The (Old) News from Jupiter

21st January 2024 |

In July of 1975 I left Los Angeles with a fully functioning motorcycle (and the same silly paper air filter) and made my way to some new friends who lived south of San Francisco, and then, after a week or two, travelled North on Highway 101 to get to the commune that Bob and Annie had told me about. I lived on the commune for almost four months and halfway through that stay the Sunday Times asked me to do a column for a series they were running called One Man’s Week . I have no idea today how we communicated. No internet of course. I don’t think there was a phone on the commune. Probably it was all done through the post office. Today I would shudder at that prospect but in the seventies the post was really reliable. It had to be. There wasn’t anything else. So here it is ¬–

 

 

ONE MAN’S WEEK on a commune in California

Sunday

Have been living on this commune over two months now, introduced by two Americans riding a Norton whom I met in Ecuador (we both fell on the same bridge). It’s a ranch deep in the hills north of San Francisco – Gold Rush country. The dry, hot summer is over, and first rains came last week. I’m sadly aware that it will be soon time to move on.

Sunday is a day for doing communal jobs. Went down hill to the “Big House”, a ten minute walk past the rusting remains of a sawmill, a hayfield, a flock of peacocks acquired with the land (extraordinary exotica for this area) duckpond, corral, horses grazing in the meadow and Greta the Goat. About 20 people straggled in for breakfast from various improvised houses dotted about the land. Men and women, mostly in their twenties, who met during the great campus upheavals of the last decade. It’s an unusually well-endowed commune: 670 well-watered acres of wooded hill and meadow, with access to a fair amount of parental money to keep them well clear of the brink of survival.

Day spent digging a ditch to drain the hillside behind the house. My own idea, very satisfying after two years of moving to be physically involved in one place. Others are mucking out, bottling fruit, cleaning the septic tank, building, or simply (and acceptably) doing nothing much. No pressure, no contracts. This is a low-profile refuge from middle-class expectations. The important things get done, somehow, without rules.

Monday

People here do, clearly, love each other more than they would living conventional lives. No orgies. Fewer drugs and less promiscuity than in most London party scenes I remember. What nudity there is has more to do with sun, air and heat than sexuality so it’s scarcely even noticeable. A strong sense of family belonging. Much support for people in emotional turmoil. Little jealousy, if any. But it can be a frustrating place. There’s a real danger of stagnation. Private projects are not much liked. Communal projects are hard to get going. There’s growing awareness that some extra sense of purpose is needed now.

Logging is a powerful issue here. On the hillside above me one last stand of Douglas firs is about to get the chop. Loggers are clearing the road for the big trucks. The noise of the chainsaws and bulldozers, and the splintering crash of falling timber threatens the commune. The people here tried to stop it happening. They say it’s the last virgin fir in the area. The cabin is made of it – dense wood, often too tough for nails.

Tuesday

The Wild West show continues. Today met my first rattlesnake. Had been swimming in the Eel River. On the steep climb back left the path for a while. A sudden loud hissing and crackling stopped me short – an alarming sound like water falling on a red hot stove. The snake was a yard away. We both studied each other a while. At last, very slowly, it slithered off while I kept pace with it until it vanished among rocks. It was about three feet long, with a full rattle.

Travelling has made me much more curious than frightened with wild life. Until today, the only creature that has stood its ground was an elephant in Tanzania. The rest all galloped, leapt, flew, crawled, burrowed, swam or buzzed away.

Wednesday

Carol and I harvested lima beans in the vegetable garden – a big crop to dry out for the winter. The garden is really the heart of the commune; a ragged-looking acre at first sight, but tremendously productive. Was fascinated to learn how certain weeds and flowers (like Pigweed and Nicotinia) are used to protect vegetables and to draw minerals to the surface. No chemicals of course. Enchanted by a variety of small snakes, black and yellow striped, slithering about. They’re harmless enough, and God knows every garden should have its serpent.

Thursday

My day to cook dinner. Made a full-dress English trifle with sherry. The adults went berserk over it, but the two small girls refused to eat it saying “Yuck”. They invented a new name for me – “Slimey Limey” – which we played with for a while, but they’re remarkably good at not taking things too far. The motorcycle also has a nickname, the Green Chainsaw.

I’ve been getting my digs in too, at their California Space Language, a complete Hippy/Political/Commune vocabulary about heads, trips, spaces and places and getting it together. Can be expressive but very sloppy and they know it. I’m the only person here who usually completes a sentence. It charms them, but they have a general distrust if language and believe the most useful things can’t be said.

Friday

The big night out, to the theatre in Covelo, the nearest small town, an hour along the dirt road. A community of 2000 people full of cross-currents and contradictions. The Old White population lives mainly off ranching and logging (there’s a sawmill down there) but both activities are running down. There’s also a sizeable Indian population (Redskin, though their skins aren’t red) sadly inclined to get fat and drunk and live off welfare. Then there are the New Whites – hippies, communards, city people moving to the country, even an Englishman directing a garden research project. Some Indians have recovered their dignity and are trying to revitalise their community with help from the New Whites. The others don’t like it.

The theatre is the High School gym, an elaborate affair for a small town, and rather tasteless. The basket ball nets retract hydraulically like an aircraft undercarriage. The show was very enjoyable, though far too long. Stage swarmed with characters, all played with great gusto. In three nights they made 500 dollars.

Saturday

Just heard that I can get on the P&O liner “Oriana” from San Francisco to Sydney, so it looks like Christmas down-under. Very difficult to detach myself from this life here. It makes a perfect antidote to the blatantly extravagant life-stye of American cities. Communes may come and go, wedded to the strangest beliefs and populated by the weirdest people but the tradition of living simply on and with the land must not be lost. Those who choose this, I believe, carry a torch for all of us.