Ed Carlson, free spirit known as ‘The Waver,’ dies

RENO - Ed Carlson, a free spirit known as "The Waver" for greeting motorists while on foot across the country for more than 30 years, has died at his home in Iowa, family members said Saturday. He was 75.

Carlson became an institution in Reno, which was his home base from the 1970s to 2007 when he moved to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to be close to family. He died Friday.

Close friend Betty Layton of Reno said the Burlington, Iowa, native used to wave for miles around Reno and then hitch a ride 25 miles to the south to Carson City, where he waved before hitching back to Reno the same day.

"He was one of the kindest, most cheerful people I've ever known," Layton said. "He was just the embodiment of disciplined love. He never judged people. He accepted everybody as they were."

Carlson also waved to motorists on his many walks across the U.S. as well as in Sedona, Ariz., where he spent considerable time, said Layton, who put him up in her Reno home for some 30 years.

"My sister said she remembered seeing him wave on the George Washington Bridge out of New York City in the early 1980s," Layton said. "He waved all over the country."

Carlson's daughter, Kristina Butterfield of Cedar Rapids, said he slowed down after he underwent open-heart surgery in 1998. But he continued to wave to motorists even after he moved to Iowa in 2007.

"He went back to waving after the surgery, but not for the distances he was doing prior to that," she said, adding he was "very spiritual, very funny and very smart."

Carlson wrote a book about his experiences titled "I Walked to the Moon and Everybody Waved." The title came from his claim that he had walked 225,000 miles - about the distance between Earth and the moon.

The Army veteran, who worked everywhere from oil fields to New York delis, began his waving after he experienced an "awakening" after a family crisis.

"There was an incredible brilliance one night and he heard, 'Go forth and spread God's love.' That was his mission in life - to spread God's love," said Layton, adding he didn't adhere to any faith.

The family believes he died of a heart attack, Butterfield said.

"We were shocked because we thought he was young," she said. "He was doing hundreds of situps and pushups throughout the day up until the end."

Survivors include two other daughters, two sisters and a brother. Services in Cedar Rapids and Reno were pending.