Patty Sherman: Wed, 20 Mar 2002

Subject: new member
just signed up for this most posts thingy; actually just got ON LINE, so
still figuring out this whole new cyber space world.  my old man edy (aka
crazy eddie) and i met at wheelers ranch in november of (i think) '71. we
met at a little dinner party at the cabin of josh and donna, near the back
of the land.  they had invited folks over to have a potluck dinner and help
move a wood cookstove from one cabin to another as i recall.  edy brought a
BIG chunk of cheese to contribute to the meal, and since the only other
thing in sight was some soakin soy beans, his contribution was significant.
and i really liked his looks.  the next day i made my move - sought out the
little A frame where he lived, and found out from a neighbor, probably
william/bill s.  that he had just taken off to go see his mom in texas for
thanksgiving.  so i had to wait around for him to show back up - which he
did, of course- and with a car!! a '55 chevy!  unfortunately, after a couple
of weeks of courting me in that car, someone borrowed the radiator while it
was parked at the front gate, and we left it smokin in occidental and went
back to hitch hiking.  we actually drove it from wheelers to occidental with
no radiator!!! (one of our fonder memories) we spent a couple of months on
the russian river in a resort one-room cabin after feeling we needed to
leave wheelers because we had a  puppy and were told that was not ok.  then
we bought a $75 pick up truck and moved north to siskiyou county where a
friend had a mining claim he said we could live on.  it was a 3 mile hike up
a mountain to the A frame cabin on this mining claim, but that was nothing
after wheelers, and we lived there happily for several months, and conceived
our son there (who is now 29 and an English teacher at North Eugene High
School).  Before winter set in, we found another mining claim with a log
cabin built in 1910 sittin empty,(and it had a road up to it- so you could
drive to it!!!) so we convinced the owner to let us move in and winter
there, and our beautiful son jesse zak was born in feb. '73.  we ended up
buying the mining claim, and living there 15 years. when another puppie
chewed up my diaphram, we decided to "go for it," and we conceived our
daughter cara, born in 1981 and graduating now from berkeley in may with
honors. we moved off of the mining claim around 1988 and bought 10 acres
here in siskiyou county, very near the  oregon border. (north of mt. shasta)
it has been 31 years this fall (or is it last fall?)that we met up at
wheelers, and i am happy to
say that since our land is paid for, we're basically back to the "free land"
concept. i've studied the website and photos our friend char has made of
wheelers and recognize many faces, but realize i didn't really mingle much
at wheelers for some reason, so although many faces seem familiar, i don't
remember being really close to anyone; i think i used that time to be alone
a lot.  i do wonder if anyone is in contact with a mellow dude named critter
dave - i think he was from the midwest like i am, and we kind of connected.
i will say that the feel of wheelers, ~the smell of woodsmoke, learning to
cook/bake in a woodstove, living without electricity, hauling water, etc,
was a big influence on our lives, and our children's - who lived without
electricity growing up, and benefited. (NO t.v.) So here i am on a computer,
trying to express all of this to those of you who may relate...obviously we
have electricity now, and bills, and the whole shabang.  what do you
think/????
 
 
 

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