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[bob ford <bobford79 AT yahoo.com>]

Another very interesting story Susan.  You are on a roll this week.  Though 
my earlier hippie comment was meant as humor (and that term usually is, for 
me), the real definition , for most, would include 'lazy' ; not all all what 
you are describing.........................

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--- On Thu, 12/4/08, sjc <indexer AT fairpoint.net> wrote:

> From: sjc <indexer AT fairpoint.net>
> Subject: Re: [Homestead] A slang question
> To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Date: Thursday, December 4, 2008, 5:50 PM
> rayzentz AT aim.com wrote:
> 
> > Really? How did they do that? And when? Are you
> referring to a particular event?
> >
> >   
> 
> Late in the 50s and early in the 60s many people left this
> area for jobs 
> elsewhere; the only real jobs left here for many years
> thereafter were 
> 'factory' chicken operations, huge processing
> plants down on the 
> Penobscot Bay (which had waste chutes 8' across where
> waste was shovel 
> straight into the Bay), and a smattering of leftover
> lobstermen and 
> fishers.  The fisherman were at the beginning of the
> overfishing and 
> couldn't make a living, a lot of them turned to
> lobstering.  That still 
> survives; they took it upon themselves to set limits after
> having 
> watched what happened to the fisheries.  Just about
> everything else was 
> chickens.  Most everybody else took off for 'greener
> pastures' (I guess 
> that means where the snow in July in the gutter isn't
> actually white 
> chicken feathers), largely Boston and beyond.  A lot of
> farmers, having 
> bought the 'can't make any money farming
> anymore' walked off and left 
> land, houses, whatever.
> 
> People were happy to sell some large tracts to incoming 
> back-to0-the-lander, hippie types.  There were hundreds at
> one time.  
> So, they were pretty well-educated, willing to take a risk,
> supported 
> through the initial stages, not afraid to be doing
> something new.  Now 
> they're old hippies, but it turned out they were well
> educated (Daddy's 
> money), and had enough of the same money (trust funds) to
> buy land and 
> actually get it going.  MOFGA was in its infancy then but
> there were a 
> couple of people there who helped them off to a decent
> organic start, 
> information-wise, and a few of the old farmers left here
> helped them. 
> 
> Just about the time they got a toehold, the chicken
> business in Maine 
> fell apart (disease) and more people left, leaving more
> ground, some of 
> which was occupied by said folks, mostly by then in family
> groups.  They 
> all had kids, which they homeschooled, county was too broke
> so they 
> looked the other way.  Eventually Pop's money ran out,
> and everybody 
> buckled down to work.  The kids were reared to be polite,
> to work with 
> their hands and backs, to be respectful, curious,
> hardworking, 
> goal-oriented, independent, contributing members of their
> community.  
> They learned in many cases to take care of the old farmers
> and their 
> wives who'd helped them when they first came.  Now
> those kids have grown 
> up to be some real decent folks, with a good sense of who
> they are, who 
> else is here, a good bit of wisdom for a group of young
> people.  They're 
> teaching, some abroad, in the military, taking care of
> grandparents.....
> 
> The adults who came here as kids are  now mayors/town
> managers in many 
> of our small towns here, and enthusiastic still about the
> area, willing 
> to work hard for it.  Most of the staff of Unity College
> got their start 
> right here on Stovepipe Alley (one of the communes which is
> now a 
> cohousing unit under I-forget-the-name).  Most of the staff
> of College 
> of the Atlantic came from here, same circumstances.  Not a
> few are 
> professors at UMO and UMA.  We have a reasonable tax base.
> They started 
> and still own a newspaper.  They redeemed many old
> buildings and built 
> many new ones which one can be pleased to see.  They have
> been at the 
> forefront of alternative energy in Maine, and some of them,
> on a 
> national basis.  There are no 6000sq foot boxes here, nor
> nasty 
> mortgages to pull us into the fray to the south.  We have
> libraries now, 
> parks and other public places, beach access in many places,
> and many 
> small businesses which employ our residents.  they still
> don't poke into 
> anybody else's business, and I've never heard of a
> one of them 
> bellyaching about what services they don't have or
> can't get here (my 
> personal gripe; if ya want it, stay where ya have it). 
> 
> We do have 2 stoplights here now, but that's due to the
>  old  yuppie 
> (Crowley, MBNA) who thought he'd make a killing off the
> dumb  Mainers 
> and  installed a huge call center where he soon found out
> that the dumb 
> Mainers here don't like to lie to consumers, even on
> the phone, and so 
> won't sell bad interest rates without telling people
> what they're 
> getting into.  I think they were here 4 years.  Didn't
> take everybody 
> long to decide they'd rather have the hippies......
> 
> The sense of community is outstanding here; when my house
> burned in '01 
> I told 6 people to please spread the word (on Wed, too late
> to get it in 
> paper) that I planned to have a house-raising on Fri &
> Sat (Thanksgiving 
> weekend) and to please come, and bring any tool you
> don't mind others 
> using, and any materials you may have that you don't
> otherwise want.  
> Fri there were well over 60 people (plus children who could
> actually be 
> trusted to operate a tape, carry cheerfully, whatever) and
> on Saturday 
> over 100 folks, plus a lot more who came by but would have
> had to park 
> too far down the muddy road (over a mile).  Little kids
> restacked my 
> half-burned firewood to a new spot, picked up trash,
> dragged magnets, 
> corraled dogs (strict leash law here backed by 410s).  A
> rousing good 
> time and much good food was had by all, and by Sat dark
> (about 4:00 that 
> time of year) the shell was up except for the roofing,
> which hadn't come 
> in yet.  About half the materials were donated.  Peter (old
> hippie, 
> probably still count himself one, who makes apple ladders
> brought the 
> rafters he'd cut in the woods that morning.   Donald,
> one of the few 
> farmers who welcomed new people to the land even if they
> were hippies, 
> was in the woods logging Fri and came Sat and cut those
> logs right in 
> the driveway into the flooring, with the measuring and
> toting help of  
> two hippies' grandchildren.  The next Saturday the
> roofing went on in 
> four hours.  We like (treasure, actually) that sense of
> community and we 
> all know and acknowledge that had Waldo County driven off
> the hippies, 
> as did many surrounding places, we'd now not have what
> we do, in many 
> ways.  Their children, after living all over the world, are
> now coming 
> home to be teachers in our schools, administrator at our
> hospital, 
> manager at the credit union....and so it marches on.
> 
> The counties adjacent to us, with the exception of Knox
> County (Camden, 
> old money and established tourism), were in similar shape
> to our county 
> at the beginning of 1960.  They were just beginning to get
> their heads 
> above water when things slowed down this time, and now who
> knows; they 
> are already in trouble in 3 of the 4 counties....meanwhile
> we are in 
> reasonably good shape here. 
> 
> So even though nobody really wanted them to come, or so
> I'm told, it's 
> not been tooooo bad.  I doubt if you'd find anyone
> complaining here, 
> now.  I can't think when I heard the last person
> grumble about 'them 
> hippies', maybe about 1990?
> 
> They did OK by us.
> 
> SJ
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