1/31: Mill Valley Seniors' Peace March

The small town of Mill Valley with 10,000 or so people, 14 miles north of San Francisco, had the latest event in its long radical tradition on January 31, 2003, a peace march of over 80 seniors, walking with their canes, walkers and in their wheelchairs. They came from the nursing home across from Tamalpais High School to do their part for peace so that the young people at my old alma mater and everywhere else may have a future.

In the 1950s, Mill Valley and its southern neighbor, Sausalito, were the centers of radical and "bohemian" cultural activity, strong enough to tell the bookburners that John Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath" was fine with us, and the bookburners should just leave town, which they did. We had support committees for Morton Sobell, victim of the Cold war and surviving defendant in the anti-Communist, death penalty case, the Rosenberg-Sobell case; the civil rights organizations, of the 1960s the farmworkers union, and the Idaho and Kentucky miners and all the progressive causes of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. The peace movement is alive and well in Mill Valley.
From: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0203-10.htm (originally from Marin Independent Journal, 2/1/03):

Published on Saturday, February 1, 2003 by the Marin Independent Journal (California)
Mill Valley Seniors Stage Protest for Peace
by Tad Whitaker

Some residents of Mill Valley's Redwoods Retirement Center feel President Bush is leading the country into war and they demonstrated yesterday - using canes, walkers and wheelchairs - to let him know they want no part of it.

"He doesn't tell us what's going on," said Nora Boskoff, 84, organizer of a curbside demonstration yesterday outside the nursing home on Camino Alto.

"It's becoming like (Soviet) Russia or (Nazi) Germany."

PROTEST: Mabre Krueger, 88, makes her way yesterday to the corner of Camino Alto and Miller Avenue for an anti-war protest organized by a group of residents from The Redwoods retirement community. Dozens of protesters attended the demonstration, many using canes, walkers and wheelchairs as they stood by the roadside waving signs and singing protest songs.
(Photo/Jeff Vendsel)

Last week, she decided the time had come to start the nursing home's first peace group and anti-war demonstration. Little did she know that more than 80 other residents would be there to support her.

"We didn't expect this many people," she said.

One of those who joined Boscoff was Leonard Prossor, 87, who spent six years in North Africa and Italy during WWII while serving in the British army.

"Many of these people have experienced war," he said, gesturing toward the demonstrators.

He said the Bush Administration doesn't know what it's inflicting on the world because so few of them actually experienced the mayhem of war.

"I regret I was privy to killing people," he said.

Bea Lott, program coordinator at the nursing home, said only about three or four of the residents attended the large San Francisco anti-war rally last month because it required so much standing. The nursing home doesn't necessarily support the anti-war position but she said the residents have a right to speak their minds and it is her job to help them accomplish that.

"We'll have coffee, hot chocolate and American flags next time," she said, referring to another demonstration scheduled for 4 p.m. Friday. "Next time it will be more colorful."

The event was colorful enough for passing motorists coming home from work and getting out of school. Many of them honked their car horns and hollered out support to the protesting seniors.

Mutsu Muneno, 95, was the oldest resident protesting. Burrowed inside a winter coat, gloves and a wool hat, she chanted "No War," while holding up one end of a banner that spelled out PEACE. She said Bush needs to do a better job of convincing the public before taking such drastic measures with America's troops.

"I don't support any of this," she said. "It winds up killing the young."

Copyright 2003 Marin Independent Journal