95 I'm going insane

Knock knock knock. Bang bang bang. "And the lord..." Blah blah blah. Every day. Oh every fuckin' middle of the night.

Womenfolk

No. I am not going to go into the kitchen. This was 1972. I was defiant about that at five, I'm not caving in now. It's only been a few days. I've hardly seen LBJ but in passing. I am not liking this.

Alright. Leave me alone with your ideas on what my work should be. I'll do something on my own.  "Ok. I'll sweep." I should have said "I'll fuckin' sweep" but I was too god damned polite. So I swept the dusty wooden barracks floor. The front porch. The mess hall and the office porch. Oh no. Don't you dare go near the men's barracks. Ok. Ok. Stop telling me that. Oh yeah. Don't worry, I won't go in the office either.

Sweeping around the mess hall I figured out why they had to get up at three every day. It's hard to believe. Before almost every god damned thing they did they stopped and prayed about it. Let's say a pray before washing the dishes. Alright, I'm really a believer in letting people go on with what they prefer, with that ever present phrase "just so long as they're not hurting anybody." But I wondered how these women, and men, got to the point where they thought they had to be so submissive?

More of that later. So I swept the floor by my lonesome every day. Good. I'm playing with my cat now. I finally got to see LBJ as he was heading out after one of the dumb meetings. I wasn't hep on leaving him there and hitchhiking my way out of there by myself. "I hate this place. I want to leave." Whew. The city boy was hit with the country. Well, I was too but not with these people. "I just want to go." "Aww, not yet. I get up on that hill when the sun rises and look out over the fields. It's beautiful." Well nice for you but I'm here watching a bunch of brainwashed chicks praying over dirty oatmeal bowls.

Aaaaarrrrgggghhhhhhhh!

Ok. I'm getting all judgy here, but I was living there. I am sure these people had huge holes in their psyche and were just finding anything to patch it up. Whatever. Later on that.

Ok. He's been through a lot. I'll wait a little longer. While I'm here maybe I can sew up my patched bell bottoms. They were beautiful. All kinds of colorful material pieces. They were hardly pants anymore, just patches.

Probably 3 times as many patches as Alvin Lee & Ron Draper's jeans

I asked one of the few men that was in the "farm" during the day if I could get a needle and thread. "No. We'll give them to the sewing group to work on." "I can sew them myself." "Everything must be done as a community here." "That's ok. I can do it." He just kind of took them from me. I should have kept them. Jesus Christ.

94 The witching hour

3 am. Loud bang on the door. Someone starts reciting something loud. What is that? Oh. It's some kind of bible verse. I was never that familiar with verses. Our nuns were progressive Dominicans. They'd read a few sentences, but we never memorized anything from the bible. We talked about the meaning of love. It was always the priests that sucked.

I was groggy. Probably still had weed inhalation from Washington. "Why are they doing that?" "Time to get up." "No thanks. I'm going to sleep." "We have to get up to make breakfast." "In the middle of the night?" "There's a lot of people. The men go to the fields at dawn."

Just the menfolk

They left me alone. I got up when the sun started coming up and the clang clang clanking started. So the men got to sleep later and wander over to the mess hall at dawn. I went in there and most of the women ate after the men because they were dishing it out. 😑 Some women were sitting at a separate table. I sat down with them. They did other female stuff like sew and clean. "No. Don't know how to sew."

No coffee. Some kind of molasses and chicory drink. Alright. A bowl with a big plop of oatmeal. No milk, no sugar... nothing. Plain. Good. I'm into simple stuff. But why get up at 3 am to make a plop of oatmeal? Everyday it was the same. 

The menfolk went up the hill to the fields. The kitchen women were cleaning up. The sewing women went off to their room. I went and got Zac and brought him outside. There was a clearing between the women's cabin, the mess hall, the sewing room and a couple of small cabins. We played in the dirt. Not a typical hippie commune, I didn't see any dogs running loose. I don't think anyone had any pets. It had dawned on me pretty quick that this place was really strict and was mostly into reciting bible passages. I didn't worry too much yet.

The field work stopped mid afternoon. Damn, I was hungry. It was a long time since that plop of oatmeal. If I was picking berries I'd be shoving a few in my mouth. The bell rang again. I filed in there with the other women. Walked the line. Oh. Lentil sandwich. Delicious. This time as we finished our delicious lentil sandwich... I don't remember what we had to drink, water or lemonade... people, I mean men, became joyous. It always started with one particular fella getting up and praising god. People would join in with big smiles. I just sat there. 

After some jubilation we went outside to listen to more passages. I sat there and looked around, enjoying the experience. Whew. This is something. Look at all these people digging words. I noticed there were a few couples allowed to sit next to one another. They were officially married. But the sexes were separate and I definitely wondered why the women stood for it. I wanted to hear. I was so open to different lifestyles. But they pretty much uttered quotes. Ok. Do what you want, but I'd like to hang out with a couple of guys. I don't like cooking very much and forget the sewing.

It went on for quite a while. But I thought we'd have dinner too? "No dinner?" It probably would have been lentils again anyway. "Sometimes we get a snack."

Well, luckily I still had some peanut butter and Zac still had food. We hit the sack early and I started to completely ignore the bible verses. It was non-stop.

It started all over gain. The banging on the door and the loud voice reading. Goodnight. I pulled the pillow over my head.

93 Enjoy your free buffet

Maybe I've mentioned that I had already looked into many different spiritual paths. A lot of people were searching. There were Jesus Freak groups in my hometown. Some looked in churches where they spoke in tongues. I went to one of those with a boy down the block once. I didn't join in on that one. There were lots of young Jews for Jesus in my hometown too. You didn't have to believe the son of God stuff. Just find reverence in his words of love and peace. 

I'm telling you this so you understand why I wasn't all weirded out when we got into the back of that truck. It was kind of fun. People seemed to be as happy as could be. Most were standing in the truck and holding onto the railing of the bed. Singing as we drove.

A tall fella asked if we wanted a sandwich. "Sure, thank you." We each got one. We unwrapped the wax paper. I love wax paper, that's what my sandwiches came in as a kid. You just have to know how to fold it. Opened it up. Hmmm. It was good whole wheat bread. The thick, heavy and healthy kind that doesn't come in a plastic bag at the store. But what was on it? "Lentils." "Lentils?" Beans weren't real big in suburban homes at that time, yeah pork and beans but not lentils or garbanzos. Even at the health food restaurants in Berkeley I didn't have anything with lentils in it, even though they probably had them. Ok. I'll try it. I liked to try things. But all this sandwich had was plain lentils with yellow mustard on whole wheat. Not spiced up either. Plain. I'm not complaining. They shared their food with us. Thank you. It was just the beginning of this chapter but it was really a clue as to what to expect.

We didn't have anything to drink but they gave us a square of chocolate. The ride was refreshing out in the open air. I didn't see too much of the surrounding views because it was dark now and I just sat and looked up at the stars. The people spoke to one another but mostly sang. Looked like there were more guys than gals in the truck.

Looked a lot like this.

I asked where we were going. The one fella that did most of the talking said a farm near Forest Grove, Oregon. Ugh. Headed south but this might be cool for a while. Took less than two hours, so it wasn't a completely quick trip but we had food and a place to stay. 

When we got there we all piled out of the truck. Where were we going to sleep? "Well, the women's cabin is near the mess hall. The men sleep up the hill a bit." Huh, what? What? "Isn't there a place where we can sleep together?" "No. You need to go over to the women's cabin. All the women are there."

Weird. Ok. I'll try it. Off I went. All the gals were already in their bunks except for the couple that were traveling in the truck. It was a plain room with old wooden bunk beds. All that was left was a top bunk for me. I still had Zac and my bag of dry cat food. Up we jumped and thought "Ok. We'll get a nice sleep and check everything out in the morning."