Hippie Tales of the Northwest Woods

The author of this book dropped out in 1970 at age thirty three, after an early life in Oroville, California, then worked for IBM and the State of California. His rural background and enquiring mind brought him to adopt the spirituality of the East and the consciousness of the Tao and Zen. Strongly influenced by the Beat Generation and later the early hippies he embraced the movement, seeing it as the confirmation of Gary Snyder's prediction (under the pseudonym Japhy Rider in 'The Dharma Bums' by Jack Kerouac) of a 'Rucksack Revolution'. This consciousness and his relatively old age at thirty three, are the philosophical perspectives from which this book emerged.

 

It was originally intended to be reminiscences of incidents that occurred during the fifteen years spent living with the hippies, without income or transportation in semi-lawless environments of southern Oregon and British Columbia, during the magic period of 1970 to 1985. Rural hippiedom during this period has not been much chronicled . The stories mostly take place in Takilma Oregon for the first five years then ten years on LasquetiIsland in British Columbia. The stories were written down over a period of almost twenty years. Whenever time or inspiration took over. Since law enforcement hadn't penetrated too well in Takilma, most of the residents had to pretty much take care of themselves while being harassed by poverty, police, vigilantes and local businesses that wouldn't sell to hippies. They got their fun where they found it and find it they did. After several years the author began to see the Dharma begin to leave the community and he decided to find greener pastures where he could be more self-sufficient, and immigrated (illegally) to Canada and lived hand to mouth for ten years. He lived on an island with no car ferry, and the foot ferry only ran five days a week. There was no electricity on the island, creating a very wonderful society. The author would have been quite happy to just chronicle the age with minimal personal participation but was shamed into writing a backs story to make it semi-autobiographical.

 

The epilog chronicles his life after returning to 'civilization'.