OCR Text |
Show Mew Nature Boy RenouncesShoes, Sets Up Church SANTA MONICA, CALIF.-Sam Price is Santa Monica's nature boy a full bearded, barefoot young man clad in an ankle length robe made of sackcloth. But Sam Price, who was a royal Canadian air force pilot during the war and more recently a labor organizer, or-ganizer, is not trying to write a song. He threw away his shoes and orthodox clothing seven months ago to become what he calls a renun-ciate. renun-ciate. He wants to demonstrate to an atomic world of cold war and high prices that material things are unimportant. un-important. With half a dozen other renun-ciates, renun-ciates, he has formed the Church of Christian Living, with temporary tempo-rary headquarters in the back yard of Sam's home a rattan hut four feet high, seven feet long and three feet wide that sits beneath a guava tree. Legal Church Forming a legal church was necessary, nec-essary, according to Sam, so that the several bearded disciples could come and go freely without suddenly sudden-ly finding themselves locked up in some small town on a vagrancy charge. Having a church of one's own is apparently very necessary in Sam's business. Today Sam owns nothing. He does not toil; neither does he spin unless it's necessary to work a few days in order to earn enough money to help some one in need. He has no postwar housing problem. prob-lem. The current price of shoes does not clutter up his mind. Being Be-ing barefoot in the coldest (California) (Cali-fornia) weather hasn't even brought on a case of the sniffles. In fact, h needs nothing that others consider necessities. His diet consists of the "perfect foods" referred to In the Bible fruits, nuts and vegetables, all unprepared. un-prepared. These perfect foods come to Sam perfectly free, apparently, but if he did have to pay for his daily subsistence it would cost only a few cents. No Desire for Steak Sam says he never misses the charcoal broiled steaks of his past life, no cheesecake, pork chops, beer, lemon pie or roast beef. He claims that after several months of perfect foods, such worldly cuisine is offensive to him. The renunclates of the Church of Christian Living don't want to make converts to their extreme way of life. Their aim, Price say, is to show by example that true peace and ' the richest happiness come from within a person. Once a day, when he's home, you'll find Sam watering the two small orange trees he set out near his rattan hut. That's not toil, he I says; it's setting an example. |