My midlife crisis.

J

Josiah

Senior Member
Location
50 miles east of Cincinnati, OH
Back in the early 1970s I went through something of a midlife crisis.


At that time a very modest subculture took root in America sometimes refered to as the "back to the land movement". It was populated by various counter culture groups, most notably young (mostly in their 20s) environmentalists and hippies, a smattering of old Jewish lefties and at least one forty year old mid life crisis guy, me.


I don't think the term carbon footprint had been invented yet but having a small one was ostensibly our goal. As was living the simple life while being as self sufficient as possible. As it turns out living the simple life and being self sufficient are rather contradictory goals but I didn't learn that until later. A magazine called "The Mother Earth News" catered to this subculture and it was through a personal ad in the magazine that I met my current wife. To make a long story short after corresponding for several months, we agreed by snail mail to become homesteaders together in the Arkansas Ozarks.


The Ozarks was a popular area for the back to the landers because land was cheap and the life style of the natives (referred to by the back to the landers as hillbillys) was very simple. This use of the word hillbilly was not meant to be derisive at all. The back to the landers learned a lot of practical skills from the natives and the two groups got along remarkably well. The younger generation of natives had all moved away to the cities to get jobs so the remaining natives were an older generation and they enjoyed seeing a bunch of happy young faces. Especially the braless hippie chicks


So this new woman in my life drove east from San Francisco and I drove west from Poughkeepsie, NY and we met on the town square in Barryville, Arkansas. A week later we gave the realestate agent a down payment on 160 acre piece of land. The asking price was $150/acre and we didn't bother to offer less.


I will continue describing my midlife crisis in subsequent threads when the mood strikes.
 

Wonderful story Josiah, and I love the idea of the back to the land movement. I remember the Mother Earth News, how cool it is that you met your wife like that! :cool: We have a couple of copies of the large Whole Earth Catalog and Epilog here in our computer room from waaay back when. I too look forward to hearing more.
 
Ooooh coming from a country where land is at a premium the thought of having a massive 160 acres of land is a dream for me..wow!! Can't wait to read the rest of your Diary Josiah.. :)
 
My midlife crisis part 2

The real estate agent we engaged was an elderly gentleman who had a very colorful way with words and a perfect command of the Ozark diealect. He had us pretty well figured out at the outset and knew just the kind of stories that would get our jucices flowing. The place we were going to look at was the old Roosevelt Fitch farm. It had a spectacular view of seven mountain ranges, a dug well, a couple of old out buldings and lots of salable timber.


On the east side of the county road which cut diagonally through Fitch farm (county roads are dirt roads) the land dropped off steeply eventually reaching the Buffalo river (Subsequently designated a National River by the National Park Service). Some where down there he soloumly told us there was a commune of "lessies" and they would shoot any man who ventured near their place. Some of them lessies had children but only the female children were permitted to live in the commune. His explaination of what they did with the male children was quite vague and we never got his story straight. On the west side of the road the land sloped down more gently and this was ostensibly the farm. The real estate agent annonced that because of his arthritis he could not accompany us and that we should take our time looking and he would catch some shut eye in the car. Oh, and we should keep our eye out for the 80 ft waterfall. Then in a hushed voice he said that it was near that waterfall that Roosevelt had pushed his wife off the bluff.


So Maggie, who I had only met in person three days earlier, and I set off to see the land. There were fields, very overgrown fields delineated with barbwire fences which were in a terrible state of disrepair. But to our dreamy romantic subjective outpouring of emotions we could see goats grazing in pastures, raised beds overflowing with produce, asparagus beds, fruit orchards, windmills, ponds full of catfish, chickens, turkeys, geese, pigs, donkeys. Our imaginations exploded, but we hadn't seen the 80 ft waterfall yet. We eventually reached the bluff line which bordered what we later learned was Sweden Creek. We turned right and walked along the bluff edge and after a while we could hear water running and presently we came upon a waterfall. A very handsome waterfall by any standards, but it wasn't 80ft tall, maybe 35ft tall. We weren't the least bit disappointed. We climbed down the bluff, took off our clothes and stood under the falling water. It just couldn't be better than that. We could forgive the real estate agent's exaggeration and probably Mrs. Fitch wasn't really dead either and about those lessies....


As mentioned before, we put down a down payment on the land that day. It wasn't until three days later as we spent a whole lot more time looking at the land that we happened upon the 80ft waterfall.

Sweden Creek Falls.jpg
 
What an amazing amount of land you bought! You would need to be a millionaire/billionare here to buy land like it.Sounds very out in the wilds though perhaps you both wanted that at the time?
 

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