It took a while for the cavalry to saddle up, but the Kittay House peace contingent was in rare form once they were in the thick of it.

“Don’t just sit there! Honk for peace!” Zelda Fassler yelled at the people in their cars waiting for the lights to change at the corner of Webb Avenue and Kingsbridge Road. A cacophony of honking horns answered her.

“Take down their license plate numbers if they don’t honk,” joked Fassler, a resident at Kittay House, a Jewish Home and Hospital independent senior living facility just across from the VA Hospital. Fassler and other residents have been promoting peace at the same intersection on Tuesdays at 3:15 p.m. for close to a year.

To coincide with a national day of action for the peace movement on Saturday, Oct. 27, the hearty group manned their stations and were met with thunderous honking. Events and marches occurred across the country, but the 15 Kittay House seniors who braved the elements in wheelchairs and walkers were just as dedicated as the thousands who marched in Manhattan and elsewhere.

They almost didn’t make it. There were concerns about the weather, the whereabouts of the signs, the chairs and the organizer who was reportedly in Manhattan at the “other” rally. When the seniors’ social worker Judi Aronowitz arrived, there was a flurry of activity. Signs were found, chairs were gathered and the protesters were ready to roll.

The inspiration for the activity came from “Raging Grannies,” a documentary Aronowitz showed the residents about elderly activists in California who deliver their message in creative and outlandish ways.

Those who watched the video decided they were interested in doing something similar. A committee was formed to make signs and another was formed to write letters to Congress. Rachel Fein, who heads the letter writing committee, recently collected 150 signatures during meal times to rally support for SCHIP, the children’s health insurance plan the Bush administration wants to scale back.

The group has a range of protesting experience. Felice Porter was an activist on nuclear policy issues and attended peace rallies leading up to the war in Iraq. Joel Bloom, a retired engineer, said he had never been politically active before the peace protests. “By being active, I could, at the risk of sounding corny, do something altruistic,” Bloom said. At 70, Bloom is the baby of the group. Most of the protesters range in age from 85 to 94.

Cars slowed down to wave, people gave the thumbs up sign and police cars and buses honked as they drove by.

Normally the protesters stay on the corner for an hour, but the cold weather cut the Saturday event short. Fassler and her husband Arnold, a WWII veteran, headed home triumphantly.

Walking back to Kittay House, Sam Baum, a sharp 92-year-old, held a civics lesson in modern warfare, interspersing his comments with “You follow me” and “You get the picture.” Dressed in a bomber jacket and a shirt and tie, he recounted from his 27 years of working with the Navy, in uniform and as a civilian, the merits and necessity of war. But now, Baum said, peace is the only option. “There is no alternative,” he said. “Mankind is in a position to destroy itself.”

The signs were put away and Aronowitz was on her way to the next event. “You know what it is,” she said. “They’ve seen too many wars.”