When I first heard about the march, I had a guarded skepticism about it. What good would it do? The government is not going to listen, after all the lies they have told, and the people they have destroyed, how is a march going to stop them? I talked with some friends about going with me, and they laughed , ³hey, this is 1957, youıre not going to change anything. "DROP! GET DOWN ON YOUR KNEES. HANDS OVER HEAD. STAY UNDER YOUR DESK. DON'T MOVE. NO TALKING. WAIT UNTIL I SAY ALL CLEAR! This is what we did once a day. The teacher would yell DROP ! and the whole class would fall to it's knees. This was how we were taught to protect ourselves from ATOMIC BOMBS. They were really thinking about us kids in the late forties early fifties. There was even talk about having school children wear dog tags like the soldiers did, because when we dropped the bombs on Japan it made a mess, and if it happened to us- well, it would be easier to identify the bodies.
I had expected maybe one hundred people to be in the march. It was going to be a long walk, from downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, about ten miles. People kept arriving, hundreds, thousands, the marchers formed a river of humanity, five maybe six city blocks long. They did a great job those Death Merchants of the Fifties. They sold us the atom bomb like it was apple pie. It won us the war, that big mushroom cloud was our symbol of greatness, power over evil. Each time they tested a bomb, they bragged about it in the news, showed us pictures of it in the newsreels at the movies. Each bomb was getting bigger and better. The bombs were being built in the name of Defense, because on the other side of the ocean our new enemy, the Soviet Union was also building and testing their own atomic bombs.
Emotions started to swell in me as I stood and observed the people arriving. Families, friends, and individuals all merging and acknowledging each other for our commitment that had become our common cause. In 1957 I was seventeen years old. I had a interest in the world that I lived in , and had a desire to discuss and explore the current events of the day, but unfortunately the "Red" scare had smothered our world in a blanket of fear. I started seeking information and ideas in books, periodicals, and the writings of progressive thinkers.
In one such newspaper, there was an article about a new organization, called S.A.N.E., that was going to hold a march to protest the testing of atomic bombs in the Nevada desert. Leading this march was a man by the name Linus Pauling. Linus Pauling was a great physicist, a Noble laureate who had joined with other scientists in speaking out against the dangers of the new atomic age.
Searching to find a place with the marchers, I heard a voice call my name. A girl who I had briefly talked with in a discussion group a few weeks earlier came up to me. She introduced herself again to me, and invited me to join her in the march. I followed her to the front of the line, where to my surprize I realized we were in the entourage of Linus Pauling. My friend introduced me to him. He gave me a firm handshake, looked straight into my eyes, and with a warm open smile, said to me " What a wonderful day for a walk".
He had talked and written about nuclear fallout from above ground testing. How strontium 90 was contaminating our pasture lands and the milk products that our people were consuming. How the possibilities of cancers from radiation exposure were looming over the horizon. The goverment denied these accusations, and countinued testing the bombs. But on that warm Saturday morning, thousands of people came out from under that blanket of fear and marched across the city chanting "NO MORE BOMBS, STOP THE TESTING".
I walked the ten miles along side he and his wife and friends, and I remember realizing that I was not alone in my dreadful dreams and the fears that I had of the world in which we lived. I was walking along side a great man, he had a energy in his walk that was a celebration of life. He was fifty six years old when I walked with him. Today as I write about that day, I am fifty five. I did not know Linus Pauling, I did not talk with him as we walked. What we did do along side the thousands of others, was to share a purpose, and that purpose has helped illuminate my path thru the last thirty eight years, and beckons me around the next corner.
"What a wonderful day for a walk."
Steve Oshatz is an Oregon artist whose work has been exhibited internationally; the showings and collections of his work have received critical acclaim. Oshatz is an artist of exceptional range- spanning from major public pieces such as murals, to stage design, sculpture, watercolors, printmaking and works on canvas and silk.
Tancho Images- 2360 Spring Blvd. Eugene, OR 97403