A story from the meeting
Forty-one years on the corner of Xenia and Glen
Every Saturday since 1985, at least one Friend has stood at the same corner with the same plain sign. Wendell Ames has stood there for most of them.
Lorna Fairchild · Recording clerk, Hollow Oak
The sign says PEACE, in black letters on white board. It is the third sign; the first two blew into the creek. Wendell painted all three.
He was nineteen when he registered as a conscientious objector, and he spent two years washing dishes at a hospital in Cleveland instead of going to Vietnam. 'It was the most useful thing I've ever done,' he says, 'and I've been fixing bicycles for fifty years.'
An hour, every week
The vigil runs from noon until one. Some weeks there are twelve people, some weeks there is Wendell and a thermos. Drivers honk; a few shout. Most simply nod.
You don't stand there to change anyone's mind in an hour. You stand there so the corner remembers.
Younger Friends have started to take the January shifts. Last winter a group of Antioch students stood every Saturday in the snow and then came to meeting the next morning, a few of them for the first time.
If you would like to stand with us, come to the corner at noon on any Saturday. You do not need to be a Quaker. You do not need to say anything at all.