Atomic coverage was great Dear Editor, I was happy to see your
coverage of the
‘Atomic Flame’ walk in the weekend edition of the Morgan Hill
Times.
Atomic coverage was great
Dear Editor,
I was happy to see your coverage of the ‘Atomic Flame’ walk in the weekend edition of the Morgan Hill Times.
I’m almost certain the Buddhist beating the drum, Gyosen Sawada, is the same monk who walked across the United States with us in 1986, on the Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament.
(We lost our possessions, including my GPM memorabilia, in the Croy Fire in 2002, so I cannot consult any old pictures or scrapbooks.)
If this is the same Sawada, he repeated his five-beat rhythm all across the country, near the front of the march. Some walkers had trouble keeping bipedal rhythm to a five-beat drum, and some even asked him to walk near the back of the march. He smiled a lot, didn’t chat much, and was always there in his clean white garment.
We also carried a flame from the Hiroshima embers. Often, in parks and community centers along the way, we performed the story of Sadako and the Thousand Cranes.
This July 4th, at the Morgan Hill Community Park ‘Peace Is Patriotic’ booth, we passed out bright paper copies of the origami peace cranes. I was delighted to see how many children and young people knew the Sadako story.
Unhappily, the nuclear danger is still with us. A few miles north of here in Livermore, new and ever more powerful WMDs are being developed: nuclear Bunker Busters and even biological weapons.
This August, members of the San Jose Peace Center, who live in Morgan Hill, will carpool to Livermore, as we have done every Good Friday and every August, to walk and vigil and bear witness. Saturday, Aug. 6, the 60th anniversary of the Hiroshima Bomb, at 5 pm, there will be a No Nukes! No Wars! rally and march to the Nuclear Weapons Lab. There will be children’s activities, so we’re invited to bring friends, family, a blanket and food to share.
Tuesday, Aug. 9, at 8 am, a Nagasaki Never Again rally will include a Hibakusha speaker from Japan, and there will be a nonviolent direct action.
Both events will begin at William Payne Park, 5800 Patterson Pass Rd, Livermore.
Sue Guist, Morgan Hill
