The Seventies

The 70s in the Ozarks saw the “Back to the land movement”. Sexual freedom, bluegrass music communes coops and experimental lifestyles
It also brought more chainsaws and Toyota pickups scarring roads up the side of a mountain to build a traditional log cabin. People learned how to grow weed, play the fiddle and banjo whilst picking off ticks on a sweltering hot summer night while tree frogs and whippoorwills sing to the full moon.          
We were as they say, “living the dream”.          
         
The Locals, having lived on the land forever thought us long haired hippies pretty strange, but we had a lot to learn and a lot in common with those folks so we got to know, accept and like each other.          
Ed Stilley’s family farmed the mountainous terrain with a team of mules and made molasses. The Birchfields had two Jersey cows providing milk and butter. And Pappy knew how to scour the land for food. There was poke sallet, watercress, tomatoes, fish in the lake and road kill early in the morning on the menu. A sack of rice and a sack of beans from the food coop in town and the table was set.       
         
Pappy had a friend, Tom Haxby, a retired studio potter living in the hills. Tom and I became friends and he agreed to set up his pottery shop one more time just for me. These two older men became my friends and mentors and so created my apprenticeship.    
On weekends people would come from everywhere to play music with Tom. We ate drank laughed smoked and joked and played music till the wee hours in the morning.        
       
OK well someone had to do it and we were the chosen ones at that moment in time. Life was good in the seventies.