THUNDER BAY – Lynn Salvo came of age in the era of peace, love and happiness.
Nearly five decades later she’s still spreading that message, delivering it on record-setting bicycle rides across North America.
The 68-year-old Salvo, already the oldest woman to cycle across the United States, arrived in Thunder Bay this weekend, midway through her journey in her attempt to become the oldest woman to cross Canada on a bike.
She’s got a very personal reason for undertaking her rides.
“I lost a brother in Vietnam. His wife was pregnant when he went down, so he never got to meet his child and his child never got to meet his father. That’s always been a terrible sadness for me. Even though the village came together to raise this child and he’s a great human being, it’s just not right that that happened,” the American-born Salvo said, spending a day of rest in the city on Monday before continuing on to Halifax, where she expects to arrive on Aug. 26.
“If I can prevent that from happening for one family, I’d be satisfied.”
But while Salvo still grieves for her brother, she’s also concerned about where the modern world is heading.
She carries with her a graphic showing the disparity of how much is spent globally on war each year, a number that dwarfs what’s spent on peace initiatives.
It’s staggering she said – and there’s no indication things will change anytime soon, given both the political climate and simple economics.
“It’s really disproportionate how we’re spending our resources on this Earth. It’s not just peace as opposed to war, but peace with this Earth, peace with ourselves, peace with our neighbours – a very generic peace.”
Thirty years ago the Berlin Wall came down, and it appeared the world was moving to a prolonged period of peace.
Things change in a hurry.
On Monday U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted out an all-caps threat against the Iranian government, which followed previous threats against North Korea and talk of an invasion of Venezuela. The Russians are becoming bolder under President Vladimir Putin and the Middle East continues to be a powder keg.
Salvo, who calls Virginia home, is hopeful it’s short-term global unrest.
“I don’t know what’s happened to our heads to get to a position like this. I kind of hope this current moment is so extreme that it’s going to bend our heads back in a better place,” she said. “We only have this Earth. As far as we know, this is the only place there is life in the universe, and we kill each other and have wars?
“It totally doesn’t make any sense. There are ways to talk to each other, ways to communicate, ways to figure things out. I just personally don’t understand it and want to raise awareness. We’ve got to really think about it. We don’t spend enough time thinking about peace.”
