Homestead mailing list

[bob ford <bobford79 AT yahoo.com>]

James, from what I've read from you , over the years, I would say that you 
are certainly more "non-consumerist" than anyone I know, or maybe even than 
anyone I've read about.  And you are not poor.  You may not earn what you 
could earn in Richmond or Nasville, or even where I live in Phoenix; but you 
have debt free house, , land; animals;gardens,  and probably all kind of 
tools and outbuildings and other misc stuff.  

I began to refuse to buy clothing with exposed brand identification, years 
ago.  I will pay extra for good quality , natural fibres, if necessary, but 
with me, it's not.  Khakis and good cotton shirts are not expensive.

I buy automobiles for quality and price without regard to status.  If I find 
brands of decent tasting generic food, I always buy it rather than name 
brand.  

I have television (more than one, and I have cable), but I rarely sit through 
a program, I am too easily bored with television.  I believe the least 
creative people on the planet produce and work in the majority of our media.  
So, I pay little attention to advertsing, and when I see the ads, they are 
likely to make me want to buy the product 'less'.  

But, I could not even come close to what you have done. Not even close. Even 
if I had started young, I could not.  If I had started young, I would have 
put into practice some of the things I have learned from you and others on 
this list.  But, I think the drive and the will to separate myself from this 
materialistic society and culture would have had to leave first.  It took a 
long time for that to occur. 

I really do despise the consumerism in our culture.  Despise is a strong 
word, but that is the word I need to use.  I don't despise the people who are 
consumeristic, I think they just work, play, buy cars and houses,  have 
babies, and listen to the media, and stay so busy that they don't realize 
they are spending most of their time working for someone else's benefit and 
profit.

 You must be stubborn as hell, and also hard willed to get the wife and 
family to carry it as far as you have.  I hope your children learn something 
and don't just run off to the city to escape the woods.  That is what I did.  
...................bobford


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--- On Fri, 11/7/08, Clansgian AT wmconnect.com <Clansgian AT wmconnect.com> wrote:

> Mainly, I'd say, over my view that I am as non-consumerist as anyone in 
> this  country.