Chapter 41 – The Deadwood Community

Alpha Farm

When they return to Swisshome, after their trip to California, they camp out in Sam while they’re looking for a place to live. They’re pulled to Deadwood, just north of Swisshome. Deadwood is a community strung out along a fertile valley whose creek empties into the Siuslaw River.
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Camping in Deadwood, they meet the folks living in the valley. The upper end of the valley is newer, with folks like them living there. There aren’t very many places to rent here though. They soon meet the folks at the two communal farms in the valley – Alpha Farm and West Fork. They’re really different from one another, yet each attracts them for one reason or another. They’re mostly considering living at one or the other of these two farms. It would be much easier than trying to find and maintain their own place.

Alpha Farm is spiritually oriented. Some of them are Quakers. They’re very organized, with weekly meetings and assigned work for each member. They also work on consciousness, with meetings of this sort too. Their organized and tight knit way reminds him of some of his fantasies for the Grant Street gang. From here though, these folks seem a bit too organized for his blood. Also, he wasn’t here at the beginning, and he would always feel like an outsider.

The folks at Alpha Farm have a contract with the government to deliver some of the local mail. They also have a natural foods restaurant and store in Mapleton, on the way to the coast. They grew herbs and keep bees for the honey and have a large garden on their farm. They’re always busy here and there isn’t much privacy. They all seem happy and productive though, and he does enjoy his time here.
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Karen is more attracted to these folks than he is. They’re too righteous for him, way too straight besides. He doesn’t particularly like it that they’re completely closed to acid and grass. They seem like a lot of the folks he met back east – high in their heads, high in the spirit maybe, but not at all high as bodies – and, after all, he thinks, that’s why we’re all here, to experience life as a body.

He and Karen disagree over whether or not to consider Alpha Farm as a potential home. He’s not very open to them. Karen is. It might have become a bigger deal between them except that both of them really like it better at the other communal farm in the valley – at West Fork.
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West Fork

Alpha Farm resembles what he sometimes wanted the Grant Street Gang to be, an organized family, with everyone involved and all. West Fork, however, is more like they really were.

They’re visiting them now. It’s very loose here, without an obvious leader or set of rules. They’re all old-time hippies, even the younger ones. They’re into medicines, liking peyote and grass best of all. They’re not against acid but don’t do it much anymore.

Johnny is the spiritual leader. He’s connected with the Shoshoni Indians at the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming, near the 1972 Rainbow Gathering that he and Karen went to. Johnny’s been through the relationship ceremony with them and has been taught the ways of the sweat lodge.
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As usual, for some reason, whenever he meets someone else with a real connection with the spirit, they aren’t very open to him. Either he’s not really high and they knew it, or else they’re jealous and afraid of him. He can’t think of any other reason why this always seems to happen. He certainly didn’t come here as a medicine man or anything like that. He doesn’t even pretend to be high, not now. He came here merely as a brother with a wife and baby and with no place to live.

He really feels at home here otherwise. It feels as it would have felt had the Grant Street Gang made it out of town. Everyone’s very loose, and no one tells anyone else what to do. Their sexual trips are together too, with none of the unconscious stuff that spoiled it at Stoneybrook Farm in Missouri and their city friends in Nashville.

He and Karen both like it here. She likes several of the women very well. He has more trouble, maybe because he’s so needy, or maybe because all the guys seem to follow Johnny’s lead with him.
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One night, he’s in the house hanging out, and Johnny is saying how they ought to bring out their guns and stand off the police or whoever else might come to rip off their pot plants when they mature latter in the fall. He feels this electric energy in the room now, especially in the younger guys just back from Nam. He feels the same energy in himself. He has a lot of anger and frustration in his life too, especially at not being able to live his life as he has wanted, having always to watch out for what other people might feel and think. He would really like to be part of a community that could protect him from the law, yet allow him to be free.
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Jonathan Becomes a Man

Jonathan just flew in from LA this morning. He’s visiting for the summer, although he has a feeling that he may be here to stay. When he was in LA last time, he asked Pamela why she was trusting Jonathan to him again, after refusing to let him visit him for so long. She told him then that she was no longer afraid as she had been before, that she has worked some things out. She’s the only person he knows who has ever worked past the fear trips they’ve laid on him and apologized for having been unconscious before. She’s a good person.

They haven’t found their place yet and are still camped out on Jesse’s land. They’ve thought of staying here even, but there’s no room at all – good folks though. They have their tarp up and their tent and van. They all manage to stay warm and dry. They’ll need a house though, if they’re going to stay in Oregon through the winter.

Karen’s still being closed to Jonathan, acting as if he were a spoiled rich kid, as if that alone were excuse enough to hassle him all the time. He’s really trying to please, and yes, he isn’t a back to the land hippie, but he’s still putting out a lot more love than she is.
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He and Jonathan take a walk one day, wandering barefoot down this little stream. Jonathan tells him of the dream he had in the night. In it, he’s walking with his mother, when a dog comes up and bites him. He falls down and lies there. His mother thinks he’s dead. He calls out to her at first, wanting her to know that he’s still alive. He realizes though, that she can’t see or hear him anymore.

Jon asks him what he thinks about it. Happy that Jon has shared, he tells him that the dog is an inner guide, leading him through a death and rebirth transformation, through all the changes he’s going through in his life now. He’s dying as his mother’s boy and being reborn as a man– and to his mother this seems like death, as if she can’t see or relate at all to who he is anymore.

Jonathan says that this is how he sees it too, and that’s why he has come to be with him. He knows he’s becoming a man now and wants to be with his father. Jonathan says that he wants to stay with him if he can, if it’ll work out with him and Karen.

He tells him that he wants this too. He tells him though, that they don’t have their act together at all yet, no money coming in and not even a place for all of them to live this coming winter. He tells him that he may not be able to stay with them here in Oregon until they’re more settled.
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Their New Place

Late in July, after living in their van since April, they do find a place to live. They hear at the Deadwood store that one of the little cabins just north of the store is for rent, dirt-cheap. It’s not in the Deadwood valley. It’s right on the highway, but right on the river too. He doesn’t like the highway noise, but he does like being on the river, and the sounds of the river do drown out the highway’s sounds. He hears the fishing here is really good, especially right behind the store. He’s eager to try.

The only trouble, and the reason they have hesitated, is that there’s no running water in any of the cabins. There’s rumor even that they’ll be condemned soon. There is electricity and a decent wood stove for heat, one for cooking too. They figure they can get water in their buckets from the river for washing and cleaning. They know where there’s a spring nearby too, where they can get pure water for drinking and cooking.

They haven’t found anything else at all. Probably if they don’t take this one, they’ll have to move into Eugene for sure. He and Karen aren’t ready for that yet. Sometimes he wishes they had been able to deal with Berkeley and its crazy energy, had been able to stay there. At least they had friends there and a way of making a living.
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The cabin is a very tiny place. There’s only one bedroom. They decide to share it with Ariana. She can sleep undisturbed in it while the rest of them are up and about in the living room. Jonathan has a sleeping place too, another cave, a tiny attic space above the kitchen. It’s really small. He can’t even sit up straight in it. It’s warm and dry though.

They move all their stuff in from Carol and Denny’s, and it begins to feel like home. It’s not very satisfactory, but it’s the best they can do for now – and after living in the van these past few months, it’s good enough.

Jonathan wants to spend the winter with them. He tells him that he feels the same but he doesn’t think they’re ready. He can’t see him staying up in the attic all winter. He can’t see him going to the junior high in Mapleton. It’s not a very good school, not like the one he’s been to in Santa Monica.

Jonathan understands, at least with his head. They decide he’ll come back up for Christmas, and they’ll see about it then. Jonathan also remembers that he still has a life and friends back south. They both know though, that he should be with his dad now that he’s becoming a man. They also still have the rest of summer yet to be together here. He’s not leaving for awhile.
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Chapter 42 – The Deadwood Community

The Community Meeting

He and Karen meet a woman named Chris. She lives in the valley. They find out that she’s into community organizing. Chris wants to organize Deadwood, the entire valley. After talking with them for a while and hearing about their own experience with communities, she asks for their help. Together they make up a flyer and put copies in all the mailboxes for Deadwood. They announce a community meeting for the following Saturday afternoon. She asks if they’ll help her facilitate the meeting too. They say they will.
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When Saturday rolls around, they’re here early to help her. She has heard from almost everyone in the valley, and most of them will be here. It’s exciting. This is what he has wanted to do for a long while.

When folks come, it’s difficult to get everyone together. The guys aren’t open at all. They want to go off and play a game of softball. He stands up at this time and says that they didn’t come here just for a game, that they came here to see if they could be a community together. He says they can play softball afterwards.

It’s a close thing – most of the guys aren’t very open to him anyway – but when Chris stands up and mentions childcare and buying food together, the women at least decide to stay. They somehow give their men subtle signals, because now they too agree to sit down again and listen for a while.

There’s a major need for childcare here in the valley. Most of the women are staying at home – isolated with their children, living out the traditional role of wife and mother – while the men are out and about in the world all day. The women want something more than this and are open to any way that will give it to them.

After a short discussion, among the women mostly, they set up a preschool, where those of them who are parents can bring their younger children, in exchange for time spent working there. They even talk of starting a private elementary school for the older kids.

Next, they talk about buying their food in common. Chris blows everyone away with her figures on what each of them would likely save each month. Even the men can see that it’s worth it.

They balk, however, when he suggests they have men’s and women’s groups, that sort of thing. They all say that survival is of first concern and ignore him when he says that being open and honest and able to trust one another is even more important for survival than saving money on food. Chris has already told him though, that the women will begin meeting soon. It will be a start. He feels as if he’s living here among the Philistines.
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His Acid Container

He always carries his acid in a little container in his pants pocket. He can’t find it anywhere! It has all the Clear Light acid he has left. It must have fallen out of his pocket somehow. He’s freaking out.

He realizes what it’s saying to him – that he has lost his connection with acid up here. This definitely isn’t acid or wizard country – more like Hobbit country, if anything. He hasn’t met anyone here who’s into acid. He wonders if he’s supposed to accept losing it, accept even the deeper implications and quit doing acid while he’s here.

He almost talks himself into letting go of acid, accepting what has happened. It wouldn’t have left him if he were supposed to have it still. He even goes to sleep later as if it weren’t all that important.
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The next morning, however, he wakes up with a start, realizing that he must find his acid. As he has done with other things he has lost, he thinks back in time to when he last had it and where he was then. He can remember when he last had it, when he last felt it in his pocket – it was the day of the community meeting. He had it then, on the way up to the meeting in Sam. He can’t remember having it since. He still wants the acid in its little container. He still wants to trip.

All of a sudden, he comes out of it, as if he has been bewitched. Of course he has to find it. He realizes that he probably lost it somehow during the meeting, somewhere outside on the grass. He tells Karen he’s going to get it. Jonathan wants to come with him. They hop into the van together, and he drives up the valley faster than he ever has, really trucking. He feels the acid calling, and he knows that he’s going to find it.

He says hello to the folks living where they had met, ask them if anyone has found a little container. “No, but you’re welcome to look.” He and Jonathan go out to where they were all sitting. He’s not so sure now that he’s here – it’s not likely it’ll still be here. It’s been two days.

He sees it though, lying where he had been sitting. He looks inside and his Clear Light is still there and dry. He feels an incredible rush of energy. He can see now that his acid left him so he would be forced to see how he really feels about it still. He’s still an acid brother. He may be living in a foreign land, but he’s going to remain true to who he is. He feels his strength come back; realizes he has tried to live up here without being who he is. He’s not just a father. He’s definitely not a back to the earth hippie. He’s an acid brother. He’s Wanderer, and he always will be.
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Deadwood Community in Action

They’ve been an intentional community here in Deadwood for only a short while, yet they’re really coming together, much better than he expected. Somehow, in spite of the initial resistance, it has caught on.
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At their first meeting, they decided to continue to meet once a month and to have no permanent officers or leaders. He and Karen along with Chris had volunteered to facilitate that first meeting, but they had insisted then that someone else take the job for the following meeting, and that, each time after that, someone new volunteer for the next. The only other job at the first meeting was taking notes, and they agreed that there should be a new person for this job each time – remembering probably that Comrade Stalin started out as the Secretary for the Central Committee in Russia.

They saw the many advantages of organizing themselves loosely into neighborhoods – Cougar Creek and West Fork road being two obvious and natural ones, easily defined by their geography. They saw the advantage of task-oriented committees too, mistrusting them somewhat, however, because they could be used to acquire power. Because of this, they decided that they should also be temporary in nature.

Childcare has really taken off. It happens almost daily, in different houses. It really helps a lot of folks to be more than just parents. The first food buy was last week, and it went off without a hitch. The food was brought to Alpha Farm’s store in Mapleton, and afterwards they all went down to sort it out and bring it home.

The most important thing he has noticed since their first meeting is that folks are hanging out with each other more. Most folks have become really isolated here, especially in the long rainy season. People are finding that they share common interests with others. People are finding folks who can teach them what they need to know. People are developing natural networks, both for trade and for information.
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One bit of information that they have found very interesting is that there are over fifteen PhD’s here in this farming community of less than two hundred folks, children and all. All the folks here are very intelligent and very well educated. Many of those without PhD’s have some other sort of college degree. He was talking with several folks the other day – they were all wondering if there was a deeper, perhaps more important reason for all of them to be here, if maybe they’re here to do something meaningful together.
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In Prison Here

It’s about time for him to do a high dose acid trip. He and Jonathan have been talking of backpacking into the Three Sisters wilderness area later this summer – he can do it then. He has done it seldom since he left Berkeley, and he’s seeing in his life here, the advantage of doing it less. He gets higher on it when he does it less often. It’s the same with grass too, to a lesser extent. He hasn’t been stoned in days now.
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But then he dreams that Johnny gives him a lid of grass. He immediately gets stoned. In the dream, he’s in a prison too. It’s been arranged so that Karen can visit him overnight. He’s really horny for her and can hardly wait until they are alone and can make love.
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Now he’s out of jail and free. He’s feeling very high. He’s leading all his friends to a very high party. He leads them up a walkway and into the house. Jim is one of the last to come in. Jim somehow manages to get everyone’s attention and then says, “as some of you folks know, I’m not very good with words, but I want to say that my friend here,” pointing to him, “is the highest man I know”. He speaks very clearly and strongly.
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Then he’s back in prison with Karen now. It’s night and they’re in their room. He accidentally spills his grass in the corner. A woman guard comes in to check on him. He’s picking up his pot, but he tells her that he’s cleaning up. She accepts what he says, doesn’t hassle him about it, and probably doesn’t even notice.

Just knowing Johnny is helping him be here in Deadwood. Johnny isn’t very open to him, but he can still feel his high vibe. He thinks that Johnny’s having trouble with him because he’s not feeling very good about himself here. Living with Denny really did a number on his head, constellated all those old inferiority feeling he had when he used to compare himself as a man to his brother or his dad. That’s what Jim is there for in his dream, to remind him that he is a very high brother, unfortunately living now in a foreign and not very high land.
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He feels as if he’s in prison here and not at all free – in a prison created of his desire for Karen and by the reality of being a parent. He’s certainly not being himself, not living his own life here with Karen. If he weren’t here with her, if he were out of jail, He would be as high as he is in his dream, leading all his friends to party, and worthy of what Jim says about him.