Back to the Land Stories of The First Hippies

Photo of author

(Newswire.net — March 19, 2014) TakilmaOregon — +-In a Live Google Hangout on Friday March 21, 2014 at 9 pm Leo Goodman “the Spaceman interviews the author of “Takilma Tales”  Susanne Kindi Fahrnkopf who tells the story of “The Hippie History of Takilma Oregon”.

 

At the inception of the hippie movement back in the days of the first arrivals of the counterculture to the communes of remote Southwest Oregon, young hippies yearning to join the “Back to the Land Movement” flocked to the old logging town of Takilma Oregon. It was a wilderness surrounded by some of the most rugged and montainouse country in North America. The first hippies in America set about completely transforming the place which before had been a logging and mining community. With joy and peace in their hearts they created a life for themselves quite independent from the surrounding world.

 

They built their own center for alternative eduication called “The Dome School. Dr. Jim Shames and the rest of the community got together and with much persevierence established a progressive medical clinic. Everyone chiped in labor and whatever they could to build a community building which also serves as the classrooms for the school. There is a well stocked food co-operative not to mention a blacksmith shop full of the tools any propper smith would need and a resort famous for it`s treehouses. Like in the days of old some built their own homes out of materials they found on the land where they were built. Many produced much of their own food and still do today because they never left.

 

Takilma Tales  are the  stories lovingly collected  from residents and a history of the the first members of the counterculture in America.

 

 

 

 “Takilma Tales” The Hippie History of Takilma, Oregon” 

 

The author, after traveling around the west living in hippie communes, made her home in Takilma for over 33 years. Susanne or “Kindi” as she is known by her friends came to Takilma in 1980 after her husband opened the Cave’s Cobbler Shoe Repair and Birkenstock shop in Cave Junction. They bought a small piece of property on the river and built a rough wooden cabin to raise their two children in. Since then Kindi has raised four children on her land in Takilma. She has worked as a chocolate cook and cake decorator, and an office and financial manager for an environmental organization. Currently she works as a bookkeeper for the Illinois Valley News, which led to her writing a series of articles for the newspaper on the History of the Hippies. She decided to expand on that material and write a book. “Takilma Tales” weaves together the memories of her generation; the pioneers of the Hippie Movement in Southwestern Oregon who still live and thrive there today.

Kindi, a poet, who for many years, read her poems on her radio program, the Misty Rainbow show on takilmafm.com will be back to talk to the Spaceman about how and why she wrote the book “Takilma Tales”.  She will read a few varied excerpts from the book to give the people a taste of how the book reads. Hope you’ll tune in! 

 

Leo Goodman “The Spaceman” of Hope Mountain Radio and Takilma pioneer conducts weekly interviews on Fridays at 9 pm. Please join him any time at TakilmaFM.com.

 

Join us on our live Google Hangout and hear what it is to be a Radical in America. Be a part of our conversation and become a member the counterculture if only for an evening.

 

 

Article by:  Robert Stone 

 

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