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Saturday, February 06, 2010
Activist Losing His 'Museum'
By Hailey Heinz
Journal Staff Writer
Don Schrader has made a list of what he wants in a new apartment.
He doesn't want carpet, because carpet contains chemicals and is hard to clean, plus he is unwilling to own a vacuum cleaner. He doesn't want a refrigerator or a stove, and he definitely wants a place to sunbathe. He wants garden space, doesn't want any chemical pest sprays and doesn't want to artificially heat or cool his home.
The well-known nudist and peace activist would also like to pay rent comparable to what he pays now, which is $210 per month, but he knows that might be out of the question.
Schrader, 64, is a fixture of his neighborhood on Silver near University SE, but he has been asked to move out by the end of the month. According to a notice Schrader showed the Journal, the owners want to substantially renovate the property and sell it.
The apartment, where he has lived for nearly 22 years, contains everything on his checklist.
"Hopefully, the older we grow, the more we know what we like and don't like in life, whether in romance or in an apartment," Schrader said Friday.
Schrader is one of Albuquerque's most well-known proponents of simple living. He eats only raw plants, drinks his own urine and has a vigorous exercise regimen that includes hundreds of crunches, push-ups, pull-ups, and 45 minutes each day on a trampoline.
He likes to be naked when it's warm, but he puts on clothes when the weather is chilly so he doesn't have to heat his apartment.
Schrader is leathery from years of daily sunbathing and lean from his lifestyle. As he jumped on his trampoline in the afternoon sunlight Friday, he wore only a pair of underwear. But as he prepared to enter the shade of his apartment, he donned a long-sleeved shirt and sneakers.
He said he has not figured out where he will go at the end of the month, but will probably stay with a friend for a while. His current apartment is 12-by-14 feet, with a main room, bathroom and closet. He sleeps on a mattress on the floor of the main room, and the closet is filled with books and letters.
Every inch of wall space is covered with pictures and memorabilia. Most of one wall is images of naked men, but the decor also includes family photographs, protest slogans and a plaque from 1957 when Schrader won a fifth-grade spelling bee.
There are pictures of Schrader with Rosa Parks and another showing him challenging Billy Graham at a public appearance in the 1970s.
"This is a museum of my life," he said. "It's going to be hard to leave it."
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