday with the Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament were Encinitas residents Martha and Dick Witz.

The Witzes joined their son Tom, 29, who for the last nine months has trekked well over 3,500 miles across America as part of a plucky grass-roots contingent with a single-minded quest for peace, fueled by the hopes of the ordinary people they met on the way.

“My legs are fine, but my feet are thrashed,” said Tom, who, with other marchers endured the mud, sleet, and beating sun of the nation’s highways. “Today, traffic was stopped and the streets were lined with people watching,” said Martha on Saturday from Washington. “We walked all the way (the final miles into Washington). There was lots of excitement from the public, all kinds of enthusiasm. It was fabulous!”

Several weeks ago, from their Encinitas home, Dick and Martha talked about how they had been following Tom’s progress on the march.

“Every morning I pick up The Times, and the first thing I do is look at the weather,” said Martha. “I find the city where Tom is and think, ‘It’s raining on my son,’ or ‘It’s snowing,’ or ‘Is he warm enough?’ ”

Photos on the walls and tables in the kitchen tell part of the story: Martha and her bearded son marching into Chicago’s Grant Park, both flashing the peace sign (the couple met the marchers there in August), actor/director Ron Howard and Mayor Harold Washington addressing the Chicago peace rally, the camp’s bubble tents of Red, Orange and Family Towns, and camp fixtures like the potty truck, and buses transformed into the mobile post office, library and schoolhouse.

As Tom trudged mile after mile, a purposeful unanimity connected him with his parents. Talking about her son’s venture, Martha exuded excitement and pride, even as she worried about the rigors of the trip (Tom had to have his shoes resoled three times and missed his own gourmet cooking).

“The talents Tom has found in himself on this march are amazing,” she said. “He’s rather shy, and now he’s doing public speaking at schools and churches. The cities of St. George, Utah, and Youngstown, Ohio, have adopted him. He was one of the 50 strong hikers allowed through Loveland Pass in Colorado.”

In one of many letters to family and friends, Tom described the grueling ascent: “We climbed to our highest physical point today at Loveland Pass (11,990 feet). We gathered in circled embrace and sang our songs of peace . . . the altitude coupled with the group energy sent me into tears. I have always found the song ‘America the Beautiful’ quite corny, but there I stood . . . singing it from my heart and crying at its beauty.”

Like his fellow marchers, personal encounters along the route highlighted Tom’s perceptions of the march: families taking in marchers for a hot shower and bed for a night, farmers and church groups bringing truckloads of food to camp, Pittsburgh steelworkers offering rousing support, taxi drivers and truckers flashing the peace sign.

“He said, ‘I never knew this was such a wonderful country,’ ” said Martha. “And Iowa! He fell in love with Iowa. He said, ‘Mom, I know what you’re talking about--people rocking on the porches at night.’ He loved the small towns!”

On Saturday, Tom said he was moved to see that the busloads of people who had come from around the country included families who had housed him in Des Moines, Iowa, and Easton, Pa.

“Even if people have different ideas on how to achieve peace, they need to continue to work with other people and not lose hope,” Tom said. “That’s the networking. We need to realize that the strategy and the ability to conquer nuclear arms is a little bit in each of us. That’s why we all have to work together.”

Back in Encinitas, Dick Witz spoke with quiet empathy about the energy, commitment and sacrifices his son has made--selling his Santa Cruz landscaping business, paying for the initial $3,000 fee, getting insurance and hiking gear, leaving friends behind.

But Dick, a wiry veteran hiker, said that were it not for health considerations, he, too, would be marching. In a poem Dick wrote to his son, Dick reflected back to times when he hiked the mountains with baby Tom on his back, and wrote, “ . . . I wish I were with you now to walk those miles while struggling through the rain, the snow, and now the heat with muscles sore and aching feet. . . .My spirit walks beside you there. . . .”

Letters and occasional calls kept the Witzes in close touch with day-to-day aspects--physical, humorous, practical, hopeful--of the march.

And they got a first-hand glimpse of camp life when they joined their son in Chicago.

“When I asked ‘Is Tommy Witz around?’ ” said Martha, her dark eyes dancing, “They’d say, ‘You mean Tomas?’ (as Tom was known on the march). “I loved the time in Chicago. . . . I was absolutely walking on air!”

In camp, the young Witz was in charge of delegating jobs to a group of marchers. “That was kind of a shock for him, since he’d always worked by himself. He found it very tough for a while,” Dick said.

“If people don’t do their jobs, they call them potatoes,” Martha added. “They laugh about it. They say that among 600-700 marchers, there are 50-75 potatoes. . . . But Tommy found a way around it. He wouldn’t hand out their lunch or dinner tickets until jobs were done.”

Tom’s activism stems from childhood.

“We’re a political family,” said Martha, who served as an assistant to U.S. Rep. George Brown Jr. (D-Colton) early in his career and was on the staff of Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Cal.) for many years. “Tom was raised in a house where 30,000 pieces of mail went out of our living room during a campaign. Our tables were always full. Little Tommy crawled around among the people doing the mailing.”

“The experience itself, to walk across the United States, is something to be had,” said Dick. “It’s really taking a chunk of your life and setting it aside. It’s a life-changing experience.”

From Washington Tom said, “I hoped that the march would cure the political cynicism I had developed over the last six-eight years as I became more politically aware. It’s instilled a sense of optimism and I will continue to be working actively for peace.”

His plans are uncertain, but he predicted, “I’m sure whatever my career is it will involve teaching or speaking or empowering people.”

At the end of their march across America, having struggled with their rugged, spartan existence to make a point together, Martha sees many peace marchers “going through a trauma--leaving each other.”

“I don’t think it will hit for a while,” said Tom. “The way you really know how close you are is by leaving someone.”