Hartford Courant from Hartford, Connecticut • 109

On The Curry Campaign Trail, In 'Rituals' Page H3 SUN DAY 11am H- i ANTIQUES SHOW HENRY JAMES JR. HIGH SCHOOL 155 FIRETOWNROAD, SIMSBURY OPERA EXPRESS CANTON PUBLIC LIBRARY 40 DYER CANTON THEY MAY HAVE ETNA ERUPTING. BUT WE HAVE CIGNA IMPLODING SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 3,2002 THE HARTFORD COURANT 1 SECTION WEST HARTFORD'S 'FREEZE LADIES' WEAR THEIR HEARTS ON THEIR PLACARDS it 0) Iru HAPPY IN THEIR WORK, Martha Vinick, left, and Flo Woodiel, both of West Hartford, flash smiles and a peace sign from beneath their rain hats and umbrella to a passing motorist who honked In support of their anti-war demonstration in West Hartford Center one recent rainy Saturday. BUSH'S WAR, THEY FEAR, MIGHT LITERALLY TURN OUT TO BE THE WAR TO END ALL WARS By OWEN McNALLY COURANT STAFF WRITER 1 est Hartford's "freeze ladies" three patriotic, AU-American, solidly middle-class grand For Peace non-violent war against war by arming themselves with their First Amendment right to free speech and assembly. The most dangerous arms they bear are the anti-war placards they wave at motorists driving past them in West Hartford Center.

Fired by a passionate belief that dissent and free, open inquiry and unfettered speech are at the root of American democracy, they work through the system. They may question their government, run mostly by men who are, they feel, merely elected public servants or temporary custodians, not kings with divine rights or popes with infallibility. However, their love for democracy is unconditional, as is their devout faith in the eternal sanctity of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. At the same time, they believe that, as Americans, they can take verbal potshots GOTOH5 mothers hit the bricks Saturday mornings to protest the Bush Administration's plans to go to war with Iraq.

Flo Woodiel, Miriam "Mims" Butter-worth and Martha Vinick are seasoned veterans at taking their democratic ideals out onto the street and exercising their right to free speech. These cool, committed "freeze ladies" nicknamed for their ardent campaigning for a nuclear freeze in the 1980s don't fit any of the 1960s stereotypes of pro-peace demonstrators. With deep roots in their community, profound commitment to family and solid middle-class values, these unlikely seeming three musketeers for peace are the antithesis of the cliched portrait of social activists. No, they are not hippie peaceniks, Marxist-Leninist bomb-throwing Bohemian cynics or even nattering nabobs of negativism. Instead, the West Hartford 3 wage their A PASSING MOTORIST gives thumbs-up to the anti-war protesters who meet most Saturdays in West Hartford to protest use of nuclear weapons and U.S.

military involvement in Iraq. Ji This Is Your Democracy, So Vote The Year Connecticut Elected Nobody Governor HERITAGE Ah I way fiscal conservatism, rugged individualism, hatred of Communism. Then my grandmother would pull me aside and point by point rebut everything they said. Come Election Day, my grandparents stood in the dark waiting for the polls to open. I don't think my grandmother cared, but it was a point of honor for my GOTOH3 party of Lincoln.

My mother will go to her grave believing Richard Nixon was framed. My grandparents were yellow-dog Democrats. When I was a girl, my grandfather handed me a tiny pin, "Every Man a King," from a campaign for Huey Long, Louisiana's progressive dictator. I still have it Every election I remember, my parents explained to me the Republican Party's right and holy By STEVE GRANT COURANT STAFF WRITER It dominated the news. An incredibly close election left both major parties claiming victory.

There was a huge blowup over the validity of some of the ballots. The wrangling dragged on and on. There were calls for electoral reform and an appeal to the highest court This wasn't the 2000 presidential election. It was the Connecticut gubernatorial election of 1890, and it was without question the messiest ever in state politics. This year's gubernatorial election cross your fingers is a milquetoast non-event when SUSAN CAMPBELL I was blessed (or cursed) to grow up in a family of Democrats and Republicans, each member incredibly in the right My parents were Republicans, the G0T0H6 PRIVACY: FBI LEAVES MARK AT HARTFORD PUBLIC LIBRARY, H3 LOVE STORY: A MARRIAGE MADE AT A STEAK HOUSE, H6.