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Some activists are never too old to join in the effort for peace.

Article Excerpt
Byline: Diane Dietz The Register-Guard

A dozen years ago, John Saemann was carrying a sign on a street corner to protest the Persian Gulf War when a voice from a passing car said: "You ought to know better at your age."

"That's why I'm here. I know better at my age," Saemann yelled back.

Today, Saemann, 83, is in the front lines in Eugene's army of elderly activists, a cadre of people who turn out for daytime anti-war protests by means of LTD bus - and who would like to go to nighttime vigils, too, if it didn't exhaust them so.

They're people of experience: born near the end of World War I, who came of age in the Great Depression, served in World War II, and watched as their country fought in another half-dozen bloody but lesser skirmishes.

Maturity has freed their tongues: These activists don't have to worry about political blowback hurting their children or damaging their spouses' careers.

It's also given them the confidence to speak their minds, even in a crosswind. "It's never easy to be different, but it gets easier as you get older," said 82-year-old activist Portia Foster.

Since retirement, they've had the luxury of time to read and to study the issues, to know the when and how but also to ask why. Through cataract-dimmed eyes, they read and read and read some more.

Eugene resident Jim Ramsell, 85, transferred the energy that drove him through 45 years of electrical engineering into a study of the nation's social and political structures. "What (else) do I do now? Walk the floors?"

The elder peace brigade wants to make this perfectly clear: It doesn't have time for drawn-out meetings. They've paid their dues and are content to let others direct.

But in other ways, they have endless patience. Their political passions are tempered by long experience. "You can't convince people through antagonism," Saemann said. "They dig in. You dig in. It just escalates."

Here are three of Eugene's elder activists, how they got involved in the anti-war cause - and what they believe the attack on Iraq will mean to a distant...

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