Eastwind

I want to backtrack a bit and give some impressions about Eastwind.  The people at Terra Nova in Columbia MO, are ex-Eastwinders.   They left because they wanted to start their own housing on property that Eastwind had acquired.  Thus the name Terra Nova.  But the Eastwind community couldn’t come to consensus on that, so these people moved away.  They told me that Eastwind looks like paradise, but look closely.

I wasn’t sure of what to think, but I tried not to let that color my view of the community.  I got to Eastwind early afternoon.  Sabrina showed me around.  The first place she showed me was ‘Fillmore’.  This is the little room named after Millard Fillmore, who was the last president to have an outhouse.  There was the five gallon bucket, with a toilet seat (much appreciated) and the bucket of sawdust to put on top of the doings.  Sabrina had not heard of SPERMFLOW, which is the Society for the Preservation and Enhancement of the Recognition of Millard Fillmore, Last Of the Whigs.  Of course, not many people have.

You aren’t supposed to pee in the poop bucket.  The ammonia in the urine makes the stench even worse.  But Sabrina said that old ladies, like us, have dispensation to use the bucket or pee in the shower.  Peeing in the woods can be a challenge for those of us whose knees don’t work as they should.

The other room she showed me was where I would stay.  But she wasn’t sure if someone was staying there, since there was a back pack in the room.  As she showed me around, she asked different people if ‘Sunburst’ was vacant and whose back pack that might be.  No one knew.   I would just have to find out later.

There is a long walk from the office area to RB, which is the kitchen/hangout area that they call Rock Bottom.  Along the path, I met a young man and introduced myself.  I asked him, “What brought you here?” 

He answered, “My mother.”  So, he grew up here. 

“Do you think you will stay?” 

“Oh, yeah.”

I mentioned that I heard there was a lot of turnover in the population, but that things seemed to work.

“Thing work.  Not well, sometimes, but I don’t want to go into that.”

I understood.   You don’t share your dirty laundry with strangers.  Just like any family.

I heard people talking about work assignments.  I think that people sign up for what they want to do, but I’m not absolutely sure how it works.  I do know that they have a list of HTA duties.  Sabrina defined it as “Hard to Assign”.  Stuff like cleaning the Fillmore. 

RB is one of the hangout spots for folks to talk.  It has a fan overhead, so is one of the cooler places to sit.  I mostly just listened, although some folks were interested in who I was and where I came from.   That’s where the guy who had been there since the 80’s asked me to summarize Tocqueville in one sentence.   The others were all under 30, I think.  At least they all looked very young to me.  Even Sabrina seemed young to me, even though she claimed to be 50.

Some say you are only as young as you feel.  Some say you are as young as who you feel.  Well, I didn’t do that, but I did feel like I shed some years there.  That evening a resident put up a notice for a karaoke party to celebrate his return.  I don’t know where he went, but I’m glad he came back, because I do love a karaoke party.  Sabrina brought some of her homemade mead and filled up our mason jars.  It was a strange feeling of being old and young.  There were about 8 or 10 of us, with some coming and going.  To do what, I’m not sure. 

A lot of songs were from the 80s.  “I Love Rock ‘n Roll”, “Walking on Sunshine” It was odd, since I thought of them as new songs and everyone else there thought of them as oldies.  Sigh… 

However, I felt vindicated when “Born to Be Wild” came on and they handed me the microphone.  No one else knew the lyrics.  Woo Hoo!!  Return to the 60s!!

I’ll deal with my knees tomorrow.