Nobody could read this t-shirt when, during a recent
family vacation on Ohio's Lake Erie coast, my sister
Susan and I rode Cedar Point's Magnum XL-200, a roller
coaster with one of the tallest hills (205 feet) and
fastest rides (72 mph) anywhere on the planet! But while
waiting in line for more than 45 minutes, hundreds of
people were repeatedly exposed to the message on this
shirt. Considering that we rode at least a dozen rides
and walked around a very crowded park all day, this
message was read by thousands! And while you can't read
it, if you notice the red dot under Susan's chin, you'll
see that she was wearing the "Death Penalty is a
Hate Crime" button, which also received a lot of
looks.
A few encounters: As I was buying a drink, a
cashier told me how much she hated the death penalty. I
gave her a flier and told her how to reach Ohioans to
STOP Executions! The next day I was wearing the blue
t-shirt with the Amnesty candle. This allowed me to meet
Jaroslava Dubakova, a young Slovenian woman working at
the park for the summer. She saw the shirt and
approached me to thank me for Amnesty's work and to tell
me that her sister founded the first Amnesty group in
Slovenia - in the midst of the recent war there.
One
final story from that trip: When I was dropped at the
airport on the way to Ohio, one of the baggage handlers
said, "Hey, the next time you come I want you to
bring me a shirt like that." I happened to have a
few of the FADP shirts in the back seat, so I opened the
car door and distributed t-shirts to five baggage
handlers and one traveler! Six more walking billboards!
