Lindsey, now my ex-wife but still my best friend, and I are making a break for the country again this summer. We bought a 16X16 foot square green USMC canvass tent from an army surplus store and have ordered an 18 foot white canvass tipi skin from some freeks in Oregon. The last two summers we spent in a small barn that was half way converted into a house, but we can't go back there again. The owner, a rich guy Lindsey knew said we could stay there and for the first summer every thing was cool. The second summer though, he started out by asking me to do a little work around the place, which I was happy to do. Then he asked me to do a bit more, then a bit more and all for just free rent, so I did what I felt like doing when I felt like doing it. Then the guy and his wife started showing up once or twice a month in their Cadillac early in the morning on weekends to check up on my work and generally be a pain in the ass, not to mention ruining any party that was happening. Our relationship ended when I burned up his $30,000 tractor while disking his orchard because he was too cheap to buy it a new radiator. "When it gets hot just pour more water into it." he told me. Well, one day it got too hot too fast and the engine sized up which really pissed him off. I told him it was his own fault for being such a cheap bastard because a new radiator cost only $80. He got mad, we argued and that, as they say, was that
In the two summers we were there we made friends with some of the locals. Younger hip ones and older straight ones too. One of the friends we made and visited a lot was a 95 year old woman who lived by herself in a small cabin in the woods that she and her husband had built by hand 65 years ago. It possessed no amenities and she had lived in alone for the last 35 years since her husband had died. She’d escaped Deutschland at the turn of the century, just like both sets of my grandparents who were no longer alive. She, and they, had gotten the hell out of the old country, made it to the promised land and never looked back. Even though she didn't do dope, her philosophy was basically the same as ours; Live Life, Enjoy Yourself, Harm Nothing Unnecessarily and Never Believe One Word The Clowns (her definition of anyone religious or political in authority) Ever Tell You. We liked her a lot. Another set of friends we made were an old couple in their 60's, Roberto and Ellen Santini. They knew the owner of the barn and didn’t like him either so when they found out he'd kicked us out, they told us not to worry. They had lived in the area all their lives and knew plenty of people with empty land who would let us live on some, and for free too. And find us some they did. 120 beautiful acres and only two miles from their place.
Santini, no one ever called him Roberto, took us over to see it. It was on a seldom used but asphalt road. He pulled into a dirt driveway and we drove through an abandoned orchard of apple, pear, mulberry and black walnut that was completely screened from the road by scrub oak and holly. He parked, we got out and I said how beautiful it was.
Santini says, "This is nice all right, and you can live here if you want and have all the fruit any of the trees still bare but come on, I'll show you something a lot better. I know how you young folks like your privacy." and walked off into the chaparral.
Lindsey and I followed.
As we walked through, it was real dense and about 10 feet high. Santini tells us, “You’ll have to cut a trail through here and watch out for the poison oak."
After we walked a couple hundred yards we broke through the brush and came into a really beautiful meadow a little bigger than a football field. It was completely carpeted with short grass and was totally flat. It had some valley oak, cottonwood and manzanita growing on it and was also completely surrounded by that high wall of scrub oak and holly. When you stood in it and looked around you could not see one sign of man or civilization, it was Perfect! And it got better. Santini showed us to a corner of the meadow and there was a small creek.
"It's small but it runs all year round even in the driest years. It's full of minerals too, it's the best water in this part of the county. A lot of old timers still bring their jugs a little farther upstream and fill them for their drinking water." Santini said then continued, "You got only one neighbor within a mile of you so" he smiles at us, "you can raise all the hell you want and nobodies going to bother you."
And it got better yet. "I know the owners and told them all about you. They say as long as you don't set the place on fire you can stay. They're city folk and don't come up here much. They inherited from their father, a friend of mine, and have no plans for it. The property starts at the road and runs in pretty much a straight line to the top of that mountain yonder and back over to the orchard. You can use any part of it you want but this is the best piece."
We agreed and thanked him profusely.
He shrugged saying, "Ain't no big deal." Then, "Let's go back to my place, Ellen’s got lunch waiting."
The next weekend we got Gyro, who had a van, to help us move all of our stuff up from the City. He dropped it off in the orchard and we showed him the meadow. He looks around saying, "Very nice, but what the hell are you two going to do up here? You'll be bored and back in the City within a month."
How wrong he was. The first thing to do was to cut a trail. Instead of cutting a straight line, I walked through the brush a few times and found where it was at it's thinnest then followed that way, only cutting wide enough for a man to slip through. When it was done it was a twisty turny thing that was a third longer that a straight line would have been but it satisfied me. No one would be able to find their way in it unless they knew where it was. Plenty of folks did lose their way on it too.
Lots of times I’d be sitting in the tipi and hear someone yelling, "Tai, we're lost. Come and get us."
At night I would have to walk almost every one in or out. Our next job was to haul our stuff from the orchard to the meadow and to set up the USMC tent then dig a shitter. I found a spot that was screened on three sides by holly, dug a pit then built an out house with just a floor, the throne, the back wall and a roof. When you sat on the throne, you had a view of about a quarter of the meadow all the way down to the creek. A lot of people refused to use the shitter, saying that they needed more privacy so instead they used the bushes but it was plenty good for Lindsey and me, and I loved it.
Next was to find a pot plot and get some seed in the ground so we would have some leaf to smoke by June and bud by September. Again, the holly saved me. While walking along the edge of the meadow I noticed a place where the holly looked a little lighter so I eased my way through it, and you have to be careful because holly can tear you up. About four feet in was a large oak shading a small patch of ground about 30'X10' then more holly. It was perfect. You couldn't see it from the meadow because of the 10 foot high, 4 foot thick holly wall, nor from the sky because of the oak, yet there was more that enough light filtering down to grow some weed. Only Lindsey and I ever knew where it was. We grew a lot of grass in that patch and I'm proud to say smoked up every single bit of it with all our friends.
The tipi skin would be coming in about three weeks so we had to cut the poles and get them ready. A pine forest started up the road about a mile from us. Every morning Lindsey and I would walk up to the pines, where I’d cut two 30 foot trees then we would walk them back down to the meadow where I’d skin them and knock all the branches off them with an ax, then sit them in the sun to dry. In the afternoon after lunch we'd walk back up to the pines and do it all again. When we were about half done, Santini's neighbor, a mildly retarded guy who owned his very own junkyard, he only collected and never sold, drove by us then stopped and watched. After a while he asked us what the hell we were doing. We told him about the poles and the tipi.
He said, "You mean you're cutting and hauling these things by hand down to that field?"
We said, "Yup."
He told us to wait right there, that he'd be back in 10 minutes. Ten minutes later he was back with his chain saw. He asked which trees I wanted then cut them down as I pointed them out.
When he was done he helped us load them into his pickup truck then drove us down to the orchard then dumped us and the trees off saying, "I guess I saved you some work."
We thanked him and he drove away. After that, whenever we saw him we would always say Hello, but he never acknowledged us again.
After the poles dried I sanded them. They were finished just waiting on the tipi skin. The next thing to do was to put in a small garden down by the creek so we wouldn't have to haul water so far. After that only one chore remained before we were ready, the brewing of 20 gallons of home brew. I bought a 30 gallon plastic trash can and had saved up eighty 1 quart bottles with screw tops. All the ingredients, except the yeast, could be bought with food stamps. I started that puppy cooking so that in just six short weeks we would have 9% home brew to guzzle down. After that all was in ready for the tipi skins arrival.
In the mean time Lindsey had found an old brass bed in a junk shop for only $10. We hauled that into the meadow, spent a day on it with Brasso then sat it in the middle of the field. When ever the weather was good which was all summer long, we slept on it under the moon and stars letting the cricket and coyote sing us to sleep.
The tipi skin arrived in early May and we put it up. It took a few tries before I got it right. Finally then there it stood. The white canvass cone sitting in a field of light green grass set against the dark green holly with the butter colored poles extending out beyond the canvass another 8 feet with 6 foot lengths of red ribbon streaming in the breeze against a deep blue spring sky with a few white puffy cloud in it. It was beautiful, the most beautiful structures of mans that I have ever seen.
Now, I’ve been around the world a few times and have seen a lot of man's handiwork including the Cathedrals of France, but only the Taj Mahal can compare with the tipi for it's sheer esthetic beauty, except the tipi is better, it's simple and every one can own one. I thought I was putting up something to spend a summer in but I ended up staying in it a year and a half, and I loved every moment of it. It was, and is, the finest home I have ever had the privilege of living in in my entire life.
At night it was even more lovely. With a kerosene lamp or small fire it looked like a giant Chinese lantern glowing vermilion against the jet black night sky that was sprinkled with billions of stars. I faced it east so we could watch the sunrise in the morning and the moonrise at night. We were enchanted.
I built a plywood floor around 2/3's of the inside then hauled in small obsidian rocks for the other 1/3 leaving the center open for the fire pit. It was perfect, we moved in. We were at hOMe. We went to the welfare office and got on food stamps. I went over to the Junior College and signed up so I could collect my VA education benefits. They sent me $400 a month for going to school on the GI bill and I only had to show up a couple times a week to keep it going then drop out on the last drop day to stay eligible for next semester. I knew that all the time I’d spent in the army would come in handy. I lived off the GI bill for over four years, starting 13 semesters and finishing 1 before I burned it out. We were set. All we needed were our friends.
The city hippies started showing up in early June and the partying commenced at the same time. From June until October there were at least ten other freeks living in the tipi field in their tents or in the orchard in their vehicles, and on weekends the population would swell to thirty or more. Once the country hippies found out we were there, they started dropping by on a regular basis, and if we weren't partying in the tipi field then we were partying at one of their places, because the woods are full of freeks.
I first met Kelly up there. She and her boyfriend Sparrow lived in a small house on a river. Little did I know or even suspect that when I met that 19 year old beauty that we would end up sharing over 20 years of our lives together. Life is strange and wonderful.
And did we party that summer? You bet your booty! We partied extra hardy fueled by grass, acid, speed, Quaaludes and home made beer. We had dope and we had booze and there were all kinds of naked wild free beautiful babes running through the field, sitting in the creek or just laying around in the grass. There's no way to describe the utter fun we had during that hot sun drenched summer. Plus, we were young enough so we had the energy, and dumb enough not to think about it and just do it. We were lucky too, the cops never once bothered us as long as we stayed in the bushes, in town though it was another matter.
They'd stop us for totally bullshit things like safety checks, license checks, ID checks. I got tired of that real fast so the next time they stopped me, I took the cops name and badge number. The next morning I went to see the Chief demanding to know why I was being harassed. The Chief told me that his boys were just doing their job. I asked him if I was doing something wrong, then why didn't they issue me a ticket. They knew I was legal, they stopped me enough times, and if his "boys" continued to harass me, why then, I would just have to come see him every time to discuss with him. I saw the Chief two more times before he refused to see me any more so I bugged his secretary instead. I never got pulled over again after that.
The summer ended and the city freeks went back to the City, the country hippies had to get ready for winter so by the 1st of November I was alone. Lindsey had found herself a new boyfriend, Spider, and had moved into the City with him in the 22nd St. commune. She was having too much fun to stay at the tipi field for the winter and besides, she knew there was no future with me. I had decided to stay all winter and see what it was like to be alone. To my surprise, I actually liked it. Some days when it was real cold and rainy or snowy, I wouldn't even get out of bed except to use the toilet. I’d just lay there looking up through the smoke hole at the sky. It didn't even matter if it was day or night. Two or three times a week I’d hitch to town for food and supplies. Maybe once a week someone might come by, but mostly I stayed there alone, watching. If I got too lonely then the City was a short five to eight hour hitch away. I’d go a couple times a month just to party with my friends, take a shower and eat some one else’s cooking.
Except for my short sojourns to the City, this was the first time in six years that I wasn’t taking drugs, drinking or having sex every day and to my surprise, I found out that I felt just as good straight as I did high. It was just different. I started spending a lot of time with the I Ching and the Tarot. I tried meditating and found that if I concentrated and let go of everything at the same time, I could duplicate the effect of LSD. I could make the walls breath, make trails, turn everything into light and shadow, change the dimensions of the space around me or the time flowing by me, make light fountain or run. I could make things appear that weren’t there or things that were there disappear. It was just how you looked at things, your point of view. I started experimenting with staring into the sun and, man o man, that got me high instantly. Not that I was giving up on drugs, they were way too much fun. It was just nice to know that I didn't need them to get high.
My new companion, the I Ching and I spent the entire winter in the tipi almost always alone but never lonely or bored. It was a new experience and a very valuable lesson. By early May the freeks had started showing up again.
I had bought an old 1947 Chevy school bus, gutted it, then put in carpets and pillows and was ready to roll into another summer of Big Time Fun. By June we were cooking. Word had gotten out and there were even more folks around than the previous summer. Even some of the semi straight locals were coming out to party. Of course, they only lasted until things got wild then they'd go home, some to try again another day, some never to be seen again. That summer there was more of everything, more dope, more booze and more sex than I had ever dreamed about even in my wildest teenage fantasies. We tried 3-somes, 4-somes, 10 or more-somes in every variety and combination. If the previous summer was utter fun then this summer was the apex of fun, and it went on and on, on those golden summer days. Even looking back on it from 25 years away I can hardly believe how lucky I was to have been a part of the pure gleeful human joy that wild summer of freedom brought. Of course, it couldn't last.
We did make it through the entire summer and into early fall before the plug was pulled by the life hating fun spoiling down right mean spirited Nazi's. Everyone had left again and I was alone. It was early October when I heard somebody coming through the chaparral. I got out of the tipi so I could greet my visitor, but as soon as I saw him, I knew it was all over.
He wore a white shirt with a tie, black pants and shoes, and he had a clip board in his hands, "Hi, I'm from the County Health Department and I’m here to make sure you are not in violation of any of the county's health and safety codes." he said. Then he smiled, because we both know there would be violation aplenty. He continued, "We heard about you last year but no one would tell me where you were located until I met your neighbor up the road. He seemed happy to help me out."
That chickenshit cocksucking bastard Gabe had ratted me out! Gabe was the same age as me and considered himself an artist even though he had never sold a painting. We became friends when he moved into the old German woman's house after she died, but once the partying had started in earnest he just couldn't take it, it was way too free for him and his restrictive little pea brain. He always thought that he was hip but soon found out he was just another tight assed straight. One day when I went over to his place, he came out and told me to get the hell off of his property, and not only to never come back but to never speak to him or his wife again. That I was nothing but a filthy irresponsible pervert, so leave now or there's be trouble. I thought he was kidding, he wasn't
The County Health Nazi starts asking me questions, "You own this property?"
No.
"Who’s the owner's?"
I don't know
"Well, I can find out from the county tax records. Where's your water supply?"
The creek.
A check mark. "How do you dispose of your garbage?"
I take it to the dump.
"Where's your toilet?"
Over there.
He sees the outhouse and his eyes light up, he's got me. "Do you know that it is illegal in California to have an outhouse?"
What about that rat fucker Gabe, he has an outhouse.
"His was grandfathered in. Was this structure here prior to 1962?"
He can see it's fairly new wood.
"Well then," he smiles even more, "you are in violation and this structure will have to come down and be replaced by an approved septic tank or the owners will be liable for a $100 a day fine until they comply."
He hands me his card, "I'll be contacting them and they will have 30 days to either correct the violation or to evict you or be fined. If you have any questions you can contact me at this number. Good day." He smiles again then walks away.
I found out later that after Gabe had ratted me out he’d gotten a job with, you guessed it, The County Health Dept. so because of that sorry son of a bitch, I lost the finest home I have ever lived in. But Gabe lost a lot more, he lost his soul.
I did take revenge on that county Nazi too. The next time I went to the City, I went to the Public Library’s magazine section and pulled out every "bill me later" card out of every magazine they had. I put that Fascist motherfuckers name and address on them which I gotten from the phone book, and sent them all in. I can only hope that he was inundated with magazines, ICS courses, Franklin Mint stuff, records, books and even army and navy recruiters. There must have been 60 cards or more and I like to think that he received every single thing.
Of course, the owners had to evict me but they were nice about it. They even told me that if I put in a septic tank then I could stay. I told them thanks a lot but I had something else to do. Even though I was still doing a lot of dope, I was also doing the I Ching daily and had decided to cast my Fate with it. I was going to follow whatever the I Ching told me to do for the next year. Little did I know that that one year would stretch out to the next five very intense years, that I would cover a lot of ground mentally, spiritually and physical, and that it still would continue to this very day. But back to the tipi...
I’d hiked around a lot and knew the area pretty well so when the ax fell, I knew what to do. I packed up everything and humped it over the mountain and into the next valley. I found a very pretty little hill surrounded by young oaks over looking the valley a little way from another creek. I set the tipi up in that Faerie Circle of oaks and stayed a week, then said good bye to my beautiful tipi. I pick up my new life’s companion and walked away form the most wonderful home I’d ever live in. I visited it a few times over the next couple of years whenever I was passing through the area and it was always there, sitting there among the oaks. I’d stay a few nights, sharing its space with its new residents, the mice family. Whenever I left, I would always turn back at the top of the mountain for one last look. There it would be, a snow white canvass cone set against the brown trunks and green leaves of the oaks with it's now pink streamers fluttering in the breeze of a deep blue sky, and know that it was perfect and that I had been truly blessed.