CENTRAL SQUARE, N.Y.  On Wednesday, Charlie Price was smoking a cigarette and sitting outside his restaurant, Charlie’s Place, on a two-lane stretch of highway on the outskirts of town.

He watched as a small group protesting the war in Iraq marched toward him, carrying peace signs and waving at the cars and tractor-trailers whizzing by. “I don’t think it’s going to do any good,” Mr. Price said of their efforts. “I want to get out of there, too, but I don’t think this is the way.”

Yet once the protesters, headed for Fort Drum, more than 50 miles away, reached him, Mr. Price eagerly offered them water and a place to rest  a more pleasant welcome than they had received from many others along the way.

Carmen Viviano-Crafts, 23, of Syracuse, who was carrying a small cardboard sign that read, “Bring home my boyfriend,” said that some people “gave us the finger and stuff like that.”