I know that I need to shower before really getting into detail about the last few days. but I wanted to start putting this down before the freshness of the experience wore off. Again within smelling distance of the WWH, apt because of its history as a pig farm, I am amazed at the diverse, passionate people who come to this place. Each one has a story, some very new, some breathtakingly effective and historic, about their peace and social justice activism.

There was a woman who had been with Pacifica Radio in Nicaragua from '82-'91. She wrote a book about Ben Linder. She spent time doing 'traffic' with my husband on at the driveway at the corner of the Camp Casey II acre encampment.

There was Diane Wilson, a shrimper turned environmental activist, and cofounder of Code Pink. We swapped children tales, and ex stories, and growing up stories, and found we had common experiences, despite the radical difference in home areas. The Mississippi gulf vs. Orange County, CA. I had met her at the first camp, in the ditches, her with her red cowgirl boots, and pink T. Between then and now she had been 'on the lam' from a conviction of criminal trespass for climbing up a Union Carbide plant with a banner of truth about the Bhopal and Bayou poison processors, arrested for the September die-in in CD, crashed a Delay fundraiser featuring 'Dick', for which she was arrested and then taken to a hellish jail to serve her 120 days on the trespass charge. This is 'An Unreasonable Woman,' if I have ever known one. Let's all try to be more unreasonable.

There was the vet from Nuevo Mexico, whom I first met as he was quietly painting wooden peace doves white, under the canopy nest to the Crawford Peace House. We heard more of his story on the last day when we took him to the bus to catch it back home. A loving and gifted father who was another of the clear-eyed humanitarians there.

There was the woman who started her activism as a college student marching from Selma. We found that she was familiar with my father's store, and had a pleasant connection relating to meeting Clinton and buying something there that day which she really uses and enjoys. A devout Christian, she is what the religious right condemns as liberal, and proves that they are the religious wrong. She was there with her husband, also a progressive Californian.

There is the Camp cook, responsible for hundreds of grateful fed, and fed well. Delicious food, lovingly prepared with the help of dozens of volunteers hustled by our beloved camp director Ann Wright- more about her later. The whole kitchen set up was amazing, and the food handling faultless. Jane went home tired but hopefully feeling appreciated.

The music would have been worthy of its own festival, but these were people who performed out of their passion for peace and social justice. Emma's Revolution, a two woman force of nature, inspired songwriters and performers.

I am getting too tired now to write, but will continue my take on the camp casey experience in later posts. Hours have gone by as all this waited to be posted!