“I’M SELF-SUFFICIENT NOW!”
(NEWS FROM A NEW SELF-SUFFICIENCY
COMMUNITY)
2012
“Thank you,
Hallie” for choosing Marjorie Bard as a Hero for her work with
alleviating homelessness! Hallie is a 5th grader in the
Thurston Elementary School in Springfield, OR. Their class had a Hero
Project, and Hallie created a “book,” a slide show, and a narration
about me and my nonprofit org. We now have an early starter for advocacy
for human rights! What a wonderful project for all classrooms! (Her
teacher, Sharon Orme, initially emailed me seeking “the” Marjorie Bard for a
photo for the front of Hallie’s “book.”)
The title of
this Cyberlog tells it all: the success of a small group of RV, van, truck,
trailer, minivan, and SUV dwellers who have been living on “unused” land,
collaborating on how to create innovative permanent new self-sufficiency
communities. (If that land becomes less attractive for their activities,
there is no reason why they couldn’t eventually move to another location.) They
spent the summer growing vegetables for their own consumption and some sales to
a restaurant, obtaining donations of 2 long-haired goats, chickens and a
rooster – and 2 promised alpacas. The leftover eggs are sold, and no
McNuggets will be made from Frumpy, Sally, RedGirl, Goldie, and Shrimp.
Herman, of course, knows how important he is, and even if it isn’t dawn, he
struts around shrieking his success. Co-op muscle work produced a chicken
house and a shed for the goats. There is also a shed for tools and plans for a
“multi-purpose” building.
I have two
letters and many photos of some of their land, “doings,” and individual
business products. My flash won’t turn off, so there are white spots on my
photos of their photos!
I will begin to
relate some of the community members’ personal stories about how they became
the first self-sufficiency group that I helped to establish. They are the
successful ones, but I did the negotiating for the land use that gave them a
start and really chose the members whom I thought would work well
together. (That does not mean that other similar community members will
be chosen by me; I just began the project with trust in those I came to know
from past experience with them. They live in RVs, trucks, a converted
van, minivan, SUVs, and one man has a trailer that was donated a few years ago
by an estate. There is a second community, and they are beginning to build
their first buildings. The third is still establishing their “residential area”
but has grown summer vegetables and has some fruit trees on the property. Two
sent DVDs with photos and explanations, but are just “readables.”
Please remember
that these personal stories are just part of usually long conversations.
The four elipses (….) means that I’ve left out information. Also,
sometimes I put the recorder in sight and ask if I can record, but sometimes I
keep it “on” inside my open purse and ask at the end if I may keep the recorded
material. If anyone says, “No,” I erase it immediately so that they can
see I did. I do record all waivers as “assigning of rights.”
Another issue is one of grammar. I have not attempted to duplicate
dialects, and I have deleted the enormous amount of aaahs, hmmms, and umms so
that the material is readable, It is also painful to have to search
through beginnings of sentences changed to another topic after a few
words. This does lead to what sounds too “perfect,” but something has to
“go.” I just try to make sense of what the person is saying by deleting
hindrances.
MELINDA’S STORY: I met her in
2001 at a flea-craft market near Ellsworth, ME. She was selling amazing
beach finds that she either embellished with artwork or are just natural life
forms that have “fossilized” and are beautiful/unusual – like her seahorses
SHELL-COVERED GLASS WITH SHELLS
INSIDE
She was
middle-aged, but she wouldn’t reveal her real age, which I believe is about
65ish now. I recorded her story (in 2003, when I last saw her) of how she
became homeless:
“…I
was working at [ ] when notice came down that there were going to
be layoffs. It was a shock since we just had had a contract that would keep us
in business for just that for at least 3 years. A government contract for
making a chip [ ]….We had other contracts too, and we all thought
we had dream jobs. Oh, not the fancy kinds, but a nice place to work with
friendly people and I was the bookkeeper for the entire company. I had
been learning the new computer stuff and was beginning to transfer from paper to
computer, so I don’t know if my job was bounced because I wasn’t an expert
yet. Most of the others were line jobs, and I never thought that I was
going to be bumped. A real shock….
“I’d
been divorced for about 8 years and the lump sum I received had shrunk my bank
account to $1500. I needed that job and the retirement funds that would
have added at least $800 a month to let me live in an apt. a few miles inland
from here. It wouldn’t have been a great retirement, but a steady income
for an apt. for maybe $400 a month and then Social Security money when I hit 65
or so. I wanted to work as long as I could, so maybe later….and all of my
friends were there since I grew up in the next county….My husband was a
drinking man and as he got older, he began to hit me for no reason that made
any sense. I never knew when it would happen again. I guess I
thought that it had to do with too much drink, but I found out that he
was sleeping around, and that surprised me since he certainly wasn’t a looker
and he was always home for dinner. His nights out were bowling with the
guys and if I went out, I would see him at the alley. I suppose it was
something he did when I went for some weekends to my sister’s place to baby-sit
for her twins. But soon his hits were worse and one night I ended up in a
hospital with a split lip and a bad cut on my arm from a fall onto broken
glass....I filed for a divorce soon and got the alimony checks. I think
our minister made him do that. He left town with some woman, and I didn’t
even want to know who she was. It didn’t make any difference to me.
He wasn’t a good man after he sent me to the hospital and I didn’t want any
counseling or anything but a divorce.
“The
alimony checks kept coming, not that they were that much, but that and my job
let me live a nice life. Until the job disappeared and I couldn’t find
another in any city that I knew. There isn’t much around here
anyway. We’re in-between some poor towns and the expensive Bar Harbor
people, and I didn’t have any confidence in moving to someplace like Bangor or
Augusta. I wasn’t used to that kind of big city. I saw their rents,
and I couldn’t afford them anyway.
“I
had always been someone who loved to roam beaches for pretty shells, and I had
a nice collection of them. I kept finding these funny-looking glasses and
jars with all of the shell barnacles around them and inside. I took one
to a church fair and sold it immediately for $10. I couldn’t believe that
anyone would pay for it since they aren’t particularly pretty, just strange looking.
So, I went back to that beach often and found more like it. I don’t know
how they got there, but I started to go to better fairs and made money on those
jars and some other barnacle things on glass. People asked me where I
found them, but I wouldn’t tell! Now, since I have to make money from the
fairs, I’m known as The Shell Glass Lady, and people ask for me. I made
up cards from old white cardboard boxes and started to give them out to show
that I was a business. I’ve never been so surprised since I was a kid
winning a spelling bee contest!
“When
I lost my job, I knew that I had to live somewhere and make money. I just
couldn’t stand the one room places that were cheaper, and I was talking to a
neighbor who suggested that I might find a minivan that I could fit out to live
in. I’d never heard of such a thing, but I watched the newspaper ads and
put up a notice on the store bulletin board, and I got some answers. I
found a good minivan and I traded my small Chevy for it since it only had 55
thousand miles on it The minivan had room inside for a chair that I could
sleep in, a makeshift potty, a big box for water jugs, and a table, garbage
bin, bag holder, clothing bag, and a plastic carton to hold things. I used my
rugs for a nice flooring. I got a camping stove and a huge wash bowl, and
I finally had the nerve to just move in and live there. I didn’t think
I’d be able to do it for long, but I kept going to fairs and got some better
fittings, and I was happy. Now I make enough from what I find on the
beaches to keep me going. I even got a business license since they are
needed in Maine. I sell sometimes in shops, too.”
Melinda belongs
to my first tiny community now and is working with a male member to build a
large “shed” with a metal roof for herself instead of living out of the
minivan. She has added a line of items to her repertoire, including
driftwood with little scenes of shell-piece figures. Her line keeps
growing, and she spends a lot of time roaming riverbanks, creekbeds, and
streams for unusual stones, driftwood, and odd finds. The minivan is now
business transportation to fairs and shops not close by. She also shares
an old station wagon with two other women that they bought at a home
sale. They pay for their own gas and share expenses for car
repairs. Melinda goes off for a couple of weeks after a storm, for that
is the best time to find beach jetsom (she says).
PAUL’S STORY: I
met Paul at an antiques show in a small city in NH in 2002. I found him
living in his RV when I was just walking in the parking lot and saw him come
out with different clothing than an hour or so before at his booth. We
talked during a lull at the show, and I recorded his story. He is now
living in the tiny community, still attending small antiques shows (his
collections of old advertising and watches), but is now making beautiful wooden
boxes (for any purpose). He spends the summertime planting most of the
root vegetables and then the others do the weeding, watering, etc. as he leaves
for his businesses. The women seem to prefer planting the vine vegetables from
seedlings and all of the herbs. They have a summer stand at a farmer’s market
for their leftovers.
“I
never expected to become homeless because I’m educated and my siblings have
careers which bring in enough money for their families. My wife left me
after we finished college to go to NY for a show business career, intending,
she said, to return if it didn’t work out. Well, it didn’t, but she asked
for a divorce so she could marry “up.” I was just fooling around with
various jobs since my Philosophy degree didn’t mean anything in the job
market….I inherited a lot of old watches from my dad, and I always had
collected old advertising just because I liked it all….I began with one tiny
antiques show and brought only the watches. Well! They all sold,
and I figured that I could make more money doing shows than in some company,
maybe publishing or even a newspaper. I kept going to the shows and then
I saw someone selling old advertising signs and he was making a boatload of
money. So, I hauled out the signs and thermometers and took only those to
a show and made money from them….And then the upfront money became higher and I
wasn’t making so much or even finding the merchandise I needed to keep up the
stock. The prices of old advertising went up so high that I couldn’t
compete at auctions….It became a problem to pay for rent on my house, and I
suddenly found myself owning a trailer that a church member donated to me in
his will. It seemed like Providence was taking care of me, and I just
moved my belongings into the trailer and hitched it to my SUV. I’ve been
traveling through 4 or 5 states since then, selling whatever I find at auctions
and flea markets….I have always loved gardening, but never had a place to
really plant anything that I could eat and save money….I’ve spent a few years
just barely making it. I got depressed and feared that I would get
worse. I started to smoke, which was stupid since I couldn’t afford the
ciggies, but I bummed them from everyone. I would have been drinking,
too, if I could have bummed that.
“I
spent some time at a farm where I did the chores and planted some vegetables,
and felt better about myself. Here were important things that I was
doing, and with my hands….I started using pieces of wood that had good grain
and learned how to use the proper tools in the farm’s barn and sheds, and got
pretty good at making boxes….I took some of the boxes to a craft market, and
they all sold. I made money. I’ve been making boxes for sale for
any show and now people ask for particular ones for their jewelry or photos, or
whatever they need, like deeds and work papers. I invent locks for them,
too. I’ve made some that are very large and some that are tiny.
Just any kind. I can find the wood pieces at lumberyards and at junkyards
where good wood is just thrown away. I can take my trailer and fill the
back of it with furniture that has wonderful grain and then saw off what I need
and junk the rest. I’ve even made my own teak table for my trailer, and
I’m trying to find matching wood for a couple of chairs.
“I
may not be able to get a real job in a company or college, but I can make a
living using my hands and imagination.”
Paul is living
in the new community now, and is a valuable member who contributes his innate
talents for his own businesses as well as helping with planting food and
helping with building a barn for the expected donations of more animals. (A few
locals do come regularly to help with building projects.)
MERRYLEE’S
STORY: I met her in 2000 while washing blouses in an expensive hotel’s
Ladies Room. She was already there, washing out her things, and it didn’t
take long to establish a conversation and connection. She said she was 59
and was waiting for her Social Security to kick in before she could upgrade her
converted van. We kept in touch each summer when I got to Maine, and I
found her again in 2004, ready to give up and move to what she didn’t want: a
senior housing high rise in a large city in which she would be trapped into one
room with no ability to travel and sell her unusual weavings. They range from
small wall hangings to pillow covers to large room dividers and small
carpets. I suggested that she contact the new little community and see if
that might be for her. She did move in, and she loves the added ability
to grow food that is not polluted with pesticides. Her zucchinis, yellow
squash, and eggplants have become themes in her weaving patterns as well as her
favorite colors of greens and yellows/oranges.
“I
became a noviate when I was 18 after being in a Catholic school since
childhood. The church was my life for more than 10 years, but our convent
didn’t want anything to do with the outside world. I did….I used to make
small blankets for the nuns, but my designs weren’t approved by the Mother
Superior, and I felt that I had to use what God gave me as a gift….I left the
convent with bad feelings all around, but I didn’t like being kept, uh, sort of
a slave to what someone else decided…I was supposed to be obedient, but I just
couldn’t when it came to art, and the first year out of the convent was
very confusing and hard for me to take in….I tried jobs in grocery stores and
anything working behind a counter, and I was always sad. Crying became a
daily habit, and I wondered if I really did have the wrong habit. (She
smiled broadly at her pun.)
“I
took a room with a gal who worked with disabled kids, and she asked if I would
show them my weavings and macrame so that they could work with threads of wool
that were donated by a mill….That arrangement didn’t work out because I didn’t
like her constant references to religious issues, and I didn’t have any other
place to live so cheaply….I was just praying in a local church for some way to
have a place to live, and outside was a little festival held by a group of
churches raising money for their food and clothing ban, Some old hippies
had driven up, and the noise from their big old van kind of shook me out of
praying. I went to see what was happening, and fell in love with the most
outrageously decorated thing I’d ever seen. I don’t know how old it was,
but someone was a really good artist….I spent the rest of the day and evening
with the girls, talking about how they traveled around and did all kinds of
businesses out of what looked like an old school bus. I suspected they
might be gypsies, but they probably were just leftovers from the hippie days.
“I
didn’t care. What they were doing was what made them happy. I asked
if I could drive along with them and sell my artwork wherever they
stopped. My Mother Superior probably had a long distance heart attack
from a chat with her Saints….A couple of months later, I was at a police
auction looking for something I could drive on my own, and I found a nice van
that no one else wanted. It took my last dime, but I got it and started
to outfit it at town dumps..
“As
time went on, I met a widow who was getting rid of all of her things, and I got
everything for practically nothing….I got into some good shows and made a bit
of money. I use good hotels for sitting all day in a lovely lobby,
sipping coffee from a free pot in a corner, and then I wash my clothes a couple
at a time, using the hand blower to dry them. And here we are….”
GWEN’S
STORY: I met her in 2002 in a coffee shop near the MA/NH border.
She was raised in a very strict family with rules that “didn’t suit her.”
Her family wouldn’t allow her to pursue her hobby: raising bees for their honey
and then making flavored honey. She wanted an apiary, but no one wanted
bees in the backyard. When she graduated high school, she found a “mentor” who
did have an apiary, and she attended an ag Community College to learn
beekeeping practices. She is now a member of the community and is earning
money by selling her handwritten book about beekeeping from an amateur’s POV –
with photos and recipes. She won 2nd prize at a State Fair for
her dessert recipe: Cinnamon Honey Nut Cake with Maple Syrup Swirl. She
hopes to buy a proper apiary in the very near future and make herself and the
community prosper with her business. She is clearing ground away from the
“housing” area for her future business. Right now she is working with the
goats and chickens.
BILL’S STORY:
(2000): Meeting Bill was rather weird. He was lying on the grass at a
highway Rest Area, picking long, rather “thick” grasses from the ground.
When he had a handful, he got up, bent them gently, tied them in bunches, and
put them in a long Indian-style basket. And then he returned to his
position on the grass, reaching more deeply into the dirt for grasses that had
dirt balls attached. Several people watched for a while, and then moved
on. I was lazy that day and kept watching him. When he finally had
enough grasses, he took them to his small truck and put the basket
inside. He took out a half-finished small basket and proceeded to spray
dried grasses, molded into curves, to complete it. I’m not sure how he
tied it off at the end, but he started on a separate handle. He used them
by “bunch,” not one at a time. He squatted on the ground and just spent
over an hour weaving in and out. Since I couldn’t squat, I dragged a
chair next to him and asked if I could watch him more closely. He didn’t
say anything, so I just sat down. By then, his long black braid was
falling onto his shoulder, revealing more than a hint that his heritage was Native
American. It was late afternoon when he finally spoke. “You want to know
something.” I was sort of tricked into asking why he was choosing a
public area to pick grass. He just looked at me for a bit and then said,
“You’re from the government. I know this is illegal, but I own this
land.” I wasn’t going to argue with him, so I just responded that I
wasn’t from the government, but was curious why he thought he owned the Rest
Area’s land. He nodded and headed for his truck He opened a box and
showed me a much-used paper that was a copy of a land grant. A long
conversation later, I heard all about his great grandparents being thrown off
of this land area. He was certain that he still owned it. We ended
the day by having dinner at a truck stop, where a lot of people knew him.
He had been living at the truck stop and Rest Area for months. The Rest Area
stayed open until very late at night, but the truck stop never closed. I
recorded his story in 2000, but the tape is now blank. I think it sat in
the heat too long or became wet during a sudden rainstorm when I had other
tapes ruined. I saw him on my way back and gave him my card. He
called some years later and I arranged for him to join the community. He
makes different kinds of baskets now, heavier, and with patterns, and sells
them at places like Brimfield, MA and some local collectibles shows. He doesn’t
talk much, but works anywhere when asked. He prefers being alone yet
likes being part of a group which appreciates Mother Nature. I was told that
he makes a wonderful cornbread that is “high and crusty.” (The group has made a
solar oven.)
PHIL’S STORY: I
met him in early 2003 near Fort Lee in NJ. His pregnant wife was killed
on 9/11 in the first Tower. She was a stockbroker, and he a financial
advisor for a bank in NJ. When I first saw him, he was slumped over in a
chair at a meeting of a few women who were also victims of 9/11. I had
introduced two to others (in early 2002) and they formed a grief group.
They still meet to compare how they are doing, and Phil had joined in
2003. He had been more depressed than ever. One of the ladies was
“watching over him” and introduced me as the one who established the initial
group. I was reluctant to ask him for his story, but his female friend insisted
that it was good for him to keep telling his story as catharsis. He
didn’t mind the open recorder. This is what he said:
“I’ll
never forget that day. She left for work but never came home. I never
even saw my baby – a boy. I can’t even describe the horrors I felt; they
aren’t normal, from pieces of people to crumbled buildings to the smell of fear
that lasted for a month….I knew that she was gone when I heard the news.
It was her workplace….I don’t know how I got through the months
afterward. I sat a lot and just stared into space. I couldn’t
work. I didn’t feel like eating. I knew I didn’t want to stay in
our condo….I saw a newspaper article about women making a group for people who
wanted to be together, but I don’t join things. I didn’t want to talk about
what I lost. It was everything in my life….I went back to work but
couldn’t concentrate. I made mistakes. I was asked to resign. I
didn’t care….
“I
looked through our closets and tried to put her clothes in boxes to take to the
Red Cross. I just left them outside, piles of boxes with all her
stuff. I put an ad in the local newspaper and sold just about everything
in the condo. I didn’t ever want to see any of it again. But I kept
the journal she was keeping about our future plans for us – the baby – and we
two. I began to write what happened to make an ending to our plans, but
what came out was really a plan for what I would do from then on. It
became a short story and I keep it in my suitcase….I’ve been doing some
traveling to find a new place to live. I don’t want it to be anything
like what we planned on….The ladies here have saved my life. One worked
in my bank, and she took me here. She lost her husband, so she knew how I
felt. But she never got any money from the attack committee. She and
Roger never had gotten married. They were widowed and didn’t need the
piece of paper. I understood that. But the committee didn’t and there are
4 women in the group who had the same thing happen to them….So, I’ve got some
money, but what should I spend it on? There isn’t anything I want that I
can have anymore….
“You
were talking about starting new communities for homeless people. I’m
homeless; I don’t call any place a home. Is there something I can do that
will make me forget what has happened?”
I didn’t know
if I did the right thing by inviting him to join the (first) group. Would
he “bring everyone down”? I talked it over with my best friend in the
community and she said it would give him something to do and help others with
their life problems, too. So, he was invited to visit and take a
look to see if he liked the idea. He did, and he stayed. Phil
bought a nice large RV (with his compensation money) and has moved it next to a
pond where he is the financial “bookkeeper” for each person and one book for
the group expenditures. He sent a Christmas card to me last year, saying
that he finally felt useful and liked the people there. From what a
female member says, he also “likes” one very pretty woman of about 49, and they
play scrabble together a lot. I think that he will stay with the
group. He never talks about 9/11, and no one asks. He seems,
according to the letters I received, to have also taken to caring for the
animals and is awaiting the promised alpacas. He has a book about raising
them, and maybe this is a good way for him to have another family.
Well, that’s
the latest news, and I’ll keep adding as I receive more letters and
photos! (I still work daily with the undetectable homeless who email,
call, and sometimes stop by when passing near here. More about them in
the next Cyberlog.)
IF
YOU KNOW ANY TRAVELERS WHO ARE LIVING THIS KIND OF LIFESTYLE,
DO
EMAIL AND SHARE STORIES! THERE WILL BE MANY MORE STORIES OF
SURVIVING
WHILE BEING THE UNDETECTABLE HOMELESS,
