Issue 1 - January/February 1970

Four ChangesThis is the first draft of a work in progress by Gary Snyder. It arose as a by-product of the Wild West debacle,from the warmth of numerous meetings of ecological activists working up to and out of a display at Wild West. It'sbeen arising in Gary Snyder for years. On August 17 he submitted this draft for scrutiny by a group includingCliff and Mary Humphrey, Keith Lampe, Sterling Bunnell, Stephanie Mills, Joan McIntyre, Edward Bear, andothers whose names I didn't get. Gary ran the scrutiny session with a light perceptive hand. The results you willsee in the final version soon to be printed throughout the underground press.

I. POPULATION

The Condition

Position: Man is but a part of the fabric of life - dependent of course on the whole fabric for his very existence,and also responsible to it. As the most highly developed tool-using animal, he must recognize that the evolutionarydestinies (unknown) of other life forms are to be respected, and act as gentle steward of the earth's community ofbeing.

Situation: There are now too many human beings; and the problem is growing rapidly worse. It is potentiallydisastrous not only for the human race but for most other life forms.

Goal: The goal would be half of the present world population or less.

Action

Social/political: Legalize abortion; encourage vasectomy and sterilization (provided free by clinics), removeincome tax deductions for more than two children above a specified income level, and scale it so that lowerincome families are forced to be careful too. Take a vigorous stand against the Catholic church and any otherinstitutions that exercise an irresponsible political force in regard to this question; work ceaselessly to make allpolitical problems be seen and solved in the light of this prime problem.

The community: Explore other social structures and marriage forms, such as group marriage and polyandrousmarriage which provide family life but which produce less children. Share the pleasure of raising children widely,so that all need not directly reproduce to enter into this basic human experience. Let no two persons produce morethan two children. Adopt children. Let reverence for life and for the feminine mean also a reverence for otherspecies, most of which are threatened.

Our own heads: "I am a child of all life, and all living beings are my brothers and sisters, my children andgrandchildren, & there is a child within me waiting to be brought to birth, the baby of a new and wiser self." Love,love-making, a male and female together, seen as the vehicle of mutual realization, where the creation of newselves and new worlds of beings is as important as making babies.

II. POLLUTION

The Condition

Position: Pollution is an excess production of substances which cannot be absorbed or transmuted rapidly enoughto offset their introduction, thus causing changes the cycle is not prepared for. All organisms have wastes and by-

products, and these are indeed part of the total ecosystem; energy is passedalong the line and refracted in variousways, "the rainbow body." This is cycling, not pollution.

Situation: The human race in the last century has allowed its production and dissemination of wastes, by-productsand various chemical substances to become excessive. Pollution is directly harming the ecosystem. It is alsoruining the environment in very direct ways for humanity itself.

Goal: Clean air, clean clear-running rivers, the Presence of Pelicans and Ospreys in our lives, unrnuddied languageand good dreams.

Action

Social/political: Waste and by-product quantity must be reduced. Strong legislation controlling DDT and relatedpesticides with no fooling around. Direct exposure of the collusion of certain scientists, the pesticide industry, andagri-business in trying to block this legislation. Strong penalties for air and water pollution by industry. "Pollutionis somebody's profit." Phase out petroleum fuels, explore all possible energy sources of a non-polluting nature:solar power. Tell the truth regarding atomic waste disposal and the threat it represents. Stop all germ and chemicalwarfare research and experimentation. Laws and sanctions encouraging the use of bio-degradable substances; andsanctions against wasteful use of paper, etc. which adds to the solid waste of cities. Determine methods of re-cycling solid urban waste; and re-cycling as a basic principle should inform all waste disposal thinking.

The community: DDT and such: don't use them. Air pollution: use less cars. Cars pollute the air, and one or twopeople riding lonely in a huge car is an insult to intelligince and the Muse. Share rides, pick up hitchhikers,legalize hitch-hiking and build hitch-hiker waiting stations along the highways. Also - as a step toward the newworld - walk more: look for the best routes through beautiful countryside for long-distance walking trips: SanFrancisco to Los Angeles down the Coast Range, for one. Learn how to use your own manure as fertilizer if you'rein the country as the far East has done for centuries. There's a way, and it's safe. †

Solid waste: boycott wasteful Sunday papers which use up trees, and add vastly to the solid waste of the city.Refuse paper bags at the store. Organize park and street cleanup festivals. Don't waste- (a monk and an old masterwere once walking in the mountains. They noticed a little hut upstream. The monk said, "A wise hermit must livethere - "The master said, "That's no wise hermit, you see that lettuce leaf floating down the stream, he's a Waster."Just then an old man came running down the hill with his beard flying and caught the floating lettuce leaf.)

Our own heads: Part of the trouble with talking about DDT is that the use of it is not just a practical device, it'salmost an establishment religion. There is something in western culture that wants to totally wipe out creepy-crawlies and feels repugnance for toadstools and snakes. This is fear of one's own deepest natural inner-selfwilderness areas, and the answer is, relax. Relax around bugs, snakes arid your own hairy dreams. Again farmerscan and should share their crop with a certain percentage of buglife as "paying their dues" - Thoreau says "Howthen can the harvest fail? Shall I not rejoice also at the abundance of the weeds whose seeds are the granary of thebirds? It matters little comparatively whether the fields fill the farmer's barns. The true husbandman will ceasefrom anxiety as the squirrels manifest no concern whether the woods will bear chestnuts this year or not, andfinish his labor with every day, relinquish all claim to the produce of his fields, and sacrificing in his mind notonly his first but his last fruits also." In the realm of thought, inner experience, consciousness, as in the outwardrealm of interconnection, there is a difference between a balanced cycle, and the excess which cannot be handled.When the balance is right, the mind recycles from highest illumination to the stillness of dreamless sleep; thealchemical "transmutation."

III. CONSUMPTION

The Condition

Position: Consumption is also a matter of balances and the problems that arise with excess. "The Wanton Boy thatkills a fly shall feel the Spider's enmity."

Situation: Man's use of dozens of "resources" and his total dependence on certain of them (like dependence onfossil fuels) exhausts certain presences in the biosphere with incalculable results on the other members of thenetwork: while rendering mankind vulnerable to the consequences of the loss of major supplies. In fragile areasanimals and birds have all but been extincted in pursuit of furs or feathers or fertilizer or oil: the soil is "used up"and all of this to feed outrageous excesses like war, or a phoney consumption-oriented economy.

Goal: Balance, harmony, humility, the true affluence of being a good member of the community of livingcreatures.

Action

Social/political: Seek out new self-renewable energy sources. And: it must be taught ceaselessly til it sticks that acontinually "growing economy" is no longer healthy, but a Cancer. Restructure business corporations so that theycan function without presenting a contunually growing profit; stress responsible, controlled production. Soil banks,open space, phase out logging on federal land. Protection for all predators and varmints. Absolutely no furtherdevelopment of roads and concessions in National Parks and Wilderness areas; build auto campgrounds in theleast desirable areas. Develop consumer-boycott and consumer research power in the areas of irresponsible anddishonest products. Thus: expose the myths of capitalism and the cold war. & Communist myths of growth andproduction by the by.

The community: Sharing and conserving; boycotting the wasteful. The inherent aptness of communal life, wherelarge tools are owned jointly, and personal objects are private. If enough people refused to buy a new car for oneyear, it would permanently alter the American economy. Re-cycling clothes and equipment. (Goodwill andSalvation Army are useful: they should perhaps be confronted and straightened out on their pricing and wagepolicies.) Support local handicrafts in shoes and clothes. Learn to break the habit of too many unnecessarypossessions - a monkey on everybody's back - but avoid a self-abnegating anti-joyous self righteousness.Simplicity is light, carefree, neat, and loving-not a self-punishing ascetic trip. (The greatest Chinese poet, Tu Fu,said, "The ideas of a poet should be noble and simple.")

Don't shoot a deer if you don't know how to use all the meat and preserve that which you can't eat; to tan the hideand use the leather - to use it all, with gratitude, right down to the sinew and hooves. Simplicity and mindfulnessin diet is perhaps the starting point for most people.

Our own heads: It is hard to even begin to gauge how much a complication of possessions, the habits of"ownership" and "use" stand between us and a true, clear, liberated way of seeing the world. To live lightly on theearth, to be aware and alive, to be free of egotism, starts with concrete acts, but the inner principle is the insightthat we are interdependent energy fields of great potential wisdom and compassion - expressed in each person as asuperb mind, a beautiful and complex body, and the almost magical capacity of language. To these potentials andcapacities, "owning things" can add nothing of authenticity. "Clad in the sky with the earth for a pillow."

IV. TRANSFORMATION

The Condition

Position: The unbalance in man's relation to nature & his selves is partly an inherent existential question withbiological and ultimate roots - birth, suffering, old age and death; and partly a cultural problem. In approachingquestions of Being and Emptiness we have the wisdom traditions and some emerging sciences to help us. Intransforming culture, we must augment the philosophical perceptions with a deep study of history andanthropology.

Situation: Our civilized - and probably most other - societies of the last three millenia have functioned wellenough up to this point. But they no longer have survival value. They are now anti-survival.

Goal: Nothing short of total transformation will work. What we envision is a planet on which the humanpopulation lives harmoniously and dynamically by employing a sophisticated and unobtrusive technology in aworld environment which is "left natural." Specific points in this vision:

A healthy and spacious population of all races, much less in number than today.

Cultural and individual pluralism, unified by a type of world tribal council. Division by natural and cultural areasrather than arbitrary political boundaries.

A Technology of communication and quiet transportation: land use being sensitive to the properties of each region.Allowing, thus, the bison to return to much of the high plains. Careful but intensive agriculture in the great alluvialvalleys. Computer technicians who run the plant part of the year and walk along with the Elk in their migrationduring the rest

A basic cultural outlook and social organization that inhibits power and property-seeking while encouragingexploration and challenge in things like healing songs, flute-playing, meditation, mathmatics, mountaineering, andall the other possible ways of authentic being-in-the-world. Women totally free and equal. A new kind of family -responsible, but more festive and relaxed - is implicit.

Action

Social/political: It seems evident that there are throughout the world certain social and religious forces that haveworked throughout history toward an ecologically/culturally enlightened state of affairs. Let these be encouraged:Alchemists, hip Marxists, Anarchists, Third Worlds, Teilhard and cryptoGnostic Catholics, Druids, Witches,Taoists, Biologists, Yogins, Quakers, Tibetans, Zens, Shamans, Sufis, Amish and Mennonite, American Indians,Polynesians - all primitive cultures, all communal and ashram movements of all persuasions, &c. The list is long.Since it doesn't seem practical or even desirable th think that direct bloody force will achieve anything, it would bebest to consider this a continuing "revolution of consciousness" which will be won not by guns but by siezing thekey images, myths, archetypes, eschatologies, and ecstasies so that life won't seem worth living unless one's on thetransforming energy's side.

Our community: Without falling into a facile McLuhanism, we can hope to use the media. New schools, newclasses, - walking in the woods and cleaning up the streets. Let no one be ignorant of the facts of biology andrelated disciplines; bring up our children with natural things and a taste of the wild. Let some groups establishthemselves in backwater rural areas and flourish, let others maintain themselves in the urban centers, and let themwork together, a two-way flow of experience, people, money and home-grown vegetables. Investigating newlifestyles is our work - as is the exploration of Ways to change one's innerworld - with the known dangers ofcrashing that go with such. We should work where it helps with political people, hoping to enlarge their vision.And with people of all varieties of politics or ideologies at whatever point they become aware of environmentalurgencies. Master the archaic and the primitive, as models of basic nature-related cultural styles, as well as themost imaginative future possibilities of science and technology, and build a community where these two vectorscross.

Our own heads: Is where it starts. Knowing that we are the first human beings in history to have all of man'sculture and previous experience available to our study, and being free enough of the weight of traditional culturesto seek out a larger identity. - The first members of a civilized society since the early Neolithic to wish to lookclearly into the eyes of the wild and see our selfhood, our family, there. We have these advantages to set off theobvious disadvantages of being as screwed up as we are - which gives us a fair chance to penetrate into some ofthe riddles of ourselves & the universe, and to go beyond the idea of "man's survival" or "the survival of thebiosphere" and to draw our strength from the realization that at the heart of things is some kind of serene andecstatic process which is actually beyond qualities and beyond birth-and-death. "No need to survive!" "In the firesthat destroy the universe at the end of the kalpa, what survives?" - 'The iron tree blooms in the void!"

Knowing that nothing need be done, is where we begin to move from.

13. VIII. 40069

fromWHOLE EARTH CATALOG SUPPLEMENTSeptember, 1969

† Usually aging in concrete vats or cisterns sunk in the earth adjoining the field is the only processing. After @ 2months the material is a consistent fluid which can be ladled or pumped into the soil between rows of plants.Problems of worms and disease in Japan are negligible.

Issue 1 - January/February 1970

HOW TO MAKE IT YOUR WAYSo the air is full of crud and the water tastes funny and the nine-to-five is a drag. You're tired of the subway, dogcrap in the streets, bumper-to-bumper traffic and plastic TV dinners. Maybe the communes - with all that fresh air,sunshine, love and home-baked bread - are really into something.

But how the hell can you do it? T. Leary's "Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out" is a noble sentiment . . . but it doesn't laydown much of a blueprint. Is it actually possible to tell the boss to shove it, square your shoulders, and step out afree man . . . without starving to death?

Sure. It's easy. The global electronic village is Now! Just like McLuhan and Theobald and Bucky Fuller keeptelling us. Nobody has to live second hand anymore. The Material Scarcity world is dead. Long live Free Energy.Time and Space are now plastic and life is exactly what you make it.

Stated most simply, there are two ways of living: (1) Play the "game." Go for the money first and - assuming youget it - buy the kind of life you want. Or, (2) kick out the jams, make your scene right in front, and let the breadtake care of itself.

If you've got some money, fine. Your initial choice can be just that much wider. If you don't have bread, don'tsweat it. That doesn't cramp your style at all. Besides, you can easily get paid for doing exactly what you want todo anyway. It doesn't matter if Good Times to you is a back-to-the-land thing or whether you have eyes for, say,touring with a name rock group. Either one is cool and either one is possible. I've done both and other numbers inbetween. You can, too.

FOR EXAMPLE, this back to nature bit is very big right now and getting bigger. Let's say you want to get in onthe action, but you have little or no money. Well, no matter what "they" say, it can be done. The land is not alltaken.

Stretched across the upper half of this continent, as Bradford Angier notes in his book, How To Go Live In TheWoods On $10 A Week, are vast areas of unspoiled and practically uninhabited wilderness. It's country "wheremeat is still free for the hunting, fish for the catching, fruit and vegetables for the picking, fuel for the cutting, anda home for the fun of building." Angier speaks from the firsthand experience of homesteading in BritishColumbia, Canada's western - most province.

What about that empty land in Alaska and Canada? Is it really free? Well . . . technically, no. You're generallysupposed to file a homestead or homesite or somesuch claim, pay a fee averaging between one and five dollars anacre, and enter your name on the tax rolls.

But that's a drag, so why not do what settlers have always done on the frontier: squat. Some homesteaders I talkedto in British Columbia recommend it. Just consult an area map so you won't blunder onto land that's already taken,strike off into the bush, pick a spot, and build your cabin. If anybody ever wants to purchase or lease your ground,you - as a squatter - will be given first chance at legal title anyway. So why bother with the red tape now?

By the way, neither Canada nor Alaska is all ice and snow. Less snow falls on the panhandle of Alaska thanannually descends on Chicago. Far north gardens are fantastic with washtub-size cabbages, and some wild fruitgrows so thickly, it's considered a nuisance. The Queen Charlotte Islands off British Columbia's coast combine anexceedingly mild climate and a one-deer-a-day-per-person legal limit if your thing is living off the land.

If you want out . . . but not that far, check into the hundreds upon thousands of acres of government land scatteredthroughout our own western states. You can, in effect, call a chunk of it your own if you have a "legitimate"reason. Roughly translated, that means you intend to exploit the land in some way.

Okay. Play their silly game. In Arizona, for instance, I've rambled over mile after mind-boggling mile where youcan stake a recognized mining claim by registering with a local office and digging a hole four by six by ten feetdeep. Naturally, once you've proved your claim in this manner, you'll want to move right onto the property to keepan eye on it. To hold the ground, you're required to put in a hundred dollars worth of improvements plus a fewdollars tax each year.

Again, if that's too much trouble, just go out in the hills and squat. Thousands of others have.

If you've got your heart set on legal title to fertile land that is close to the action of a thriving city . . . that'spossible, too. It won't be completely free, but you can sometimes pick up an abandoned farm for back taxes. Itrequires some sleuthing and finagling, however, and the easiest way is just to buy a little family farm that an oldcouple wants to sell. The Strout and United Farm Agency catalogues - regularly advertised in the classifiedsections of many magazines and newspapers - always list a number of such farms in all parts of the country. Somecan be purchased for as little as four-hundred dollars down. Newly organized communes and hip young coupleswith eyes for a rural homestead are snapping them up at an increasing rate.

Once you've got your land, what about shelter? It's up to you: let your imagination soar!

Leary and hundreds of others are into the aborigine thing these days and live in plains Indian tepees. It makessense because, unlike white man's tents, a properly constructed tepee is warm in winter, cool in summer, and ableto withstand windstorms that will flatten a frame house. Reginald and Gladys Laubin's The Indian Tipi will steepyou in the rich tradition of this practical shelter and teach you how to build one.

If you prefer something more substantial, you can construct a thoroughly modern ranch house dirt cheap by usingjust that - dirt. Even a definitive instruction manual, Handbook For Building Homes Of Earth, is free from HUD,Division of International Affairs, Washington, D.C. The basic structure will cost you little more than your labor and,possibly, a few dollars for stabilizing agents. It beats the hell out of a thirty-year mortgage or monthly rents of one-hundred-and-twenty-plus.

Then again, if you're squatting, chances are there's an abandoned trapper's or miner's cabin nearby that you can move into or salvage for a new building.If you put your money down on a farm, you probably picked one with a habitable home and serviceable barns.

Or, as a number of drop-outs are proving, you can live in a structure as modern as tomorrow on a very thin shoestring: by spinning free-span domesfrom tops hacked out of discarded auto bodies, some of the new pioneers in the southwest have combined the best and worst of modern technology intoa sheltering mutation.

Since the car tops can be obtained free or for as little as twenty-five cents each, a thirty-foot dome can be thrown up for less than fifty dollars.

With land and shelter under your belt, you'll probably want to turn your attention to food which is several notches above that polyethylene stuff sold atthe supermarket. Fresh air, sunshine, and a garden where "fruits and vegetables are free for the picking" go together as naturally as ham and eggs fromyour own homestead. A subscription to Organic Gardening will give you that proverbial green thumb within a year . . . and teach you about the chickens,pigs, and cows, too.

If grow-your-own intimidates you, you can still live high harvesting your share of the tons of free-for-the-gathering food that every square mile of ruralAmerica offers. The best guides to this bounty are Euell Gibbons' three books, Stalking The Wild Asparagus, Stalking The Blue-Eyed Scallop, andStalking The Healthful Herbs.

Gibbons regularly eats everything he writes about, and he covers it all from robbing bee trees to picking berries to gathering greens to brewingdandelion wine to making rose petal jam.

But then, the nature bit may leave you cold. Let's say you love your apartment in town, you dote upon restaurant chow, and all you really need to makeyour life complete is travel, new scenes, and far-away places. Fine. You can do that without money, too . . . and go first class all the way. The autodrive-away offers one increasingly popular method.

If you're twenty-one and have a valid driver's license, you can get from almost any large city to almost any point in the U.S.A. at almost any time bydriving a car for someone. AAACON, Auto Driveaway. and other services handle all the dirty details and advertise in the "Personal" and"Transportation" classified sections of the larger newspapers.

You may have to juggle your departure date a little to get a car that's "full gas paid," but when you do - if you sleep in the car or camp out along the way- the trip will cost you only your food. It's even possible to get enough expense money to cover everything and leave some cash in your pocket. Andremember: You'll have the private use of a generally expensive personal car. Load it with gear and forget all the hassles that hitchers put up with. I knowsome pretty big rock names that occasionally transport large quantities of guitars and amps across the country this way. Once I drove, a series of threeluxury cars from New York City to Anchorage, Alaska, with less than two days of "down" time for changes . . . and I made money on the trip.

You can also savor the romance of traveling on your thumb . . . by business and private airplane. I've been doing this for fifteen years; it's easy.

Go out to any medium-large private airfield on a nice day and station yourself near the flight line, aircraft parking area, or operations office. When yousee someone heading for a plane in a businesslike manner, ask if he's going your way. You may pick up a 2,000-mile ride.

"But won't I need to know a lot about aviation?" No. Pilots love to turn greenhorns on to flying, and a lack of knowledge can be your most endearingquality. If you feel uncomfortable hanging around airports, though, you can take a couple of the five-dollar introductory flying lessons that Piper andCessna offer. Otherwise, dress neatly and carry only one very small bag. You'll get rides.

If air hitching is not your stroke, how would you like to be asked to cruise the South Pacific, the Riviera, or even around the world in a private yacht?Yeah, I know. It's too good to be true. But it is true.

Go to a yacht harbor. The bigger and plusher and more glamorous, the better. Ala Wai Basin just off Waikiki Beach in Honolulu used to work superblyfor me, and friends who've thumbed across Europe say the expensive watering spots along the Mediterranean are great. If you're stuck on Mainland,U.S.A., find the nearest coastal city that has an extensive boat scene and go there.

Hang around the ocean-going ketches, schooners, and yawls of forty feet and bigger. If you're warm, breathing, and can stand up by yourself, you shouldget two or three cruise offers a week. A "ride wanted" notice on the harbor bulletin board can start a stampede.

Why? Because a lot of people have made a lot of money lately and much of that bread has been spent on luxury yachts. I mean, other than a Learjet,what else is there for sheer prestige? On the other hand, it takes a crew to sail one of the damn things, and crews are both expensive and hard to getunless . . . unless someone can be found who wants to go to Rio or Cape Town or Tahiti so bad he'll help man the vessel for the trip, meals, and - maybe- fifty dollars on top. And that's exactly where you come in.

So okay. So it is possible to break loose . . . but where's the bread going to come from? Can you actually do exactly what you want and still coy theloot? Damn right. In fact, you're more likely to make vast quantities of cash if you are joyfully in tune with yourself.

This is the electronic Information Age. Anything you know is a marketable commodity. Go where your fancy leads you. Develop the skills and cultivatethe interests you want to have. Then trade that specialized knowledge for the money that others will be eager to force on you.

Bradford Angier dropped out to a remote cabin in the Canadian Rockies . . . and made a small fortune writing about it. My old lady is hung up onEnglish saddle-bred horses. She knows so much about them she can now instruct ten riding students at a time at five bucks each. I dig, of all things, littledo-it-yourself one- and two-man airplanes that you build at home, and I make a better-than-average living dealing information about them.

Go where you want to be and pick up the free percentage that's always there. You'll soon be considered an authority or a craftsman or - at the very least -a fixture in your chosen field. When the money comes down, you'll get your share.

And you'll also get some juicy, unexpected spinoffs. Like a two-month all-expenses-plus-pay tour of Europe with the people you love. I did, anyway,and it happened because I dug folk music when it was big and I spent a lot of time in the coffee houses where it was played. Gradually I came to know -and became very tight with - a number of musicians. Since I was about the only one in the crowd who didn't perform, guess who was a logical choicewhen The Bitter End Singers needed a road manager for their European trip? That's right.

And the moral of the story is simply this: You can get out of the pigeonhole "they" want to keep you in and you can live exactly the dream life youwant. Just do it.

Issue 1 - January/February 1970

Living High on $6500 a Year

By DARRELL HUFF

REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF

THE SATURDAY EVENING POST

AND DARRELL HUFF

A free-lance jack-of-all-trades

tells how a family can live like

millionaires on a modest income.

A few years ago an old friend from the East Coast came to visit us. He enjoyed his stay in our modern countryhouse, roamed our wooded hills, rode our saddle horses, swam in our pool and sunned himself on the terrace ofour guest cottage. One evening after dinner - there was wine from a neighboring vineyard we projected some colorpictures of a recent trip to Mexico. This led to lively talk about the year we were soon to spend traveling inEurope. A refugee from a crowded New York City apartment house our guest was obviously impressed with ourway of life. In fact, when he got home, he sent us a letter larded with envy.

"You had led me to believe you were a poor man," he wrote. "Now I know you have been deceiving me.However, I forgive you because I was glad to catch a glimpse of how a millionaire lives."

My wife Fran and our two youngest daughters were sitting before the picture window in our living room as I readthis letter to them. When I got to the word "millionaire," my daughters burst into giggles. I looked at my wife. Herface was serious. "Shall I disillusion him?" I asked.

As most women, Fran seldom answers a question directly. "The funny thing is that it's all true," she said. "We dohave these things, and we do take those trips. In fact, I'm not sure that we don't come closer to living like the richthan the rich do these days."

Sixteen Years of Plenty

She was right. Fran my four daughters and myself have for the past sixteen years lived the life of millionaires atleast in most of the ways that we think count. We've had a handsome home in one of the loveliest parts ofCalifornia. We've had plenty of space to move around in. We've had animals, we've had a pool, we've had manymonths of foreign travel. And we've sent two daughters to college.

But the curious thing about all this - and it's hard to make people believe it - is that during those sixteen years ourtotal income has averaged less than $6500 a year. As it happens, that figure is close to the average for Americanfamilies. What's more, we have not supplemented our income by dipping into capital. We've never had much to

dip into.

How have we done it? To answer that question, I must go back to the beginningto New York City in 1946 - justafter the Second World War. I suppose the whole thing got started because I developed a habit of grinding myteeth in my sleep. I was an editor at the time. I was also a typical entry in The Rat Race. I had two daughters then(Kay was eight, and Carolyn six), and in an uncomfortable gray-flannel suit I used to commute daily to my desk,where I earned $8500 a year. Weekends I lugged home a briefcase bulging with manuscripts to be read. My bloodpressure has always been low, and so has my physical energy. The Race was taking its toll. One night when theteeth grinding was particularly ominous, my wife woke me. "This has got to stop," she said.

I thought she meant the teeth grinding, and I agreed. But it turned out she had other things in mind. "Let's getaway from all this," she said. "You can go back to freelancing."

"You don't mean it," I said.

"Yes, I do."

Free-lance writing and photography had supported me through college, but I knew it was a precarious way ofearning a living. Besides, I now had a wife and children to support. I could probably earn a bare subsistence forthem as a free lance, but little more. My wife said it didn't make any difference. "If there are to be any luxuries inour life, we'll just figure out a way to have them without much money," she said optimistically. I don't think shebelieved it at the time, but nevertheless that's what happened.

We decided to move to California and build our own house. Stiffening for our backbones was supplied by ourneighbor, Paul Corey, novelist and pioneer do-it-yourself advocate, who promised to bring his family to join us thenext year. We bought a secondhand trailer for $900 and attached it to the back of our 1941 sedan. We shipped afew personal possessions on ahead and lugged a few with us. Most of our belongings we sold. When we pulled outof New York City, headed West, we had about $4000 in cash.

With our limited funds, we had little time to waste in finding a place to settle. Consequently, when we saw asection north of San Francisco known as the Valley of the Moon, we didn't hesitate. It was only five miles fromSonoma, where there were good schools, good doctors and good shopping, which we considered essential. Wefound ten stony acres with a beautiful view of the California foothills, and we quickly bought them for $1500. Weparted with another $1000 for a well and a pump. Parking our trailer on the grounds, we entered the kids in schooland started to clear the property for our house.

I lost no time in unpacking my typewriter. Our cash reserves were down to about $1000, and I had to put in a fairamount of time each day writing. Whenever I wasn't writing, I worked on the house.

Up to that time, my biggest construction project had been a bookcase and dining-room table. I found a houseeasier to build. Tolerances on a home can be fairly large - as much as a quarter of an inch; cabinetwork calls formore precision. Of course there is no comparison in the satisfaction one gets from the larger job. With hammer,saw, pipe wrench and sweat, I was able to create a home for my family. It was a heady experience, and itsustained me during the long hours of work, both building and writing.

"Toughest Day in My Life"

I don't mean that I did it entirely alone. My family helped, and we had a small amount of hired assistance. Webegan by clearing the brush. No experts were necessary for that. Then we laid down a long concrete slab thelength of the house. For this we hired three temporarily unemployed carpenters.

We originally planned to build a frame house but could not, because of the lumber shortage. Instead we threw upconcrete blocks, which were cheap, durable, fireproof - and unrationed. We put in huge picture windows that gavebreathtaking views of the mountains beyond. And to frame those windows, we bought some cheap but heftyredwood timbers from an old mansion being torn down. The day a trucker and I sorted, loaded, trucked andunloaded that wood was physically the toughest day in my life.

I had drawn a rough plan for the house, but I knew nothing about construction codes. Fortunately we were so farfrom town that there were none to worry about. In fear of building an unsafe shelter for my family, I went farbeyond most codes in providing strength and safety - though I didn't know it until one Sunday morning when myneighbor, a plumber and construction man, came to watch me placing steel reinforcing in the walls. "If we havean earthquake and tidal wave," he remarked consolingly, "you can be sure your home won't break up. It will justfloat away in one piece."

Roughing it Like Royalty

Gradually our house began to take shape. I hired seventy-five dollars' worth of labor to lay down soil lines and asewage system, an aspect of plumbing I didn't want to try myself. I hired a local handyman to build a massivefireplace that would take four-foot logs. All told, hired labor cost us $500. The kids dug holes, carried blocks andlearned to swing a hammer well enough to nail on roof boards. Fran laid blocks, tooled joints and did all thepainting. And the more we did, the more we learned.

Five months after we reached California, we had a house of sorts. It lacked partitions, the interior was unfinishedoverhead and underfoot, but it was fit to live in. And after living for months in the trailer, it was exhilarating tomove into a real house - with a huge fireplace, a wall of glass facing those glorious mountains, and bedrooms forall of us. After we'd carried our suitcases across the threshold, we built an enormous fire in the fireplace andsettled back to enjoy it. The refinements could come later. We had a home of our own at last, and we felt likeroyalty.

During all this time, of course, I continued to pound away at my typewriter, keeping our income at a subsistencelevel or a little better. It wasn't long before our family grew to five, and then six. And as we grew, the house grew.We kept right on building, adding a bedroom, a sitting room, finally a study.

It took us about eleven years to finish the house, and we enjoyed watching it grow slowly but surely. During thoseeleven years we never had to borrow any money for the house. All told, we put into it about $1000 a year, roughlywhat we might have paid in rent. That was a good deal less than we had been paying for a house in the New Yorkarea, and the nice thing about our new setup was that all our money (and our labor) was going to build an equity.In the end, that equity consisted of a house of 1300 square feet, plus two big porches, a carport, a shop, a detachedstudy and darkroom, and a guesthouse. If we had bought it, we figured it would have cost at least $22,000, ortwice the amount of cash we'd put into it. And we had no mortgage.

There were unexpected dividends along the way. Other people came out and admired what we were doing andwanted some of our land. We decided to part with a few acres, selling them for what our whole tract hadoriginally cost. And so, in the end, our land cost us nothing.

Part of that windfall we put into a swimming pool. Acquiring a pool can be a backbreaking expense, but for us itmerely meant flexing a few muscles. By this time we had learned the shortcuts.

The excavation was a pick-and-shovel job shared with the Coreys, now our neighbors again. It occupied all of usfor weekends during several months. We had to buy concrete and steel, but we put the materials in placeourselves, plastering the concrete onto the sloping earth sides. We brought the whole thing in, for less than $400,and to us it looked as inviting as Waikiki.

And now - about those saddle horses. Actually we owned only one: a mare that we purchased for seventy-fivedollars. But the Coreys bought a horse at the same time, and we decided to share them, so we both felt as thoughwe owned two horses.

Having the mare prompted us to build a stable. When it was finished, our horse scorned it. At first the structurebecame a playroom; eventually it evolved into a two-room apartment for our older girls. And when they went tocollege, it entered a new career as a guest cottage.

College, incidentally, turned out to be far less of an obstacle than we'd feared. We knew that a year at a good girls'college could run to almost half what our annual income had been during most years, but Kay won a scholarshipthat took care of one third of her expenses. Another third was taken care of by a college job, plus summer work.We put up $700 each year she was at Mills College, no more than it takes to keep a youngster at home and sendher to high school.

Long before Kay had started college our family had entered upon a new and important phase of millionaire living- foreign travel. It started with a trip to Mexico. In 1955 we had almost a decade of California life behind us, andour house was all but finished. We were tired of being in one place, and the rest of the world beckoned. But howto travel on our budget with four kids?

Taking a Bargain Vacation

For a while we were stumped. Then it came to us: Why not apply our do-it-yourself principles and camp our wayacross Mexico! A bargain fell into our laps via the advertising columns of our local newspaper. We acquired acamping trailer, with kitchen facilities and an attachable tent. It cost $175, but we got this sum back when weresold it at the end of the trip.

We slept and cooked in our midget rig and had no need for hotels or restaurants. What had looked like anexpensive venture turned out to cost just about what it would have cost us to stay home. Our two months' trip ranto just under $800.

The Mexican journey piqued our appetites for travel abroad. After two years we could stand it no longer; in 1957we left California for a year's trip to Europe.

After camping across the country and selling our station wagon in NewJersey, we sailed for Rotterdam in July, tourist class, on the handsome newStatendam. The fare was $237.50 each, with half price for our two youngerdaughters. But with that large expenditure out of the way, we found thattravel in Europe need be no more expensive than in Mexico.

We picked up a used Volkswagen Microbus, and spent the whole summercamping-in Scandinavia, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, France,Belgium, Italy, Spain and Portugal, plus a side trip to North Africa. Webought our food in grocery stores (equivalent to U.S. prices in France andItaly, but less elsewhere), and, instead of rent, paid camping fees. Chargesranged from twenty-five cents a night in a few places to $1.50 in Paris,Rome and the Riviera.

When the weather got chilly, we gave up camping for a series of rentedhouses, all of them near the sea. We had houses that winter in Majorca,Torremolinos and Naples. Rents averaged sixty to eighty dollars a month,and food forty to forty-five dollars a week, about one dollar a day perperson.

Studying the Easy Way

Our youngsters missed a year in school - no great loss, really. We brought alongschool books for Laurie and Kristy, who were in the third and fifth grades. It wasa bit alarming to discover that by studying only an hour or two a day they wereeasily able to keep up with the work of a better-than-average American publicschool.

Our eldest daughter delayed her college work by a year, but picked up a bonus -studying French in Europe. What she'd learned in France met two years of herlanguage requirement.

As for Carolyn, our second daughter, the year turned out to be a decisive one forher education. She fell in love with Spain. She kept a sketchbook and polishedher Spanish and, when she later entered the University of California, she majoredin Spanish and minored in art.

Our stay abroad ended in September, 1958, when we returned home just in timefor school. Looking back on it, Fran and I were convinced it was one of the mostvaluable educational experiences we could have given our children.

That trip, however, didn't satisfy our wanderlust; we soon began planning anotheritinerary. This week Kristy, Laurie, Fran and I will return to Paris. We'll pick up a

car there and head for Greece and some of the Iron Curtain countries. Expenses shouldn't exceed $15 per dayalthough we may run into some occasional discomforts.

As a matter of fact, our whole do-it-yourself way of living has frequent drawbacks. For one thing, there aren'tmany steaks in our diet. We seldom can afford the luxury of dining out. We also lack the money to buy even onetenth of the books we'd like; we have to wait until we can borrow them at the library.

Free-lancing - whether it's as a writer, plumber, electrician or carpenter - also has its drawbacks. We never knewexactly what our income was going to be. Some years it fell as low as $4000, some years it soared above $8000. Itaveraged under $6500 and, when I subtracted business expenses the net came to a good deal less.

With that kind of money, we had to be canny shoppers. We read the grocery ads for weekend specials, and webegan our Christmas shopping with the January sales. We did a bit of installment buying, but mostly we stuck tocash.

Our income limitations made us more niggardly in our charity contributions than we liked, but here again wedecided to make up for it with a do-it-yourself approach. Since we couldn't give money, we gave ourselves. I haveworked hard on school-building committees. Last year Fran devoted an afternoon a week to supervising the schoollibrary, and this year she has worked as an unpaid grader of high-school English papers.

In general, most of the drawbacks have been slight in our eyes, and we have done all the major things we reallywanted to do. We have always wanted, for example, to live by the sea. Consequently we reached a big decision: tosell our house. In view of all the muscle strain, sweat and bashed fingers we had put into it, parting with the housewas wrenching. But the pull of the sea was strong, and so was the itch to get building again.

We sold our Sonoma Valley place, along with several acres, for $19,000. Then we put $5000 into two excitingacres of land - a blend of pinewoods and sand dunes overlooking a magnificent stretch of seacoast on theMonterey Peninsula. The rest of the money was just about what we needed for the concrete and lumber and glassand all the other things you need to build a house.

Our second house is now virtually complete. And although our brood of children has become smaller - the twoolder girls have already married - our new home has become larger. With its double garage, it comes to some 3000square feet. It has four bedrooms, a study, three baths and a hexagonal living room that looks directly over thePacific.

Assessing the past few years, we feel our children have certainly thrived on our way of living. Last June oursecond daughter, Carolyn, finished college free of debt. Kay is now taking part-time graduate work along with her

husband, who plans to be a college teacher. Kristy and Laurie show promise as students, and their aptitude,combined with the self-reliance they have learned from building and travel, makes us feel that college will not bea big problem for them.

Our Surprising Assets

Of course, we never seem to have any money. However, when we examine our balance sheet, it's apparent that wehave achieved a position no worse than most. In fact, when I filed a financial statement at our bank recently, I wassurprised to find how much our assets amounted to:

Value of house (compared withbuilding costs in neighborhood) $35,000

Value of land 10,000

Adjoining acre (two lots) 8,000

Five acres left in Sonoma Valley 5,000

Investment (7% first deed of trust) 2,000

Auto 2,000

Tools, photography equipment,furnishings, personal property 2,600

________$64,600

The interesting thing about our balance sheet is that it shows roughly ten timesthe net worth I could have claimed when we left New York City sixteen yearsago.

But if the balance sheet is gratifying, it's only fair to admit that we didn't really plan it that way. All we plannedwas to live the way we really wanted. Seldom - when we were building, or traveling, or studying, or ridinghorseback, or swimming, or just loafing - did we think much about money. In fact, if we thought about it at all, wefelt we had discovered something far better. - THE END

Issue 1 - January/February 1970

FREELANCE CARTOONING

Now look, Gang, don't get us wrong: We're most certainly not suggesting that half thereaders of TMEN are gonna run out and become freelance cartoonists immediately afterreading the following articles. A few, yes. The great majority, no.

We've gone pretty deeply into the HOW of this particular work-at-home. dodge, though, forseveral reasons: (1) It's a fascinating field, (2) It's part of the communications/persuasionindustry which plays an increasingly important (ask Spiro T.) part in our lives, (3) Likewriting, commercial art and various other skills and crafts, cartooning does offer a way outof the 9-to-5 rap for a certain number of talented and determined individuals, (4) It's mainlya mail-order operation which means it neatly sidesteps race, color, creed and most otherexcuses we all use for putting bad trips on each other and (5) Successful freelancing -whether as plumber, cartoonist, cake baker, baby sitter, candle maker or whatever -depends on a certain life style . . . a way of looking at things . . . all its own. The products(skill, drawings, pastry, mere presence, decorator items, etc.) may differ but the groundrules are always the same: You're either your own man, work when, where and at what you like and successfullyexchange your output for what you need and want . . . or you go back to pumping gas on the corner.

So, even if you think you have no drawing ability and you couldn't care less about trying to sell funny pictures tomagazines, come on along. You're going to learn how to get a highly specialized art - or other - education for verylittle money (maybe even free), you'll find a definite step-by-step drop-out-and-do-your-own-thing plan used byone successful cartoonist and Carl Kohler's section, in particular, should (a) turn you on to some immediatemoney-making angles if you are, or want to be, a cartoonist or (b) just generally turn you on if you're not a toonerbut need some inspiration from a sassy, successful practitioner of an alternate life style.

So you wanna be a cartoonist? . . . Great! But why?

Why?

Yes, why . . . because if you're just looking for an easy way out, this probably isn't it. Cartooning, like most otherendeavors, can be brutally hard work . . . and, like most other endeavors, it can be deliriously wonderful play thatyou just happen to get paid for.

Let's stop and lay down some ground rules right in front: We presently live in a society that puts a price tag onvirtually everything, right? Right. And that can be a real drag, right? Right. Because you always wind up havingto put in your time on a job you hate just to get the necessities of life, right? Wrong!

It doesn't have to be that way, gang. It's all in how you look at it. Remember, we said, "The society puts a price tagon virtually everything". OK. There's no reason why you can't make that work for, rather than against, you.

It's easy. First, decide what you really want to do; second, start doing it (as long as you're not putting a bad trip onsomeone or something else) and third, figure out some way to exchange what you do for what you want and need.

If you're hung up on horses and hate office work, in other words, you'd be damn foolish to work all week as asecretary just so you could pay the rent, put food on the table and-maybehave enough left over to ride an hour ortwo each weekend at some expensive stable . . . yet that's exactly what an awful lot of babes do. But not my clever

little wife. She loves horses so she teaches riding, trains, shows and judges horses . . . and, incidentally, makestwice what any desk job would pay her.

Rule Number One in Successful Living, then, goes something like this: Get yourself together, find out where theaction is for you, go there . . . and start making it happen. As Thoreau said, "Build your castles in the air . . . andthen put foundations under them".

So, for the sake of argument, let's say that cartooning is your thing. You're fascinated by the idea ofcommunicating with handdrawn pictures, you dig the Ego trip of being a successful artist or cartooning justappeals to some artsy craftsy element in your nature. It doesn't matter. Don't analyse it. All you have to know isthat cartooning is Your Thing.

Fine. Now, how are you going to start? With ten years of art school or an expensive home study course and afancy studio with all the trimmings? Not on your life . . . or, I should say, not with your life. You haven't got thatmuch time. You're interested in beginning right here and now. And, just so you can walk away from that factoryjob (work) and start cartooning (play) any time you feel like it, you're gonna want to make it begin paying off justas soon as possible. Here's HOW:

Every field of endeavor, every sport, every industry, every special interest group - it seems - in the country hasone or two or 7 or 12 or more magazines, papers or newsletters published just for it. If the publication covers thefield, it's called a trade journal. If it's put out by one company or subgroup within the field for "their own", it'scalled a house organ. TJs and HOs are what you look for whenever you want to get inside a field or a specialinterest group, quickly and easily. As a cartoonist, these publications should doubly interest you because a coupleare going to teach you How and the others are going to buy a lot of your finished work.

Forget the shysters who exaggerate the opportunities in the field while selling you an overpriced art course or atruckload of fancy equipment. Forget the dilettantes who always flutter about the edges of the action. Go right tothe heart of whatever field interests you by getting your hands on current copies of the working trade journals ofthat field.

There's no faster, easier, better way to pick up inside language, check out the economics, get filled in on the latestmethods, spot developing trends and learn "who's who" in the particular establishment or power structure thatinterests you.

When I decided to break into cartooning - back in the mid-50s -Don Ulsh's NEW YORK CARTOON NEWS andGeorge Hartman's INFORMATION GUIDE were the two "bibles" that showed me the way. Through them, Ilearned very quickly that, while my cartooning was less than professional, there was definitely a market for thegags I was writing. So I switched to writing for other cartoonists (who I often found listed in NYCN and IG), andused the money I earned that way to finance the improvement of my drawing. Within six months (while I was stillan ignorant 16 year old Indiana farm boy) I had had gags, drawn by other artists, published in Collier's, True andlesser markets and I was selling cartoons of my own. I had never had (still haven't) an art lesson, I owned noexpensive drawing equipment and I definitely wasn't a genius. I had just used the cartooning papers as a magiccarpet to get me where I wanted to go.

I've since used my cartoon experience as a springboard into some nice public relations and writing jobs and I'vekind of drifted away from the field. If I wanted to get back to the drawing board today (or if I was just startingout), however, my first move would be to get my name on the mailing list for the IG. It's now called CARTOONWORLD and is published from P.O. Box 30367, Lincoln, Nebraska 68570 for $15.00 a year. NEW YORKCARTOON NEWS is no longer around but, for an annual $17.00, GAG RE-CAP PUBLICATIONS puts out aregular cartoon sheet from P.O. Box 86, East Meadow, N.Y. 11554 . . . and I'd get it.

I'd also, maybe, invest $3.50 in CAREERS IN CARTOONING by Lawrence Lariar and $4.95 for Jack Markow'sCARTOONIST'S AND GAG WRITER'S HANDBOOK if I couldn't find them in a library. That, plus thefollowing articles by Kohler, would give me (and should give you) enough marketing information to Make It.

And remember, whether you're trying to make it inside or outside the present establishment, the key to success ismarketing. If you don't somehow swap what you have too much of (beans, fence posts, cartoons, ripe fruit orenthusiasm) for what you need (shoes, bananas and automobiles), you ain't gonna make it.

But what about drawing . . . isn't that important too? Yes, but not as important as you may think. A poorly drawncartoon with a strong gag that hits the readers of a particular magazine right between the eyes will always sellbefore the beautiful rendering that isn't really relevant. This is no excuse for lousy artwork, understand, but it doesexplain why, contrary to what most cartoon course peddlers tell you, you don't need to go to any art school or takeany course on the market to become a cartoonist.

As a matter of fact, I feel very strongly that - unless you're really a lazy lout who needs to be pushed, and pushedhard, to start a gag or finish a drawing (and what are you doing in cartooning, in that case?) - you'll find mostinstruction in the field (and most other fields, too) vastly overpriced and largely irrelevant.

You don't really want all those pre-packaged assignments, penpal letters and a $500.00 diploma to hang on thewall, do you? Maybe so, maybe not. As for me, I was more interested in kicking the 9-to-5 job . . . and that meantselling cartoons.

If you're determined to squander your hard earned loot on a cartoon or commercial - or even fine arts - course, Iwill give one company a left-handed recommendation: Any of the Famous Artists courses is a bargain . . . at aboutone-sixth the current asking price of, I believe, over $500.00 each. I made the rounds, one week, with a FamousSchools salesman and I know about what everything from the salesmen's commission and district manager'soverride right through the triple-page ads in the glossy magazines costs the company. After all the hype, there isn'tmuch left for art instruction. No worse than other firms in the field, you understand, but not a lot better either.

Besides, there's literally tens and tens of thousands of courses from that one company (and as many, if not more,from each of the others) gathering dust on bookshelves throughout this country. A two line classified ad in any bigcity paper should get you a lot of answers and at least one course for $75.00 - which is what I paid for mine - orless.

A good course, used as a reference, can be valuable to you but it's only worth what you take out of it. The mostimportant thing for you to do if you want to be a cartoonist, is to draw every chance you get. And don't take thelazy man's way out and only draw the things that are easy for you. You're only fooling yourself if you do. Draw,and keep on drawing . . . from life, from memory, from imagination.

You don't need fancy drawing pencils and pads either. Ordinary note books and regular pencils (whatever numberyou prefer) are plenty good enough. The really important thing is the developing coordination between your handand eye.

And here's a fact that should surprise you . . . the best teachers in the world are all set to help you for FREE. That'sright, the cartoonists who sell their work for the highest prices today are ready to teach you to draw.

All you have to do is leaf through any magazine or newspaper that prints cartoons. If you don't have any lyingaround, go out and ask the neighbors for back issues . . . or make a trip down to the nearest waste paper firm. Getyourself a big stack of magazines with cartoons in them.

Then go through all the publications and clip out all the cartoons you find. Keep it up until you've got drawings byevery artist whose work you can get your hands on. These cartoonists are the best teachers in the world. Why?Because these are the guys who are selling their work, right now, today.

Forget all the two-bit teachers who never sold a drawing in their life. Forget all the dated artwork in the cartooncourses. Study what the selling artists are doing. They're the ones who really know what cartooning is all about.

Notice how they place their characters. See how they vary the lines in their drawings. Study their methods ofshading. Compare the different ways they draw people. Look at the way they sketch the backgrounds. Soak upevery detail of every drawing you can get into your file.

Then try to draw that way yourself. Use every trick you can steal to make your drawings sparkle just like theprofessionals. Gradually, you'll pick up one idea from one artist, something else from a second and anotherwrinkle from a third. Pretty soon, you'll be cranking out clean cartoons in a style all your own.

If you don't think you can learn about drawing this way, let me tell you something: The pros do this all the time . .. it's the way it's done. So go to it.

Some skills, such as learning to draw perspective, you'll probably have to learn from regular art books because it ishard to acquire such knowledge merely by looking at finished art work. In the main, however, you will find thatthe best cartoon instruction in the world is only as far away as the nearest printed cartoon.

THE TOOLS OF THE TRADE

As for supplies needed to begin cartooning . . . here again you can forget the sharpsters who want to sell youeverything from hand-engraved sketch pads to chromed drawing tables.

Essential, of course, is a pencil. Ordinary every day pencils are plenty good enough for a start. When you thinkyou need something better, you will probably want a few real drawing pencils since you can specify their leadhardness much more exactly. They're graded from 7H (a very hard lead that makes a light line) through F(medium) to 7B (the softest, blackest lead). I usually wind up using a 2H and 4H most of the time. You may findother grades more suitable to your touch.

Paper is another primary must. Professional cartoonists use regular typing paper for the most part and there is noreason for you to buy anything any more expensive. For rough drawing and just doodling, use a cheap 16 poundpaper. Inked cartoons that are submitted to editors should be done on a good grade of 20 or 24 pound, 25% ragcontent paper.

Only a few artists who regularly do complicated cartoons with tints and washes (colored or black ink mixed withwater and used like water colors on a finished drawing) for the top-paying markets (Esquire, Playboy, etc.) everuse expensive drawing papers or illustration boards . . . and, then, only after submitting a rough idea on typingpaper, usually.

Another essential tool (at least for me) is a good eraser. Again, you can start with pencil erasers. But sooner orlater you'll want a good "Artgum"and a kneaded rubber eraser.

Cartoons used to always be done in ink, but that is changing rapidly now and it's not at all uncommon for adrawing done in black pencil and spray-fixed to be bought and reproduced in a middle or minor (or even major)magazine. Still, you should learn to handle ink . . . because you will be called on to produce an "inker" once in awhile. As a matter of fact, while you're starting you'll make a much better impression on editors if you submit allyour cartoons in ink. Later, when you're "in" with a few magazines, you can start sending in penciled roughs(rough drawings) or even typers (typed gags for an editor to read so that you only have to draw the particularcartoons he wants to buy). At any rate, black is the only color ink you'll need and most artists seem to preferHiggins brand.

Some artists use only brushes, other like pens and still others prefer to use a combination of the two for inking.You'll just have to find what is best for you. I've heard of cartoonists using brushes from no. 00 to no. 7. A fewpopular pen points are Esterbrook 356 and 358 and Gillot's 290, 303 and 404. Gaining in favor are some of thenew mechanical pens, particularly the Rapidograph, which are made in various sizes.A drawing board is pretty much standard equipment. Here again, you can save a lot of money by using a standardbread board or a piece of plywood for a starter. Prop it up on a table and you're in business. Later, when you have

the loot rolling in, you can buy a regular drawing table (there's some great bargains in used tables floating around)or make one from a flush door.

Fancy light boards (which make tracing finished cartoons from a penciled rough much easier) are expensive so Imade my first one from an old window pane and some scrap lumber. A mimeograph stencil light board also workswell for less bread.

A ruler, some paper clips, a few thumbtacks and a small piece of cloth for a pen wiper come in handy. Forcorrecting ink mistakes, some opaque white is useful. Your local stationer's store probably has "Showcard" or"poster" white.

As you progress you can pick up all kinds of stuff such as paste, T squares, a compass, triangles, blotting paper,colored ink, etc. but paper, pencil, black ink, ruler, drawing surface and eraser are all you really need to start.

Remember, it's the finished cartoon you get paid for. . .not the equipment you used while drawing it.

WRITING THE CARTOON IDEA

Now that you're all set to draw, where will the ideas come from? Well, you can use one or more gag writers whowill mail typed cartoon ideas to you. You then return the ones you don't like and draw up the others. When yousell one of the finished cartoons, you pay the gag writer 25% of the price you received for the drawing.

Let's save the gag writers for your first dry spell: Here's how you'll think up your own gags:

Start a morgue. All cartoonists have one and it's not as gruesome as it sounds. An artist's morgue is just acollection of pictures , cartoons, funny remarks, jokes, sketches, and a thousand and one other things. A cartoonistgenerally keeps two morgues: One of cartoons and drawings to refer to whenever he needs help while drawingand a separate collection of jokes, gags, etc. to primp the pump when he's writing gags.

Organize your morgues any way you like . . . in old shoe boxes, cardboard cartons, filing cabinets, albums,notebooks or whatever. But do use a system so you can find what you want when you want it. Add new materialconstantly. Your morgue is your most valuable tool.

Whenever you need fresh material, you'll start digging in the morgue and letting your imagination wander as youfilter various bits of material through your brain. Pretty soon you'll come up with a combination you think isfunny. You'll even begin to surprise yourself by suddenly thinking of a situation entirely different from theoriginal idea you used to prime your creative process.

This is just a variation on the way most writers work and the magic word is cram. Cram yourself full of life. Use it all as your gag writer. Watch TV (ifyou can stomach it), listen to the radio, go to the movies, read, read, read and keep your eyes open. Soak up every impression you can absorb.

Then, when you sit down to shape up some usuable gags, you will never have any trouble pulling ideas out of the air. Some of your best gems will popout of your subconscious when you least expect it: While you're reading a good book or carrying out the ashes or just as you drift off to sleep.

Once you train your mind to think up humorous ideas, you'll turn out material faster than you can use it.

SELLING BEGINNING WORK

Carl Kohler's excellent pieces which follow this diatribe are really gonna open your eyes to the marketing possibilities in cartooning. If you think youcan only sell single panel gag cartoons to magazines, in other words, you're going to have your mind pleasantly stretched. Carl's underlying philosophyshould prove quite valuable to anyone trying to make it outside the system with anything. Roughly translated, he's saying, "Life is just exactly what youmake it".

Although I kinda started at the top and worked down (my gags were published in slick, national magazines first, I next began selling the middle markets. . . and wound up doing local stuff last of all) most beginning cartoonists do best if they concentrate on digging the gold in their own back yard. Everytop cartoonist in the country (the world, it seems) is trying to crack PLAYBOY, for instance, but you are probably the only artist knocking on the doorof your hometown newspaper.

Prepare a sample kit of your very best work. Make it neat and as attractive as you can. Make two or more sample kits, and you'll have one to show andothers to leave with interested prospects.

Now visit local printers and stress the fast, customized nature of your work. There's a blue million "mat" and clip-art services . . . but there's no way forthem to customize their art the way you'll be able to.

Stop in at the local newspaper with some editorial or feature cartoons slanted especially for your town. Newspapers have access to more syndicated artwork than they can use but most editors are always interested in something with a local flavor.

Offer to do an editorial cartoon or a sports feature about local athletes . . . on a regular basis, of course. Maybe the paper is ripe for a feature reportingupcoming community projects. If you like to do caricatures or portraits, you might work up a regular weekly panelfeaturing an outstanding citizen: The mayor, industrail leaders, local celebrities.

Merchants can always use good eye-catching cartoons in their newspaper ads, posters, store windows, hand billsand all the stuff they give away free such as blotters, mailing pieces, etc. You just have to be enough of a go-getter to sell them on using your stuff.

Do you know the comic strip, TUMBLEWEEDS? It's drawn by a fellow named Tom Ryan. Tom lives in Muncie,Indiana and I've known him a long time. When he was a beginning cartoonist (and that was just a few years ago)he sold one newspaper in Muncie the idea of using a little cartoon character, BENNY BEANS. This little guy wasfeatured in the paper all the time: When the United Fund was having a drive, BENNY BEANS would be shownholding a poster or a collection can. During the yearly Paint Up-Fix Up-Clean Up campaign, BENNY BEANSwould be seen sweeping the streets with a broom . . . and on and on and on.

Tom was too clever to stop with that. He sold a local hardware store the idea of having another cartoon character,JIFFY JACKSON, in all their ads. And, eventually, Tom landed a syndicate for TUMBLEWEEDS and graduatedinto the Big Time . . .but his local cartoon work helped keep his family eating until he finally Made It.

You might think that Tom had the cartoon business around Muncie all sewed up when he was doing the localwork. Not so! A number of sign painters were doing the usual cartoons on trucks, billboards, buildings, etc.;another cartoonist occasionally contributed an editorial drawing for a second paper in town; I did some cartoonsfor WLBC-TV in Muncie; and a housewife successfully launched herself into a seasonal business decorating storewindows with water color cartoons of Santa Claus and other Christmas scenes. I understand she still has a long listof regular customers for this service and she earns several hundred dollars every December this way.

We'll go into the working methods of this idea in more detail in a later issue if anyone is interested, but about all itinvolves is chalking the basic layout on the outside of the plate glass windows of a store . . . and then going insideand doing the finish art work in show card colors. This is a little tricky because you're working backward . . . but,if you do the finish art on the outside of the window, rain and small boys will soon mess it up.

One of the best ways to sell your work in the beginning is to offer to take your pay out in trade from themerchants you do work for. They like the idea and will often use your stuff this way when they won't pay for it incash.

George Hartman, publisher of CARTOON WORLD, says he always had 1,000 cans in his pantry throughout thedepression just because he took goods in trade in return for printing a small town "shopper"on a mimeographmachine. We'll give you a more complete report on that idea later, too.

Approach the chairmen of various clubs and offer to dress up their programs and announcements when they areplanning special events. Maybe you can land a job designing a calender showing the year's important meetings fora club or lodge.

Richard Riley, writing in the August, 1969 CARTOON WORLD (just in case you think the above won't work)says: "Our town has an annual rodeo each spring and since I do a great deal of rodeo-type cartoons I talked to theprogram manager of the Jaycees. After they had their dummy made up, they gave it to me and I did cartoons inthe white spaces. The Jaycees told their customers about me as they sold the ads and I not only picked up a nicecheck from the Jaycees, but from the ads too. Also, my cartoon book, LIT' WRANGLER, will be sold at the rodeo. . .and I got ten free tickets, too!"

Get a big pad of newsprint or drawing paper and teach yourself to give interesting chalk talks. A size of 2' X 3' isgood for this and you'll find charcoal crayons handy to work with. One subject you can use is "How cartooniststhink up gags and make their drawings". Clubs and other groups will use you as entertainment for $10-$20 a throwwith, usually, a meal for good measure,

A lot of people will pay very good money for a custom mural done on play room or den walls. These are generallycolorful scenes done in opaque water colors and varnished over when well dried. Better practice this one first!Banks and restaurants also go for these.

A well drawn replica of a new home will sell to the proud home owner. Merchants will pay for good drawings oftheir stores. They hang em on the walls and use 'em on letterheads and in advertising.

Most factories print a small paper or magazine for employees. Offer to do art work or a cartoon for them.

Teach yourself to do a nice job of lettering . . . and learn to use transfer lettering. You'll find a lot more jobscoming your way.

Drop in to the local TV station with a portfolio. Local stations can always use locally-drawn "spots". Somecartoonists have even landed a cartoon TV program of their own.

MAGAZINE CARTOONING

OK. We started telling you about magazine cartooning so it's about time we got back to the main subject.

There are thousands and thousands of specialized publications printed in this country. You know about LIFE andNEWSWEEK and other national magazines . . . but have you ever heard of BOOT AND SHOE RECORDER . . .or PURE MILK NEWS . . . or PRINTING IMPRESSIONS? Probably not - but all three use cartoons.

Go to the local library and look through the directories of business and trade magazines. One is GEBBIE's andanother is published by N.W. Ayres and Sons. They'll open your eyes and give you enough names and addressesto keep you busy for a long, long time. But you'll be submitting your work a little blindly if you only use suchdirectories.

As I mentioned earlier, subscribe to the cartoonists' tip sheets. They'll keep you advised of buying action in themiddle and minor magazines. So will Writer's Digest and Author and Journalist. They all list cartoon markets and,if you submit to the magazines listed, you should gradually build up a list of editors that will regularly buy yourwork, assuming it is of professional quality.

These little magazines are actually pretty easy to work with and, if your gag sense is sharp and you can slant ideasto the readers of a particular publication, your art work can actually be a little rough.

One word of caution: STICK TO THE FIELDS YOU KNOW. Since I lived on a farm when I was doing myheavy cartoon work, I drew mostly farm and dairy cartoons and had no trouble selling them to the smaller farmpublications. I was also hung up on aviation and developed a secondary market around that interest.

No matter what magazine you decide to submit to, give the editor what he wants for his readers. Not what youwant them to have. This is called slanting your work. You send farm cartoons to farm magazines, girly cartoons togirly publications and supermarket cartoons to magazines for supermarket managers.

If you run across a new market and you don't know exactly what kind of cartoons it uses, get a copy of themagazine and study it. If you can't find a copy, write the editor, tell him you're a cartoonist, offer your servicesand ask for samples of his publication. If he's interested, he'll send you a few copies. If he's not interested . . . it'sbetter to find out right in front.

Most editors are honest and hard working, but you'll find a few that won't return drawings or who use your stuffand never pay for it. Forget them . . . they don't last very long, anyway. There are more good markets than you cancover. Concentrate on the good ones.

SUBMITTING CARTOONS TO MAGAZINES

After you've drawn up a good batch of 10 or 12 cartoons (or 5 or 6 for a very specialized market), address a 9 X12 manila envelope to yourself and a 9 1/2 X 12 1/2 envelope to the editor. Stamp both envelopes with sufficientpostage, put the cartoons into the smaller one and put it into the big envelope. A cardboard stiffener is also a goodidea. Seal the large envelope and mail. It's now becoming increasingly popular to make a very light fold across thecenter of the batch of drawings and use half-size envelopes. They seem to stand up a lot better in the mail.

You can seal cartoons, according to the post office regulations, and send them third class as long as you don'tinclude a written note. If your local post office gives you a hard time on this, write to the Postmaster General inWashington, D.C.

Always include return postage and a return address on the envelope in your submission.

Sooner or later, you'll have to set up some kind of system so you can keep a record of the drawings you have inthe mail, the ones that have already been to a particular editor, and the ones that haven't. You'll want to put yourname and address on the back of each cartoon too. Editors sometimes get several batches mixed up together andthis will help to keep everything straight.

PAYMENT FOR A BEGINNER'S WORK

The usual rule for a beginning cartoonist is "Get as much as you can, BUT GET THE JOB!" As you start doingwork for local business men and newspapers, you'll find, that many of them can't - or won't - pay a lot for thework they use.

Don't be discouraged. The experience acquired on these first jobs is worth a great deal to you. As you improveyour work, you'll gradually slide up from, maybe, $5.00 a drawing to $15.00 to $50.00 or more. Some of the TJseven go over $100.00 to their regular contributors.

A good artist who keeps at least 10 batches of cartoons in the mail at all times should average $100-$200 a week.A part-timer with only a batch or two out at any one time can generally pick up $10-$20 extra spending moneyeach week. That's not great, but cartooning worked that way can be looked upon as a hoppy that pays its way. . .and I've seen a lot of times when that $10 came in very, very handy.

Naturally, since you want to be a cartoonist, you're going to make every last drawing your very best . . .whetherit's a paid-for-in-advance $100 cartoon or a $5 spot.

Cartooning is no bed of roses but it can be a very fun way of making a living and - if you make it to the top with asyndicated strip of your own or as a regular artist for, say, PLAYBOYyou'll be in the Big Money, indeed.

Now, for a detailed step-by-step plan for dropping out of the rat race to start cartooning on very limited means,read on. Carl Kohler is the fascinating guy who did just that . . . he also has originated many, many ways of sellingcartoons and he will generously share some of them with you.

And, I'll say it once more: Carl's section should inspire a lot more people than just the would-be cartoonists amongTMEN readers.

Issue 1 - January/February 1970

THE LONELY WORKERNOTE: The following series of high spirited articles originallyappeared in INFORMATION GUIDE (now CARTOON WORLD)during 1957-1959.

For an unbroken succession of seven years I freelanced, fulltime,drawing and marketing advertising and magazine cartoons and-later-writing and marketing humor pieces for variouspublications.

Now get the picture: I lived through seven years of obtaining anincome solely through my alleged efforts at the drawingboard andtypewriter. I'm speaking singularly on the basis of that experience and what follows is based entirely upon it.

When I first quit a paid job (illustrator/ editor for an aircraft company's technical book department), I was 28 yearsold, in good health, had one wife, one son, $145.00 cash-on-hand, about a year's experience at selling magazinecartoons (totalling about $225.00 worth of sales), a lot of illusions regarding fulltime freelancing . . . and a hugedissatisfaction with any way of earning a living other than drawing cartoons.

Seven years later (presently, in fact) finds me with one wife (the same one), three sons, still in good health, 35years old, less hair, more wrinkles, a hell of a lot more cash-on-hand than I started with, a definite disinterest incartoon freelancing, a good job (four days, weekly) with a magazine and three days - weekly - in which everythingI write sells . . . a happy fact that could not be, had I never learned how to make it happen through freelancing.

For me then, freelancing has been a transitory period: For you, it may be a hoped-for-future. I am going to offer asuggestion which (while certainly not the only way for a promising beginner to start freelancing), if followed tothe letter, will keep you: (1) eating, (2) out of the cold, (3) freelancing and (4) from the necessity of giving up thewhole idea and going back to a time clock.

Perhaps I'd better add: These points are guaranteed only if you are a type churl who really wants to freelance andwhose family is given to adjusting reasonably easy to new situations.

You understand, I am not advocating the following method of getting into fulltime freelancing for anybody whocannot change their present paid-employment standard of living . . . nor for anyone whose wife does not implicitybelieve in their chances of eventually making the so-called grade.

THAT OLD DEVIL, OVERHEAD

Get your affairs in order, tabulate your bank account (if any) and move to the nearest, smallest town located on theedge of a river, lake or (better) an ocean.

Remember, I said the smallest town. Here, despite general opinion to the contrary, you will be able to rent a houseor cottage (and don't look for luxury) for around $35.00 monthly. I've even lived in some places - rather on theorder of elaborate chicken houses that rented for $25.00 with utilities included.

The farther away from industrial areas your town is, the lower the available rentals will be. I know of onecartoonist who rents a cabin with ten acres of ground for $10.00 monthly. Fabulous? Nope. The joint has an

outhouse and no running water . . . but I told you: If you want to cut that overhead to your freelance pocketbooksize, forget your present standard of living for awhile!

CHOW AND STUFF

Okay. You've moved. Your wife's relatives, your relatives and your mutual friends think you've lost your mind . . .but you have moved. Fine.

Now, as soon as you've unloaded your gear (I always rented unfurnished places, bringing a mere minimum offurniture of our own), hand your wife a hoe, grab a shovel and put in a vegetable garden. And do this right away!

Next investigate the fishing in the area. I mean, study it factually. Remember, the fishing you'll be doing isprimarily to put fish on the table. And I don't care how inexpensively fish are selling in the markets - you get yourown and save those seemingly absurb few cents. It'll make quite a difference over a year's stretch.

If your frau doesn't know how to feed a family of, say, four or five on $20.00 a week . . . and feed them anenjoyable variety of food on that sum - this is a swell time for her to learn how. It's been done. I know wives whoare presently doing just that and it will be possible years from now. But only if you suppliment that $20.00 worthof store chow with vegetables from your own garden and fish caught, netted or speared yourself.

Within six months you should be able to get by with as little as $15.00 weekly for purchased food items - andeating grandly. Naturally, this doesn't include steak regularly.

SPENDINGAside from occasional items of clothing, art supplies, stamps and medical costs - I suggest you keep all spending(for the first three months) to a miser's range. In short, no wild splurging just because you discover (as you willnow and then) that you've made four or five-or even six or seven-hundred dollars in one month.

Assuming you've decided to freelance from an area not visited by heavy winters (and I do not see how anyonecould make this particular method work outside of Florida, the southern states along the Gulf or California), forgetall previous notions about what you must wear to be presentable. A clean shirt, clean washable britches and tennisshoes are fine. To hell with public opinion and convention, too for this first freelancing year, anyway.

If your wife simply cannot be happy in cotton dresses and inexpensive sandals, you're licked before you start. Myclever little gal actually made sandals for all of us, using old inner-tubes and secondhand leather . . . and thosesandals outlasted anything we ever purchased in a shoe store.

It's a tasty notion to keep $100 in the bank against the time (and it'll happen often) when every editor seems to beslow in issuing those checks. Secondary measures include friends who can and will loan you money until thechecks finally arrive . . . or a landlord and grocer who understand the time element in your profession and don'tmind waiting for their money while extending credit to you. I've used all three of these methods. I heartily endorseall three. Maybe you will, maybe you won't.

AND THEN WOT HOPPENS?

Without touching upon any particular method of marketing (several varieties work beautifully), I will underline theadvisability of writing thank you notes everytime you make a sale. Editors like this. It even (although many sellingcartoonists don't realize it) makes quite a difference in many extra sales.

Within a reasonably short time you should be selling a certain amount of cartoons on arranged terms, regularly.Today's freelance - if he has halfway decent ability and common sense - does not entirely rely on total speculationsales. It just isn't necessary.

Somewhere there are, at least, three editors waiting who will like your work sufficiently to buy from you regularly,give you assignment work and, in some cases, offer you cash advances against work-to-be-done. The last, of

course, holds only if you don't snow them about being a wealthy-type success and you honestly let them knowwhen you can really use some advance loot.

This money-in-front is not theory. It's fact. As of this writing I am into one book for better than $300 . . . strictlybecause the editor knows I can and will produce exactly what he wants for that magazine, when he wants it.Frankly, this isn't the best practice in the world but - given time, experience and accumulated skill - you'll beworking the same deal occasionally.

Those three editors mentioned above should be able to give you a total of $200 monthly in assured sales. If youhave a distinctive style (such as Tupper, Thaves, Harley or Pete Millar), I would feel safe in saying that - withinsix months of launching your freelance career - you should have something like $275 to $400 in assured monthlysales.

That's assuming your particular method of marketing includes getting editors interested in your availability . . . andkeeping them interested. Same thing goes for any and all commercial cartooning. There just isn't (in my opinion) avery big difference between magazine editors and advertising purchasers.

IN CLOSINGI know there are a thousand ways to punch a million holes in what I've suggested . . . and only somebody with abetter method will try it. You've got to want to freelance very much to do it the way I started and have outlinedhere.

This same system has been worked with other variations . . . and there are undoubtedly still more ways to make itgive a guy his start in freelancing. It would take a book to give you all the tricks and I don't have the time to writethat book. I'll leave it to you. I used the system exactly the way I've outlined it on these pages - and it worked line.

And why did I leave fulltime freelancing if things were so good? You may be silently asking that question and I'llbe happy to answer: (1) I simply became disinterested in drawing cartoons fulltime, (2) I wanted to cut down theamount of hackwork necessary to earn a better-than-average living in order to try writing something other thanpure magazine humor and (3) a magazine - SKIN DIVER - offered me a very fine four-days-a-week position.Since I have been a skin diving enthusiast for years, this has proven to be both fascinating and profitable . . . and Ihave the satisfying knowledge that I've learned enough about freelancing to go back to it, fulltime, anytime I findthat either desirable or necessary, or both.

Now , if Mel Millar, Charlie Dennis, Bob Tupper or Pete Millar (who only recently began freelancing) could becoaxed into writing down their opinions, methods and reasons for freelancing, the younger, less experiencedcartoonists would have the information it took me some 15 years to obtain.

In other words, don't imagine for one minute that the entire behind-the-scenes story of freelance cartooning andhumor writing has ever been fully told.

Because it hasn't.

Issue 1 - January/February 1970

THERE'S GOLD in them tharmerchantsA GREEDY TREATISE REGARDING EASY LOOT by Cartoonist/Writer Carl Kohler . . . Author of that yet-to-be-written book, "1001 Dignified Ways To Pick Up Money On The Streets".

Everybody likes money. Everybody. I only knew one guy who didn't - and they wouldn't let him have anythingsharp while he sat out his days on the bench in the funnyhouse.

Lemme ask you a question: While you're waiting for those cartoons to come back from LOOK and PLAYBOY, whydon't you spend about four hours and earn yourself anywhere from $15 to $60 . . . or more?

It's easy. A snap. I've done it lots of times in the past, I'm doing it now and I'll probably be doing it (between batchessent to regular markets) for years to come. Unless you like to wash cars, mow lawns, set pins, drive cab, dig ditchesor engage in any work but cartooning . . . there's no better nor simpler way to make money.

"HOW?" you ask? By drawing cartoons for both local and distant merchants, industries and business organizations.Cartoons, of course, which are heavily commercial in slant and tone. If you work hard enough at it (I did at onetime) you can even support an entire family doing it.

The biggest advantage to this sort of cartooning is the breathtaking fact that you need only a few good gags. Gotthat? Only a few . . . good . . . gags. Gags which can be switched from one type of business to another. This savesboth time and mental energy for more glorious - if not profitable - cartooning.

I'll show you what I mean. Two days ago, I sat down and drew three cartoons. The ideas were slanted to interest aPest Control (termite exterminator, to you) outfit. Two of the drawings I left penciled. The third one I inked in. Theinked cartoon showed a frantic guy (clutching himself in an overstuffed chair), peering down at a mob of termiteswho were carrying guy, chair and all out of the room. Gagline:

"Madge! For crying out loud, call the BEAR STATE PEST CONTROL people! "

You'll kindly notice I put the company's name in caps. I did the same on the typed gagline on the cartoon.

The next day I phoned the BEAR STATE PEST CONTROL office and asked the manager if he would like to seesome slanted advertising cartoons which had been drawn exclusively for his company. I added he was under noobligation to buy. He agreed. So I merely went over there, let him look at the cartoons - and walked out, twentyminutes later, with a check for $45. He wanted all three cartoons and ordered the other two inked in . . . paying forall three on the spot.

Right now I'm preparing a set of three cartoons for an outfit whose specialty is getting rid of gophers. One of thesecartoons shows a guy cowering in a lawn chair. Carrying the guy, chair and all are four or five gophers. Guy yells:

"Helen! Hurry with that call to the LONG BEACH GARDEN CONTROL people!"

What a racket! And it's ethical and legal, too.

Maybe I should tell you not to specify the manner in which the advertiser is supposed to use the cartoon. Some usethem in newspapers, some use them on cards, others put 'em on blotters . . . and one guy (who bought $145 worth allin the same day) just hung them on the walls of his bar. DON'T GET YOUR CUSTOMER CONFUSED. UNLESSHE ASKS YOUR ADVICE - NEVER SUGGEST WHAT HE DOES WITH THE CARTOONS.

He may get puckered and suggest what you can do with them. This has been known to happen. Frequently. It did,several times, to me. I'd rather make money. Now, I keep my big, fat mouth closed unless the client asks me how heshould use the drawings.

While the biggest advantage lies in dealing with local businesses (since you can actually draw the cartoons andcollect the money the same day), there's nothing wrong with working by mail. Mail them just as you would regularbatches. It usually takes a businessman about a month to make up his mind, but you'll always get your unsolddrawings back if there was a stamped, self-addressed envelope in with your pitch and the cartoons. The pitch, itself,should be a paragraph (a short paragraph) long. Simply mention that readers remember cartoon ads . . . and look atthem longer. That'll do it.

It does for me . . . eight times out of ten.

I charge (nowadays) $15 per cartoon. Unless it's a BIG outfit. Then the price slides up to $25. When I was abeginner-cartoonist, I charged $5 - and I sold cartoons (commercial cartoons, this way) for six years before makingmy first magazine cartoon sale. I know of no better way to develop a good style, professional draughtsmanship andmake money while you do it.

Not long back, another cartoonist showed me a copy of THE SKIN DIVER magazine. SKIN DIVER doesn't payanything for the cartoons they use. They cannot afford to - their publishing budget is too small (they've since becomequite successful and now pay real money - Ed.) This cartoonist claimed he'd drop from hunger before eversubmitting cartoons to an outfit like that.

Well, let me show you an angle: I give cartoons to the magazine. And, after they're published, I drop advertisers (inSKIN DIVER) little notes. I mention that they've probably seen my work in that magazine . . . and. . uh . . wouldthey like to buy some good, exclusive (use the word exclusive) cartoons? They usually do. Last month, several did . .. to the tune of $150. Yes, I even like magazines that do not buy cartoons - so long as that magazine has payingadvertisers. Get the idea?

IG EDITORS NOTE: Wonderful slice of material from Relhok, eh? Selling slanted cartoons to local advertisers is agreat idea. I know. I did it once and it led to the drawing of over 700 bread cartoons for a local baker. I hit thejackpot there. $7,000 worth of cartoons from one letter and a couple of samples. So, if you give this a try, alwaysmention that you can do a SERIES for 'em, too.

Issue 1 - January/February 1970

ALL ABOUT AD CARTOONSLately, I've been getting a lot of mail from semi-professional and aspiringcartoonies, in which the same plea for more detailed scam on the avaricious art ofselling advertising cartoons is repeated... over and over.

Although I've pretty well switched completely into the humor-writing field, I stillhave plenty of cartoony blood oozing through my veins - and I am greatlyinterested in seeing a lot of potentially successful ad-cartoonists make the grade.Especially since there is about ten times the money and a thousand times thechance of making Instant Sales in the fascinating business of supplying fresh adcartoons to businessmen, commercial houses and general industry . . . all of whomare ready and eager to fling money at the cartoonist who can offer them exactlythe light advertising artwork they need for their products and services.

dlo larc relhok

WHAT IS AN ADVERTISING CARTOON? Any drawing in which either thecartoon or the gag line carries a cormmercial message - and the best kind slathersa commercial message in both gag line copy and in the picture.

MUST I WORK THROUGH AN AGENCY? Hell, no. When you sell ad cartoons you are your own agency, in asense. While there is a lot of very nice gold to be gotten by accepting ad cartoon assignments from agencies, theeasiest (and, in my opinion, the best) way is to simply contact your own clients, sell them on your ideas fordrawing public attention to their service or product - and collect your own fee.

MUST I BE LICENSED? Yes, if you plan to set up a regular ad cartoon service and operate as fully as any othertype of advertising agency. In most cities and towns this license fee rarely amounts to much more than a standard($25.00) commercial selling permit . . . and having it is more than worth the cost. Possession of the license keepsthe Merchants Association, the Chamber of Commerce and the other local associations very happy with you. Itmay also pave your way into businessmen's luncheons, etc. - and you will want all the recognition and acceptanceyou can get. Leave rebellion of convention to the starving magazine freelancers.

SHOULD I ADVERTISE MY SERVICE? If you think it will help - but there has never been a more successfulmethod of getting clients than by going out and cornering them, in person, with cartoons or a sketch pad in yourhot little hand. Men who cannot draw look upon artists with a strange admiration. You impress them and-if youcan impress them favorably - you've got the campaign half-won. The other, remaining half is providing materialthat will please the client.

SHOULD I HAVE A PHONE? Yes, if at possible. You'll find yourself getting a lot more Repeat Orders if yourclients can easily contact you. Contrary to freelance magazine cartoonists' thinking, few of today's buyers like tobother writing letters.

HOW MUCH SHOULD I ASK? Well, that should hang upon the outfit that is buying your work, how muchthey're buying and how often they will be buying it. A good, safe base rate for a straight line cartoon without toneis $10.00. If you have developed your style to the point where your magazine sales prove you to be a real pro - I'dmake my base rate $20.00. Remember, there's more money floating around in the advertising field than there is tobe had in the entertainment-cartooning (if there is such a thing since cartoons in magazines are indirectly there for

the advertisers) field. I think $10.00 should be absolute minimum, even if your client has a small business. This is1957, not 1931. (How about $15.00-$20.00 minimum for 1969, Carl?-Ed.)

SHOULD I HAVE LETTERHEAD STATEMENTS? Definitely. It not only looks more businesslike (something inwhich your clients believe and will, therefore, judge you upon), it tends to help the client remember you. Andthat's important.

WHAT IF I'M NOT A VERY TALKATIVE-TYPE GUY? You don't have to be. If you've studied your client'sbusiness before approaching him and have gotten some real punch in your samples . . . you can be a deaf-muteand still make plenty of good sales: The ad cartoon should be good enough, in its own right, to make the sale.Contrary to most conceptions of salesmanship, you aren't selling yourself. You're offering the opportunity for aclient to purchase a hot idea, conveyed in an unbeatable medium, for the right price. Never succumb to the notionyour client is doing you a favor. Quite the opposite. Idea men are actually rare. Which is why they are so soughtafter. You're doing the favor - even if you do expect to be paid for doing it. Great business, eh?

SHOULD I CHARGE EXTRA FOR REDRAWS? That's entirely up to you. In some cases, it's better business toredraw without extra charge. In others, you'll lose money without charging additional for any changes in theartwork. You'll just have to learn how to tell the difference by gaining your own experience. And don't let a fewmistakes or failures worry you: If I had 1 cent for every job I've goofed, I'd be a very rich pinhead. Rememberthis: The more you give for the price charged, the more clients you'll have.

DO I NEED FANCY PAPER AND SUPPLIES? No. You can successfully sell ad cartoons on the very same typeof 20 pound bond paper used in doing magazine cartoons. Stay away froms impressive matt jobs. A cartoon looksbetter the simpler it's drawn and presented. You'll make much more profit (in most cases) if you stay out of thecolor bit, too.

HOW DO I START? You pick up a phone directory, pick ten potential clients, study their ads, make some fine,slanted, commercial-type gags, draw 'em up cleanly, carefully, put on your hat and...

Issue 1 - January/February 1970

HOW I DO ITWhen I'm not going off at a tangent by getting myself involved with selling advertising space for various localmagazines or animated signs or any other fast-buck deal that looks sufficiently interesting to lure me from theoftimes lonely drawingboard and typewriter, I usually produce freelance material in three main forms: (1)Advertising cartoons, (2) Entertainment cartoons and (3) Humor pieces.

However, since I've done my share of howling estatically over the value of the ad cartoon - and since there are notlikely to be many would-be humorous article or story writers in the IG audience - I think I'll stick to the single-panel gag cartoon in this diatribe.

To be begin, I reluctantly admit I have no supremely masterful method of formulating gags. In fact, my gagwriting is rather a chaotic process: Something of a blemish upon my alleged professionalism if you consider that Ihave been hawking cartoons long enough to have whomped up some sort of systemized gag production.

Anyway, I simply: (A) Choose the magazine I intend to hit, (B) Study it thoroughly, being quite certain to read theeditorial section for slant and the ads for double slant and (C) Start working out gag situations based upon(generally speaking) some of the material already published in the magazine.

Take the FISHERMAN MAGAZINE, for instance. I first sold to them just last year. After studying a copy of thatbook, I sat me down behind the lightboard and stared a neat hole in a clean sheet of paper. I quietly considered theeditorial articles (freshwater fishing, saltwater fishing, types of gear used, boat handling, etc.), the advertising(rods, reels, hooks, lures, sinkers, boats, lines, etc.) and I mentally reviewed every fisherman I have ever known . .. tossing in recollections of my own fishing experiences for good measure.

At last, I decided the best approach would be to pick some very typical problem or happenstance familiar to anyguy who has ever spent a day trying to catch fish. Being married and knowing my wife is a good example offeminine criticism, I simply reached for a personal experience and came up with the following gag:

Guy coming through livingroom carrying rod from which dangles an empty hook with fantastically intricate lureon the line. Guy is sunburned, tired and disgusted, and has - obviously - been fishing without catching anything.Wife stares at weird-looking lure on the line, fascinated. She chirps:

"Honestly, John, you catch the dammdest looking fish!"

FISHERMAN bought that one (and four others similar to it) on the first trip out. I have little doubt but that youmight find a fancy term for the gag, classifying it as a This-type or That-type. And you may be right. In my book .. . it's just a gag . . . and nothing more.

A much neglected form (anyway, there aren't as many in print as I should think there would be if cartoonistsunderstood them better) is the multipanel gag. Aside from being a roomier form for humor, the M-P also makes adandy Regular Feature vehicle . . . being nothing more than a comic strip for magazines.

Below: One that I produced last year. I choose it; for a sample, because - while the idea isn't especially hilarious -the action has reasonably good continuity and this example clearly shows my preference for emphasizingemotional reaction to any given occurrence.

I find it awfully difficult to put into words my actual method of dreaming up (modifying, actually) the notions I'vepicked for various multi-panels. Having once worked as a storyman in the animated cartoon studios probably helpsgive me a sense of timing and basic continuity. But, here again, I rather believe I just flub along in a series ofattempts to work out the idea until everything kind of falls together - and the multi-panel seems (to my anxiouseye) to have reached a salable point.

In case anybody's curious: I draw on cheap dimestore paper (typewriter size), with a Scripto automatic pencil.Then, I slip the pencil sketch under a sheet of 20 lb. bond and ink the cartoon in, using an Esterbrook Inflexible322 steel pen point.

Naturally I do all my drawing and inking on a lightboard quite similar to the ones Gawge advertises. I simplycannot visualize working on any other type of board. If you haven't yet tried a lightboard . . . better look into it.Tracing inkers saves all kinds of redraw time and makes for cleaner roughs. Takes a little getting-used-to, though.

Ordinarily, when I'm freelancing and nothing more, I turn out 10 cartoons each day, six dauby days to the week.These 10a-day are broken down into two batches of five drawings each. Thus I schedule some 12 batches - weekly- for First Trip mailing. I try to get at least one humor piece into the mail each week. Regarding the ad cartoons, Ihave no particular, schedule: I catch 'em as they come or produce them after canvas calls have hit payload points.

Goldywise, I have two very firm rules: (1) I deal only with those books that pay promptly upon acceptance; (2) Imaintain a $10.00 minimum rate for any and/or all cartoons.

This is not to say I haven't been (in my opinion) shafted upon occasion by various shifty-minded publishers . . .but they only let me have it the Fast and Easy route once. I am fortunate in that I, currently, have a considerableamount of Assignment Jobs on a regular, agreed monthly basis. But these can be, occasionally, a pain where ithurts the most . . . especially when it's an elaborate assignment which is deadlined on the 10th of the month and Ireceive it on the 8th of the month. Certain editors (whom I shall mercifully refrain from unmasking) seem to have

a penchant for testing their contributors' patience, endurance, speed . . . and sanity.

It takes me slightly over 15 minutes to draw and ink a finished cartoon, once I've decided whose old gag torevamp . . . or, during my better moments . . . settled upon which of my old gags to revamp.

Once in a very long while I go a little mad and turn out tons of gags which I fondly believe are original. This issheer insanity, of course, but it salves my troubled gag-thief's mind. I am, perhaps, one of three scintillatinglyhonest cartoonists who are willing to admit not everything (hardly) they turn out originated - idea wise - withthem. I'd gladly name the other two guys but they've threatened to have me petitioned for Complete Blacklisting ifI graciously exposed them.

Now and then, some of my mordant critics stand up and demand to know where I get off copying Vip's style. Thisalways confuses me because - while I admit I was, years old, influenced by Partch's marvelous ability. to handlegrotesqueness - have deliberately used portions of other men's styles than the renowned Partch.

I sincerely believe my present style of drawing is reasonably developed to the point where it can safely beregarded as a separate, unique handling all by its lonesome . . . and it's based upon a blend of elements lifted fromthe styles of Frank Adams, Syverson, Tupper and Steinberg with, maybe, just a dash of animator's techniquetossed in.

But I sure as hell wish I could draw like David Stone Martin.

Who do you wish you could be as good as, eh?

Kordially, of Kourse,Uncle Relhok

Issue 1 - January/February 1970

What a Bunch of Characters!

If there's anything an editor likes better than a well slanted cartoon, it's a well slanted, offbeat cartoon feature.Preferably, something he doesn't see arrive (in dozens) every day of the week. The CHARACTER SPREAD issuch a cartoon feature.

And what is a CHARACTER SPREAD?

Pick a subject. Any subject. Sportscars, lawnmowing, seduction, fishing, drinking, sleeping, TV viewing . . .anything. Then, figure out 8 to 10 types of guys whose viewpoints on that subject just about cover it from everyangle.

Then - draw them . . . being certain you pack plenty of Oomph into each characterization and keep thebackgrounds simple to the point of almost zero. Include only the props necessary to put each characterizationacross. Write two to six sentences for each character, put the whole works in the mail to whichever magazine it'sslanted . . . and wait for the fat check to arrive from a delighted and grateful editor.

The CHARACTER SPREAD - besides being sufficiently offbeat to warm the editorial heart - has the addedadvantage of being a fluid product insofar as the editor's space problems are concerned. If he is unable to filch thenecessary space to use the whole spread at one time, point out that each unit (each Character) can be used one at atime over a series of issues. Most editors, however, seem to prefer using the spread all at once since it carries morewallop that way.

Although many professional cartoonists use the CHARACTER SPREAD from time to time, it's a leadpipe cinchfew editors of house organs and the smaller trade journals see decently built CHARACTER SPREADS. If youbegin marketing this cartoon form to them, you're gonna make all kinds of money. Even in the TJ field, it'scommon to ask - and get - $100 for a 10 part CHARACTER SPREAD. This is, of course, assuming the drawingsare good, the short copy fairly clever and the slant right on target.

Don't get the CHARACTER SPREAD confused with the ordinary, garden variety gag spread which is comprisedof several gag cartoons all on the same subject.

The CHARACTER SPREAD has no gags, no gaglines . . . only carefully delineated types and accompanying shortsentences with each character. It should go without saying (but I'll murmur it, to be safe) that you draw eachcharacter on a separate sheet of 20 pound bond paper, size 8 1/2 by 11 inches and the whiter the paper and theblacker the inker, the everlovin' better.

Carl Kohler, Noted Neurotic and Professional Loafer, hat done many of these CHARACTER SPREADS, sellingthem to all kinds of magazines for all kinds of prices ranging from $50.00 to $400.00 per spread. Here, taken froman exclusive interview, is precisely how he works:

Recently, Kohler drummed up enough energy to turn out a CHARACTER SPREAD which he titled, TIME FORA FEW QUICK SHOTS.

Basically, the spread was to make gentle sport of hunting enthusiasts. It was divided into 8 parts: THE SPARTAN,THE, TENDERFOOT, THE CAMP BUM, THE IMPOSTER, THE STRINGMAN, THE IMPROVISOR, THEDIEHARD and TELESCOPIC VS OPEN SIGHT. Let's take two units for closer examination:

THE SPARTAN: Drawing shows a lusty, muscular lout wearing only shorts, a hunter's cap and boots, packing ahuge knife and carrying a rifle. No background.

Accompanying copy reads: "This rugged type thinks camping equipment is strictly for sissies. Prefers to live offthe land' and is never happier than when well isolated from civilization, depending entirely upon hiswoodsmanship for survival - and sometimes he actually survives to his everlasting pride. "

THE IMPROVISOR: Drawing shows a crafty-looking chap wearing a disguise of assorted branches and leaves,holding all manner of moose calls, bear calls, squirrel calls and other gadgets. Vignetted background of trees.

Copy says: "This boy is nuts about scientifically fooling the game. Has perfected the art and even added a fewgismos of his own. Unfortunately he spends so much time luring the unwary game - he has never so much asgotten off a single shot at anything. "

The CHARACTER SPREAD technique can easily be applied to any subject. If you should choose Cars, show 8 or10 different types of drivers. If Electrical Wiring, Salesmanship or Plumbing is your choice, show 8 or 10 varyingtypes of individuals engaged in those topics. But keep your spread to no more than 10 drawings.

It's a splendid idea to always include a short note with every spread mailed, explaining that it may be used a unitat a time if the editor is cramped for entertainment space . . . and very honestly stating your minimum rate for theproperty. It's fabulous how many allegedly professional cartoonists are in a state of semi-poverty because they aretoo shy to state what they would like in the way of pay if the editor buys. There are even some dullarts whohaven't yet learned most editors like to dikker.

With approximately 8,000 markets for the CHARACTER SPREAD, you should be able to land on target with notrouble . . . and I hope you do, just as often as you like.

Issue 1 - January/February 1970

HUMOR THE EDITOREmboldened by all the kudos hurled at me in a recent issue of this chaotic sheet, I thought I might get away withadding a few more remarks concerning this dastardly business of selling cartoon-illustrated humor scripts toMagazine-land. What the hell . . . why only be half-confused when you can just as easily be completely confused.

Selling the first script to any book really isn't a particularly difficult accomplishment. Naturally, you won't believethis because you want to believe selling the first script is only second to getting to Mars via pogo stick when itcomes to difficult didoes. And I'm not gonna give you a fat argument about it.

In reality, the real strain begins to show after you've sold any book (or books) several funny pieces. About then,you start to wonder precisely how long you can keep up the mad, demanding pace. Some old sage or other isreputed to have once chirped: "Seducing the Muse is duck soup . . . but staying married to her takes talent." Theold boy wasn't whistling Dixie in my estimation.

I have but one suggestion for keeping up the furious, steady pace which insures a pleasant income of $100 to$10,000, monthly, from selling humor pieces. It goes like this: Read A Lot, Watch A Lot Of Television and Talkto Lots Of People.

Those three enjoyable items will go one hell of along way toward keeping your mind so heartily crammed withvariations, themes, schemes and notions that you should be able to hold out several years before The Great DrySlump starts breathing down your talented little neck. And don't worry. By the time The Great Horrendous DrySlump catches up with you, I'll probably have something else figured out for the both of us. You don't think I planto let US go down poverty alley, do you?

The second part of this symphony in flatted comment has mainly to do with treating Editors as though they werehuman, just like you and me. DO so.

All the time. Most editorial offices are hotbeds of chaos, high-gear anguish and garden variety aches which evenreinforced aspirin fails to ease. Here, in this tense atmosphere, your scripts arrive like a blast of hysterical cricketscoming into a boiler factory.

Most Editors willingly admit that they know very little about Humor. However, they also willingly admit (andthey're insistent about it) that they do know what makes them laugh. Whatever else you do in the next twenty-fiveyears, FIND OUT WHAT EACH EDITOR THINKS IS FUNNY - AND BASE ALL YOUR SCRIPTS,RESPECTIVELY, UPON EACH EDITOR'S NOTION OF HUMOR. This is, obviously, pretty close slanting . . . butthis kind of slanting eventually guarantees a 95% sales record and damned little remailing of scripts.

There are half a million other suggestions I could make, but it would require a book to hold them all. Think Ishould write a book?

Infinitely Yours,Carl Kohler

Issue 1 - January/February 1970

Gag Writers are Funny PeopleA PHILOSOPHICAL RAMBLE by Larc Relhok, who still believes most good Cartoonists are nothing more,nothing less than Gagwriters with one head.

They really are funny. Particularly when you face the fact that 80% of all published cartoons are written by themand not the cartoonist.

We inkstained churls can titter all we like - about Gagwriters thinking themselves more important to Cartoondomthan they really are - but when the batches are ready for mailing, we cannot (dreamers though we may be) fail toadmit a hell of a lot of us would, many times, be up the Proverbial Creek had we no faithful, talented Gagwriter tochurn up the basic idea or complete idea ready to be decorated with characterization, perspective and styling.

I say this simply because - in addition to drawing cartoons - I write cartoon ideas. This makes me a Gagwriter,doesn't it? It must. I write ideas for my own drawings. I've written them for other, more proficient artists . . . andI've sold typed ideas directly to various magazines.

Don't knock Gagwriters to this Gagwriter, boys. I'm too sympathetic to the breed.

But I must also admit that most Gagwriters are missing the boat in a very profitable field, and have been missingit for Lo, these long years. That's funny too.

Here the magazines are, practically screaming for good, slanted humor copy (in lengths of 1,500 to 2000 words)for which the editors will delightedly pay 3¢ to 100¢ a warped adjective . . . and yet the Gagwriter (as far as I'vebeen able to tell) insists upon sticking solely (or almost solely) to batting out cartoon ideas. Leaving potentialchecks of $75 to $200 just laying there . . . in favor of $2.50 checks for ideas sold through some cartoonist'smedium.

Know what I'd do if I couldn't draw but had a sense of humor? I'd find a cartoonist who would be willing to dothree line (cartoon) illustrations, on spec, for me. Then I'd pick a good, middle-market book and bang out a wellslanted humor piece directed to that book's readership. After that, I'd tell my illustrator how I wanted the cartoon-illustrations. And, when the package sold (I'd market both the illustrations and copy as a package), and I had thecheck in my hot little hand, I'd kindly pay off my illustrator to the tune of $5 or $10 per drawing . . . dependingupon how much our combined efforts brought.

Puts the shoe on the other foot, for a pleasant change, eh?

Of course, since I do draw, I've been my collaboration team for quite some time. Books like POPULARELECTRONICS, CATS MAGAZINE, SKIN DIVER, HOT ROD, HOME MOVIES, CAR CRAFT, MOTORTREND and others pay lovely checks of $50 to $200 for cartoon illustrated (usually, three drawings) humor pieces(averaging 1,500 words).

Furthermore, they are happy to get the written humor since nobody seems to be taking the trouble (this is trouble?)to offer it to them. A number of editors have told me they see tons of written jokes, short (200 word) humorousfillers and - of course - the usual deluge of cartoon roughs . . . but seldom do they find a jazzy, well slanted humorpiece complete with illustrations (thereby saving a small budget book the cost of "farming out" the art work) in theslush pile. When they do, occasionally, find one . . . they all cheer and have an extra martini during lunch.

As far as my cartoon illustrated humor pieces are concerned, I have experienced damn little difficulty selling them.

Naturally, there are reasons for this. Here are three of them: (1) I usually query the editor in advance, briefing himon the particular approach or topic I want to cover, (2) I make it my business to study the book I'm trying to selland (3) I always include cartoon illustrations since they help me sell the script.

Maybe I better say that again, a bit louder: CARTOON ILLUSTRATIONS WILL HELP SELL ANY WELLSLANTED, REASONABLY WELL WRITTEN HUMOR SCRIPT.

Occasionally I see a brother cartoonist making a successful stab at this specialized field . . . and doing very nicelyat it. Pete Millar is one artist whose ability to thrum up a Special Feature utilizing words and cartoons is sheerpleasure.

There are others who, in addition to hawking their roughs, frequently have a profitable change of pace into theHumor Piece department . . . but I seldom see a gagwriter hitting the bell. And this worries me.

It worries me because most gagwriters are supposed to be, basically, Humorists. And if this assumption is true . . .why aren't they teaming up with cooperative (Cooperative: Thirty cent Armenian word meaning, "Hell yes, I'd liketo make a little extra gold, dad.") cartoonists and storming the Humor Piece field?

Like I say, it frets me. Editors were never more willing to be sold written humor. Many of them actually offerbonus pay if the writer will supply regular, monthly offerings slanted to their books. Bonus pay (in case you'venever heard of it) is sometimes $20, sometimes $50, in addition to the regular check at whatever rates the bookspay or the writer (or writer/cartoonist team) can demand.

If you think this all sounds mighty like I'm smoking weird weeds, I humbly suggest YOU try it and then trybringing me down after the first three-figure check bruises your mailbox. You may, if you insist, cable me yourlove. I dig everybody but ingrates.

And now you'll excuse me. I have a stack of typers to illustrate, several typed ideas to send PLAYBOY, anotherbatch to get out for some cartoony friends . . . and a regular stash of humor copy (I may illustrate some if it myself)to get out.

Good Lord, there's almost too much money to be made.

Issue 1 - January/February 1970

JeeezelyYou cannot possibly realize how courageous I'm being by simply writing for this Journal Of The Talented.Everytime I whomp up something for these pages, mail starts flooding my mailbox . . . all of it telling me what adolt and laggard and poseur I am. Naturally, I'm learning Caution.

However . . . all this talk about not doing cartoons for less than $10 was just too much for me. I've tried and triedhard (it wasn't easy) to ignore it, but I've succumbed at last and must laugh right in your face.

And why am I presuming to be so rude?

Because - as of this morning - I turned out 20 cartoons that will sell for $5 each. It took me all morning to drawthem. Kinda crazy, eh? Spending an entire morning earning a lousy $100?

Furthermore (and get this now), the editor wrote the gags. Pretty stupid setup, eh? What's more, I've got about fivesuch editors - all of them editing very specialized books that badly need at least 4 technical cartoons a month, each- doing their own gag writing . . . and assigning the artwork to me.

It can't be done? Wanna bet cash on it? Hell, there are many such editors who would be delighted to have acartoonist (one whose style they prefer, of course) do the artwork on special gags. This is becoming a verycommonplace method, in freelance cartooning - just in case you've been so busy spec-freelancing you've failed tohear about it.

Nobody in their right mind draws except on assignment anymore. That is, for 80% of their Bread and Buttermoney. Naturally, everybody (I guess) still whomps out a few to "Hopeful" markets . . . and they should. Butignore all the assignment work in the middle and minor books? Not me, frent. And you shouldn't either..

But back again to this Brave Plan For Raising Rates. It may work beautifully for some of you . . . at some books.However, you can safely wager there will be many, many books that will view such shenanigans with a cold eye.And those are the books I plan to approach (by mass query) with the notion of doing their cartoons on assignmentif they'll write the gags.

Have you ever thought of working for $5 per, say, for a few months and then, in a nice businesslike way,requesting a modest rate raise to $7.50 . . . and several months after that, to $10? Of course you haven't. You're afreelance cartoonist, not a sane businessman! But it works - assuming the editor really likes your work. And if hedoesn't like your work that much? Then you aren't building any future by working for him in the first place.

Editors are people. People do not take to change (especially sudden change) very kindly. But work them up to it,gradually, and you'll be astounded at the results. This simple advice is not original. It's been written hundreds oftimes by cartoonists much more gifted artistically than I'll ever be . . . and whose shrewd business sense makes meappear naive by comparison. And this simple (but sage) advice works.

Years and years ago, Lew Card wrote: "You'll make more money with your typewriter than you ever could withyour drawing board." He was 100000% correct. Trouble is, just because he invented the typer-system ofcartooning, everybody naturally thought he was talking entirely about typers - which he wasn't. Not entirely.

He meant . . . queries, too.

A query is such a nice, uncomplicated item. It only costs 6¢ to send and it saves you a whale of a lot of time and

labor . . . and often produces rather wonderful results.

Yet, sending out 200 to 1000 queries is damned hard work. And (I'm inclined to believe) most cartoonists wouldprefer to risk time drawing cartoons and risk postage by marketing them on pure (or near pure) speculation. Thatinsanity seems to be a fairly uniform attribute of the cartooning critter regardless of style or stage. This has giventoo many editors the cruel upper hand, lo, these long years.

I have nothing against $10 sales. Like any other working pro, I make a lot of them and I love them - if I can't getmore. But I like the $5 variety too - provided I don't have to write a gag for it - and so should you on the samepremise.

For instance: Ever thought of combing the small, specialty books with an offer to do a regular, monthly FeatureCharacter panel for them? Offering a Trade Character doing hilarious things familiar to the guys in that particulartrade . . . and asking, say, $7.50 for such a specialized item?

Try it. It might surprise you how many editors would love to have a feature they could count on coming in, withthe proper slant, every month. Eventually, you'll get $10 or $15 for it. Multiply that by 20 or 30 editors and youcan tell the boss to go to hell while you retire home to freelance fulltime.

It's been done. I know several guys who are beginning to do it, just that way, right now. But remember, writequeries (enclosing a sample of the particular character you have in mind, which should vary with each magazine)first.

I better quit before I find I've written a full chapter on the spec-less methods of selling cartoons.Goodbye, churls.

. . . . . Carl Kohler

Issue 1 - January/February 1970

MARKETing HUMOR COPYGenerally speaking, there are two ways to market cartoon-illustrated humor scripts: (1) You simply put thefinished script plus illustrations into the envelope, add a self-addressed, stamped return envelope and promptlymail. (2) You write a letter, querying the editor about his possible interest in your humor piece, briefly describingit and its slant. .

Although I have used both methods, I am inclined to believe the first method very often brings home the baconsince humor is almost impossible to adequately "describe" - and seeing the finished script sometimes overcomesany latent hesitation an editor might have if he had to visualize, imaginatively, a piece described.

However, should you like to try the Query Method, here is the sort of letter I usually write:

Dear Mr. -----:Would your book be interested in seeing, on spec, a 1,500 word humor piece, complete with three cartoonillustrations as a package deal?

Primarily, this piece is a lightly handled account of (and describe your subject, matter, theme and conclusion)which I think might very well offer your book editorial change-of-pace and entertainment for your readers.

Sincerely yours,

Be sure you enclose a self-addressed, stamped reply business envelope. Be damned sure you include the words,"package deal". These are magic words to editors of small magazines.

When I use the direct submission method, I always enclose a brief note to the editor along with the finishedproperties. It usually goes something like this:

Dear Mr.------:

The enclosed humor piece and accompanying cartoon illustrations are offered as a package deal. I hope it landson target.

Sincerely yours,

Right about here, I want to emphatically disagree with those who have referred to the humor piece as "easymoney". It's not. If anything, a well slanted, carefully planned and written script-running from 1,000 to 2,000words - requires a lot more thinking and labor than several batches of cartoons. And should earn as much, if not ahell of a lot more for you, than several batches of cartoons.

You set your own standard of expectations, of course . . . but you're batty if you accept less than what slantedhumor copy complete with cartoon illustration, package-deal, is actually worth. Such packages are not often seen -especially in the smaller editorial offices. Don't let existing cartoon or copy rates influence your rates. At the sametime, don't get too unrealistic in your rates.

And what is good humor/illustration worth? Well, not less than $50.00 for 1,000 words plus two illustrations.About $75.00 for 1,500 words plus two or three illustrations. (Scale that up 50-100% for 1970-Ed. )

Naturally, take as much as you can get. Good, well slanted humor is worth a decent price by virtue of its scarcity.As you progress (assuming you stay with it), you will be astounded to find $5.00 cartoon markets gladly shelling

out $80.00 to $200.00 for 1,500 to 2,000 word humor scripts with two to four illustrations . . . PROVIDING youhave given the book exactly what it needs in slant plus a lot more in offbeat feature material.

Recently, an IG contributor suggested that a writer send his script to the illustrator working with him for addedevaluation on rewrite. This is sheer nonsense and a waste of time.

Most cartoonists don't know beans about writing. If the gagwriter knows his end of the business and has produceda salable script, the cartoonist will be doing his job if he confines his attention to producing equally goodillustrations to accompany the script. I'm not saying cartoonists cannot learn to write. Many can. But I amassuming the only writer/cartoonists teams will be those comprised of gagwriters who cannot draw and cartoonistswho cannot write. Why add confusion to the collaboration?

If you are a cartoonist who can write, then you have no business hitching up your checks with a gagwriter. In fact,editors seem to possess a special preference for a cartoonist who can write and illustrate. Anyway, that's been myexperience.

Hardly a month goes by without additional illustration assignments coming my way from editors who havepurchased humor copy sans illustration. And, for the most part, they prefer a package deal from one guy ifpossible. The only way a gagwriter can combat this is to learn how to turn out such superior humor copy that he isliterally outwriting his competitors.

I'll make it plain - right here - that I consider a 50/50 sharing of a check from a humor piece sale to be utterlystupid. If anything, it should be 70/30 with the writer getting the bigger percentage. It requires a hell of a lot moreskill to turn out salable wordage than it does to illustrate that wordage.

There are many magazines that will take a script and illustrations, monthly, if they are written in the First Personwith a fictional treatment built around an imaginary character in keeping with the book's subject matter. Thus, ifyou turn out regular pieces using the ficticious name of Pete McPipewrench, there's a splendid chance that theASSOCIATED PLUMBERS' NEWSBLATT will buy them all year long and love you for producing them.

A final word on the matter: Keep the copy clean and with wide margins. Keep all illustrations drawn on theVertical unless an editor specifies otherwise

. . . . .Carl Kohler

Issue 1 - January/February 1970

mish-moshWhenever I hear or read that PLAYBOY or THIS WEEK or LOOK are the "Best Markets", I feel a little likedrowning myself in one of the inkpots. Sure, these books are the Better Paying Markets. No doubt about that. Bitit seems to me that the "Best Markets" are whichever books buy most steadily from any cartoonist. . .whether theirrates are $5.00 or $500.00 per inked outrage. I agree with you this philosophy could be nothing more than a fatbunch of sour grapes since my sales hover around the middle market range. But you must admit forty $15.00 saleseach month somehow offer solace. Any cartoonist who has been plying his craft (oh, all right, let's be importantand call it a 'profession') for more than five years and cannot make forty sales a month had better investigate theprofits huddled behind rassling a paid job.

* * *

Another of my insane theories clears its throat and chants: Too many promising beginners get into the misleadingrut of waging a full-scale campaign to rack up sales when they could better be spending some of their drawingtime studying The Improvement Of Drawing Technique. I'm fairly certain this accounts for the many, manycartoonists whose ability to draw simply does not improve as the years (and the sales) stagger by. While practice -even that gained through drawing endless roughs to be marketed - does help anybody's drawing, there is nothinglike some concentrated study to weed out chronic errors and smooth up a style.

* * *

For years, I have wondered why the gagwriting element - those who claim a great passion for producing humorcopy, anyway - have not gotten together with cartoonists and, in cahoots with each other, produced the shorthumor essays illustrated with three or four cartoons and slanted to the various markets that want this type offeature so intensely that they are usually willing to pay prices for said features which will wreck havoc with thebooks' budgets. For that matter, many magazines are delighted to have the chance to buy properly slanted lightlyhandled copy . . . and are quite willing to assign the illustrations to a fair-haired cartoony if the humor piece comesin sans pictures.

* * *

I seem to sense a return to the truly - impossible among the cartoons being purchased and published by a goodnumber of books. Perhaps I am just overly imbued with a hope that such a trend is quietly, powerfully takingplace. Maybe I'm just sensing things I'd like to see. I don't know. But quite a few of the editors to whom I peddlehumor have remarked-more and more, lately-that the quality of incongruity is what makes humor . . . and the lackof it is responsible for breaking humor. And incongruity does not, frent, consist of a drawing portraying a wifehanding a husband the snow shovel while she chirps in clearcut Bodoni the cut-line, "Get going". I wonder whatTed Key will do if incongruity ever comes back in full force?

* * *

A young cartoonist dropped in for a visit the other day, and he wanted to know if I didn't think most editorsplayed favoritism to the hilt. I told him I certainly think most of them do - and I don't blame them for doing so.Everybody on earth has special preferences in food, clothing, art, literature, sports and women. Why, then, is itdeemed so criminal for an editor to quite naturally have preferences among the various contributors who help himfill those blank areas between the advertisements? The trick is simply to keep submitting your stuff until you'vefound the two dozen or so editors who are flamboyantly partial to your work. And then ignore all other books untilthey hire new editors. Whereupon, you get into marketing motion again. Somewhere, there are editors who willthink your cartoons make those of Carl Kohler look like pretty wrinkled prunes, indeed.

* * *

The April, 1958 issue of ESQUIRE carried a fine article by Malcolm Muggeridge, ex-editor of PUNCH, theBritish magazine of humor. Every cartoonist, gagwriter and humorist in this country should read it . . . and thinkupon what Muggeridge had to say. The lack of irreverence in today's humor offerings may be a hideous clue as toexactly how stifled humor will find itself in the years ahead - unless quite a number of operating humorists startdoing battle right now. The book that refuses to buy humor material which gently spoofs the foibles of its ownreadership isn't really purchasing true humor . . . no matter how many illustrated jokes it may publish.

Got a letter from a churl who wants to know: "Do you include a note to the editor when you submit stuff, Kohler?" Well, if I know him or have sold to him previously . . . yeah, I usually write a ten page letter. But I seldomenclose a note if I'm hitting a book for the first time. I figure the material should sell itself. Occasionally, I ask aquestion regarding editorial needs. But you gotta do this right or you'll goof the whole deal.

* * *

Comes a nice, fat question from somebody in New York City: "I've seen your multipanel cartoons in severalmagazines and I've wondered how you manage to get so many regular cartoon features going?

Well . . . you might write a brief letter, telling the editor you'd like to produce a slanted cartoon feature on amonthly, arranged basis for his book. Mention you'll submit pencil roughs in advance of his deadlines (later, he'llaccept ideas from typers) giving him his choice of several. Or allow him to cue you on each month's "theme"around which you'll build suggested situations. Stick in a finished drawing and several pencil roughs. Send outabout 25 of these a week and you should be getting okays for regular feature work. Just be damn sure you neversludge a deadline. I don't want to advise you in too much detail, but you probably would have a tremendoussuccess among the books with smaller budgets. For some reason (unknown to me) they are quite enthusiastic aboutthis sort of arrangement cartooning.

* * *

If you are interested in getting into Commercial Cartooning in a truly successful manner, the following may (ormay not) put you in there bigger than life and twice as instantly:

Make up a nice, all around presentation of your published and unpublished work, have it photostated, put thephotostats into neat folders, enclose an original inker with each, write a brief note mentioning your availability andmail (or take) the whole furshlugginer works to several Advertising Agencies. It only takes a connection with oneor two decent-sized agencies to give your monthly income a real boost. Anyway, when I was after this kind ofassignment cartooning, I never missed a month without at least $100 worth of work on some assignment or other.

Yes, there's a disadvantage: Usually the Art Director insists that you work as closely as possible with him. Thisentails trudging down to his office. Some of you churls won't mind this at all. Those who will mind it can return totheir drawing boards now and forget that I said anything in the first place. Hell, I'm only trying to ThinkPositively. Honest.

Issue 1 - January/February 1970

THE PLAINS INDIAN TIPI"There were 50 tents made of tanned hides, very bright red and white in color and bell-shaped, with flaps and openings, and built as skillfully as those of Italy, and so large that inthe most ordinary ones four different mattresses and beds were easily accommodated. TheIndians . . . are as well sheltered in their tents as they could be in any house. "

From Don Juan de Oñate's account of a 1599 Great Plains expedition

"Tazhebute came to join us with a good Indian tent . . . Those tents have no equal forcamping purposes. They shed the rain well, and in cold weather one can build afire right inthe center of them, with the smoke rising cleanly up out of the top, where the flaps are setto suit the way of the wind.

"Thomas Henry Tibbles, describing an 1881 trip among the Ponca Indians in his book,BUCKSKIN AND BLANKET DAYS

"Ye kin live in it forty below zero and fifty 'bove suffocation an' still be happy. It's thechangeablest kind of a layout for livin' in. "

Caleb Clark, The Old Trapper, in Ernest Thompson Seton's TWO LITTLE SAVAGES, 1903

"It's a whole new trip, man. It's, like, living inside and outside both at once. During the day- even on dark days - a tipi has a mellow, even illumination that's never been equalled in ahouse. When it rains, you're right out in it . . . yet protected, you know? Like, you're rightthere, man, but warm and dry too. And at night . . . wow . . . It's a groove to watch the firemaking shadows on the wall and - later - maybe wake up to see the moon or some starsshining down through the poles in the smoke hole. Fantastic.

"I once heard Buckminster Fuller tell how he wanted to build a double-walled geodesic dome house for moviedirector John Houston and Fuller's basic idea was that living in the place would be a natural inside-outside thing.But it's already been done, man. Like, the Indians were WAY ahead. "

A back-to-the-land tipi dweller, 1969

For over 400 years, knowledgeable people have agreed that the Plains Indian tipi is absolutely the finest of allmovable shelters. To the Indian - whose concept of life and religion was broader, deeper, richer and infinitelymore unified than that of his white conqueror - the tipi was much more: Both home and church . . . a sacred placeof Being and sharing with family, friends, Nature and Man-Above.

Unfortunately, the white man - with a fragmented and neatly compartmented view of existence - found the All-encompassing Indian way literally "beyond understanding" and, therefore, of no consequence. This high-handedand naive judgment extended, of course, to the lodges of the Plains Indians.

"We could not only move ourhouses but could move entirevillages, and we often did. In thisrespect we were better off thanthe white man is. We moved tosuit the seasons, in summer or inwinter; we moved to be near agood supply of wood and water,or for fresh pasture for ourponies."

THE ARAPAHO WAY Althea Bass

"The Sioux and Cheyennes used a

In the "either-or" white mind, the tipi was flimsy and primitive when compared to asolid, substantial frame building. The fact that a tipi was bright, open, airy, warm,dry and easily transported over (and, therefore, a part of) all outdoors while theframe structure was - and largely remains - closed in, dark, poorly ventilated andrather pathetically rooted to one spot was completely beside the point to thisschizoid way of thinking.

Luckily, our "civilized" appraisal of the Indian way is now going through somechanges and that more reverent life style is increasingly understood and embracedby the new Gentle People. As one result of this trend, the tipi - so much a part ofPlains Indian life - is enjoying a sudden popularity.

The tipi is not the final answer for everyone, of course (even the Plains Indiansbuilt other structures), but it remains - time, money and labor vs. comfort, utility

three-pole tripod foundation, withone pole being placed so as tosupport the right side of the door,thus projecting slightly lower thanthe others at the rear. The otherpoles were then piled around thisfoundation. The Crows used afour-pole foundation, the apex ofwhich could be easily notedbelow the apex of the remainderof the poles."

THE FRONTIER YEARSBrown and Felton

"The poles, necessary for theconstruction of these movabledwellings, are not to be found inany part of the country of theKaskalas, but are purchased fromthe Indians of Missouri, or othersinhabiting countries moreplentifully supplied with timber.We are Informed by Bijeau, thatfive of these poles are, among theBad-hearts, equal in value to ahorse."

Major Stephen H. Long1819-1820 Expedition

"The tanning is so fine thatalthough it should rain bucketfuls,it will not pass through nor stiffenthe hide, but rather upon drying itremains as soft and pliable asbefore."

Don Juan de Oñate

and versatility - probably the world's most efficient shelter. If you've ever wantedone for camping, semi-permanent or even permanent living, here's how to make ithappen:

TIPI DESIGN

There are two basic Plains Indian tipis: One uses three foundation poles and theother has four. Our plans are for the three pole design which is simpler, strongerand - in general - superior to the four pole model. The dimensions given here arelargely taken from the Sioux tipi pattern presented by Reginald and Gladys Laubinin their University Of Oklahoma Press book, THE INDIAN TIPI.

Just to get it straight right in front, the Laubin book is the authoritive work on theIndian tipi and contains a wealth of information on the construction, tradition andlore of the tipi that you won't find here or anywhere else. We're going to give youdetailed instructions on making, pitching and living in a tipi . . .but if you reallywant to learn about this shelter, you've got to read THE INDIAN TIPI.

THE POLES

Indian tipis varied from slightly less than 10 feet in diameter, for huntingexpeditions, to permanent lodges with a diameter of more than 30 feet. The largerstructures naturally required more and longer poles than the smaller ones. We'vecompromised on a tent diameter of approximately 18'6" (roomy but easilytransported by car) and - for this size - you'll need 17 poles about 25 feet long.

The fifteen poles used in the frame should be three or four inches thick at the buttand two inches through where they cross and tie. The two smoke flap poles need beno thicker than two inches at the butt. The best poles always come from a young,crowded stand where each tree has grown tall and slim reaching for the sun.

Red and white cedar make exceptionally light, strong supports which were prizedby some tribes. Lodge-pale pine (guess how it got its name) and western yellowpine are both heavier but still make good tipi supports. If none of these areavailable; use the best timber you can find for the job or buy some fast quality2X4's, rip them lengthwise on a taper and round the corners with a draw knife orjoiner.

If you do find some suitable timber, cut the trees early in the spring (remember, when selecting, to allow forremoval of bark and shrinkage) and trim off all knots and branches "up the tree" with an axe or chainsaw.

Lay each pole across two sawhorses (small blocks nailed to the horses 4" apart will keep the poles from tuning)and - starting at the butt - straddle the pole and peel it with a sharp draw knife. Season the peeled poles by layingthem flat across pieces of scrap lumber spaced two feet apart on a patch of open ground. Let the pores air and suncure for three to four weeks. Turn them regularly so they'll season out straight and true.

The Laubins recommend a good application of pentachloraphenol, log oil or floor hardener to preserve and protectthe finished poles. If you're on the non-chemical trip, you may prefer to let the wood age naturally . . . orcompromise on a couple coats of linseed oil rubbed in.

THE COVER

A properly tanned hide tipi cover was a beautiful creamy white and you're going to want a white, pearl grey,yellow or other bright canvas for your cover. The colored canvas - blue, green, brown and olive drab - so dear tothe hearts of most tent makers is not at all traditional and will make your finished tipi dark and dreary inside. The

"I seen a bunch of squaws make[a tipi] oncet. First they sewed theskins together. No, first thar was alot o' prayin'; ye kin suityerselves; 'bout that - then they

coated "modem" fabrics also shut out too much light and the Laubins have found that muslin exposed directly tothe sun has a short life. So a light colored, light weight canvas it is.

If you can obtain an 8 or 10 oz. duck canvas in 72" width, you'll save some work and your tipi will have fewerseams. It's hard to find canvas that wide, however, so we're basing our design on a fabric of 36" width.

Shop around. I priced waterproofed 8 oz. duck from $1.10 to $1.75 and 10 oz. at$1.25 to $2.00 a running yard in Cleveland while writing this article. I believe Icould have found lower prices if I had really gotten into it . . . so use the oldpurchasing. agent's rule of thumb: Always get at least three quotes before makingany major purchase.

sewed the skins together an'pegged it down flat on theprairie."

Caleb Clark

"[The squaws] put in a peg at themiddle of one side. Then with aburnt stick an' a coord - yes, theremust 'a' been a coord - theydrawed a half circle - so."

Caleb Clark

". . . and there is rows o' holesdown - on each side fur the lacin'pins."

Caleb Clark

[1] Cut six pieces of 36" wide, 8 or 10 oz. canvas (8 oz. is much easier to work,makes a lighter tipi and is less expensive) 38'6", 38', 36'7", 34'4", 30'10" and 25'10"long.

Find the center of each piece and spread out the canvas as shown in Figure 1. Thestrips should be laid together like shingles on a roof so water will run off, ratherthan under, the seams.

A flat seam, like dressmakers use on a shirt, is recommended for sewing the stripstogether. If you intend to "farm out" this part of the job, try to find a tent makerwho will use flat seams. I'm sure there's a better way . . . but here's a method weworked out for sewing such seams:(a) If your canvas is 36" wide (37", counting selvage), lay two strips together withwhat will be the inside surfaces of the fabric touching and outside surfaces awayfrom each other. The strip that is longest (and will later end up on top) should be onthe bottom and extending three-quarters of an inch.(b) Turn the allowance edge evenly up over the edge of the top strip and sew. Adouble stitch is highly recommended.(c) Flop the two pieces of canvas over and . . .(d) . . . swing the strip which is now on the bottom through until it is an extension of the new top strip.(e) Run another row of double stitches down the lower edge of the seam.The finished flat seam will look like Detail f on Figure 1.

[2] When all six strips are sewed together, lay the cover out flat again and locate the center of the upper (longest)strip. Measure down 20 inches from the top edge of this strip and out 8'6" in both directions from its center line.Cut off and remove the 20" by approximately 10'9" rectangles from the two upper corners of the strip.

Note that the cut made perpendicular to the edge of the canvas is extended to a depth of 24" even though the pieceremoved is only 20" deep. The extra four inches will later be turned under for a hem.

Sew the two removed panels into one strip. Center and attach this long narrow piece to the bottom of the 25'10"strip. This will extend the whole canvas enough to allow you to chalk and cut a 19'3" radius from the center of thetop edge of the tipi cover.

Set a peg at point "X" and swing your chalk on a length of cord that will not stretch. You can also drill a hole forthe peg in a board or piece of plywood, drill a second hole for the chalk in another and nail the two sections to a2X4 so that the holes are the proper distance apart.

The selvage on tent canvas - unlike the selvage on most other fabrics - is not cut off and removed. This means thatyour 36" wide material is actually 37" wide. The pattern we are using was designed to give you the most tipi fromthe least material and - if your six seams across the cover are one half to three-quarters of an inch wide - the 19'3" radius will not run off the bottom edge of the pieced-together fabric. If the radius does run off the bottom, don'tworry. Just cut another scrap and piece out the bottom center a little further . . . or pull in the string and make theradius 19'1" or 19'2". You'll never notice the slight difference in final tipi size.

[3] Directly below "X", on the first seam, measure 3" each way from the center line (total of 6") for the base of thetie flap. Cut from these points straight out to Point X. Trim and hem the resulting long, narrow triangle (6" by 24")to a flap 6" wide by 8" long as shown in Detail 3a.

The four inches (difference between 20" and 24") allowed when the corner panels were removed from the top ofthe cover can be turned down and pinned while a half oval is cut from each side of what will become the tipi'sfront. The half ovals will later form the door of the shelter and each cut should finish out, after hemming,approximately 46" long by 10" deep and be located 12" in from the cover's outside radius.

The four inches down each side of the tipi's front can be permanently turned and hemmed before or after the doorhalves are cut and finished out. If you are - or can procure the services of - a good seamstress, you may want toput a facing around the door ovals and then hem the front edges. When you do sew this hem, be sure to make it

only 3 1/2" wide with the extra 1/2" turned under again (Detail 3b) so no raw edge is left exposed.

After the 3 1/2" hem is finished . . . lay out, cut and stitch in the lacing pin holes below the door opening andbetween the door and the base of the smoke flaps.

The holes on the left side start 3/4" from the hemmed door and the two rows are spaced 1 1/2" apart with theoutside row set 3/4" from the edge. Use the same edge distance for the holes on the right side, but space the tworows 2" apart. The 1/2" difference will make lacing pin insertion considerably easier and neater when the right sideis lapped over the left.

The Laubins recommend a vertical spacing of 7" between each set of holes although - if you like a lot of tedioushand work - you can space them as close as 4". Note that it is not necessary to run the holes all the way to the baseof the smoke flaps. Tie tapes, added later, will be better than lacing pins for closing that space.

"Thar's a upside down pocket inthe top side corner o' each smokeflap

Caleb Clark

"Then at the top of that pint yefasten a short lash-rope."

Caleb Clark

To make each hole, cut a little cross with quarter inch arms in the canvas andbuttonstitch around it with No. 10 unbleached shoemaker's thread coated withbeeswax (3c). If done properly, this will make a 3/8" diameter, self-reinforcedround hole and no grommets will be needed.[4] The top horizontal piecing seam is now opened for 39" on each side of the 6"base of the tie flap. A gore of 39"x39"x7" finished size (with one inch added allaround for seams) is sewed into each opening (4a). Flat seams, again, are best andyou'll probably prefer to sew in these gores by hand.

The Laubins rightly claim that all other popular writers on the tipi have overlookedthese gores which so greatly help the finished cover fit around the tipi poles. Other authors, such as Seton, showthe flaps cut wider at the top . . . but that's not the same thing at all. The Laubins deserve full credit, to myknowledge, for bringing this important detail to light.

An 8" by 24" (final size) extension is now added to the base of each smoke flap (4b). These 8" extensions aremore authentically Cheyenne than Sioux. The Sioux only occasionally added extensions of - usually - no morethan 4". This slight deviation from a strictly Sioux pattern really helps to "weathertight" a tipi during heavystorms, however, and is a worthwhile addition. Again, allow for hemming the flaps and sewing them on with a flatseam.

[5] Some pole pockets, cords and reinforcing added to the smoke flaps will now complete the tipi cover. For eachpole pocket, cut two or three thicknesses of canvas, sew as shown in Detail 5a and attach firmly to the uppercorner of the smoke flap. A switch of human or horse hair fastened to the tip of the pocket makes a traditionaldecoration.

Sew two tapes, each three feet long, to the tie flap and an 18 inch long tie tape to the base of each smoke flap. Thetapes are made by folding together a 3" wide strip of canvas into a triple-thick one inch wide band that is doublestitched down both sides (5b).

Note that the tape on the base of the left smoke flap is sewed to the top side of the hem and the right smoke flap'stape is placed on the under side of the hem. This is not a mistake. When the cover is in position with the right sidelapped over the left, the tapes - so mounted - will be properly positioned for easiest tying.

Buttonhole stitch a small hole in the lower corner of each smoke flap and attach a 3/16" cord 16 feet long.

The crosshatching on Figure 5 indicates four layers of reinforcing stitched by hand to the under side of the cover inthe areas of main stress. This reinforcing is essential.

As a final reinforcement, you can-if you choose-sew a length of 3/16" cord around the tie flap and along the topedge of the smoke flaps. Use the same shoemaker's thread you used for the buttonhole stitching and sew over andover as shown in Detail 5c.

It is not necessary to hem the bottom of the tipi since the cloth - cut on a bias - will not ravel. This again istraditional as the Indians themselves seldom hem their tipi bottoms.

THE LINER

The tipi cover is now complete but, if you were to stretch it over a set of poles and peg the bottom down, you'dfind the resulting shelter no more comfortable than the average white man's tent. Wind would blow in at thebottom, rain run down the poles and drip on everyone and everything, smoke from an inside fire fill the structureunder most conditions and moisture condense inside on every cool night. The tipi would be hot in summer, cold inwinter, dirty, drafty and damp: In short, it would be unsuitable for camping and unfit to live in for extendedperiods . . . just like most white man's tents.

One simple modification - the addition of a liner - changes all that, however. With a liner and a little common

sense, the Plains Indian tipi becomes warm and snug in winter and cool and dry in summer. A fire built in thecenter draws properly and dew no longer condenses inside. There's no draft, no dampness and no more dirt in theliving area than in the average summer cottage. A liner, in other words, almost magically transforms the tipi froma tent . . . into a home.

The liner-which might be described as "a tipi without a top within a tipi" - is very easy to make and Figure 6 givesall the basic information you'll need.

Fifteen identical tapered panels - each six feet long, 34 1/4" wide at the top and 48 3/4" across the bottom - will beneeded to make your liner. The panels can be made from any lightweight material butperhaps surprisingly - it ismore important that the finished liner be waterproof than that the tipi cover itself be so treated.

Since it will not be exposed directly to the sun, the Laubins recommend using heavy bleached muslin here andtreating the finished liner with a wax compound. Balancing tradition and reasonable cost against otherconsiderations, that seems a good way to go although some of the newer coated fabrics should be very attractive tofolks with a healthier pocketbook. GERRY'S and HOLUBAR in Boulder, Colorado, THE SKI HUT in Berkeley,California and RECREATIONAL EQUIPMENT in Seattle, Washington are a few of the specialized outfitters thatcan supply the more modern materials. There's nothing wrong with 8 oz. duck canvas, either.

"In the winter, our villages stoodon low, sheltered ground near theriver, where the wind and coldcould not reach us; in summerthey were moved to higherground where they could catch thecool winds."

THE ARAPAHO WAY Althea Bass

"No tent is so sturdy against windand weather as a good tip[-thetilted cone with its back towardthe prevailing storm winds,braced by the long slope of theforward poles; the weight of thepoles themselves with theirpointed butts piercing the earth;the taut conical cover offering nohold to the wind, no pockets orfolds to catch water; the anchorrope taut from the apex to theground Inside the tent; the pegspinning the cover firmly to theground-all these things make thetipi a strong, dependableprotection."

THE INDIAN TIPI The Laubins

"Now, when ye set her up ye tiethree poles together-so-an' set 'emup first, then lean the other polesaround, except one, an' lash themby carrying the rope around a few

If you can't obtain the muslin or other fabric in a 72" width, 36" material sewedtogether with a flat seam will work quite well.

Cut the panels (reversing every other one to save material, as shown in Detail 6e),seam them together and hem the top and bottom of the liner. If you rough cut all 15sections 34 1/2 to 35" across the top and 48 1/2 to 49" at the bottom, the finishedliner should go completely around the inside and lap generously . . . dependingupon how the poles are placed, how tightly the liner is tied, etc.

The Laubins - who have lived months or years in a tipi to my days in these shelters- have refined their liner design as noted in Figure 6. They recommend cutting only12 of the 15 panels (C through N) to the full 34 3/4 " top and 48 3/4" bottomdimensions. Sections "B" and "O", they say, should measure just 31 3/4" across thetop and "A" - for the door - should be cut 29" across the top and 41" at the bottomfor a neater fit.

A double 3/16" cord and reinforcing patch added across (Detail 6f) - or tie tapesewed into - the top and bottom of each vertical seam will complete the liner. If youuse cord for these ties, it can also be fastened to the fabric in the traditional string-around-a-pebble manner shown for attaching peg loops. See the center detail onFigure 7. This may be the best way of all because of the flexibility of locating theties and the ease with which they may be changed . . . another example of thesophistication and practicality of the Indians' seemingly primitive methods.

Make each free end of the ties 24 to 30 inches long. Note that the lower set of cordsis located 6-8 inches from the liner's bottom edge and the last bottom tie on section"O" is set in from the outside vertical edge. This allows the bottom of the liner tobe turned in all the way around and the meeting ends to lap. You'll find it easier tolocate that last tie on "O" after the liner is hung for the first time.

Some tipi owners prefer to tie the liner directly to the poles (Details 6a-b) but ifyou do, remember to insert two little twigs under each tie on the inside of thesupports. This allows stray trickles running down the support to keep right on goinginstead of dripping off at the tie point.

times."

Caleb ClarkDetails 6c-d show another drip-free method of hanging the liner. A quarter inchrope is stretched tightly from pole to pole and wrapped around each support so thatit runs inside, rather than next, to the cover. The liner is then tied to the mid-pointof each span of the rope.

The base of the lining is tied to the butts of the tipi poles, to the pegs used to hold down the cover or -occasionally - to a separate set of pegs.

PITCHING THE TIPI

Since the prevailing winds on the Plains are from the west and southwest, the tipi - with only a few exceptions -was always pitched facing east and the following directions are for pitching one that way.

Look for a well drained, smooth, level area and remove all roots, stones, etc. Although a tipi can be comfortable inthe broiling sun, you can pitch yours to the northeast of a tree or trees in the summer for late morning to eveningshade, if you wish. Don't locate directly under trees because they can be dangerous during storms and drip forhours after a rain.

You'll notice, if you refer to the upper right corner of Figure 7, that the floor plan of a properly pitched tipi is ovalor egg shaped, rather than round. The tipi cone is also tilted and steeper up the back than the front. This is a mainsecret of the tent's comfort.

If the tipi were an evenly balanced cone, the smoke vent would center around the poles where they cross andwould be too large to close completely during a rain. By changing the floor plan and tilting the cone, the Indianswere able to extend the smoke hole down the elongated front of the tent. This placed the crossing of the poles atthe top of the smoke hole instead of in the middle and allowed the opening to be easily closed with the protrudingflaps. It also moves the fire slightly toward the front of the tipi, which makes more efficient use of the tent'sinterior.

Pick out the four heaviest poles. Three will be used for the foundation tripod and the fourth will be the liftingpole. Spread out the tipi cover and use it to measure the tripod poles as shown in the upper left corner of Figure 7.Note that, since the finished cover is not a true half-circle, this method automatically and correctly locates thetripod tie point lower on poles N and S than on pole D (remember, it's a tilted cone).

Good tipi poles are sharpened on each end. If you intend to plant the butts of the tripod poles a few inches in theground (as some, but not all, Indians did), allow for that right now and mark the three supports where they cross soyou won't have to remeasure every time you erect the tent.

Using one end of a 45 foot length of 1/2" rope, tie the three poles with a clove hitch as illustrated, wrap the ropearound the poles three or four times and finish with two half hitches.

Put the butts of poles S and D about where they'll be in the pitched tipi and, while someone holds taut the looseend of the 1/2" rope, raise the tripod by walking up under the ends of S and N. When the poles are almost vertical,swing the butt of N across to it's approximate final position. This locks the tripod and gives it a twisted dog-chasing-its-tail appearance where the poles cross and are tied.

. . . the long rope that binds thepoles is carried down under, and

As nearly as possible (it'll be pure trial and error the first time), position the polesexactly as they'll be when the tent is completely pitched. The two-and-a-half foot

fastened tight to a stake thatserves for anchor . . . "

Caleb Clark

"Now tie the top o' the cover tothe top o' the last pole by the shortlash-rope, hist the pole into place- that hists the cover, too, ye seean' ye swing it round with thesmokepoles an' fasten the twoedges together with the woodenpins."

Caleb Clark

"The opening that made theentrance was covered with a skinor a length of canvas held downby a strip of wood that weightedthe bottom. This was the onlykind of door we knew, long ago.In fine weather it was raised onpoles to make a kind of awningover the opening."

THE ARAPAHO WAY Althea Bass

"Wall, some jest lets the edgessag together, but the best teepeeshas a door made of the same stuffas the cover put tight on a saplin'frame an' swung from a lacin'pin."

Caleb Clark

"Real hot weather the thing lookslike a spider with skirts on andheld high... "

Caleb Clark

"in winter, there were windbreaksto shelter our lodges. The womenwent to the river in the fall andcut a kind of tall grass ...Thewomen bound this grass intopanels and set them up like astockade fence outside our tipis,to shut out the wind and the snow.Then they pegged down the lodgecloth and laid sod or earth over itto seal it. When that was done,we were snug for the winter,however stormy it might beoutside."

THE ARAPAHO WAY Althea Bass

"There was room for everything

by two-and-a-half foot grid on one floor plan in Figure 7 will help. Note that thistipi measures 20 feet from front to back and 17'/2 feet across. Notice also, that thetipi's pole pattern is shifted just slightly off square around the perimeter clockwise.

Set the next eleven poles into place exactly in the order shown: 1,2,3 and 4 from theright, or north, side go into the front crotch first; 5,6,7 and 8 then stack into thefront crotch from the left, or south, side and 9,10 and 11 are put into the backcrotch last. Again, strictly follow this order and be sure to skip a place on theperimeter at "L" for the lifting pole. The pole pattern should now look like Figure7's lower right drawing.

At this point, carry the 1/2" rope outside the frame at pole S and wrap it clockwisefour times (the sacred Indian number) around the standing poles. Snap the ropetightly up into the area where the poles cross and bring it in over N. Angle a 2X2peg three feet long into the tipi floor slightly behind center and snug the rope underit. It helps if the peg has a knob on top.

Lay the lifting pole down the center of the cover and mark it at the tip of the tieflap. Put the pole aside and fold the outside edges of the cover in to the center sothat the lacing pin holes meet down the center line. Fold and refold both halves ofthe cover on themselves until each is a long triangle two feet wide at the base. Foldthe two triangles together.

Put the lifting pole alongside the canvas, butt to the base of the bundle, andsecurely tie the tapes (wrapping them over and over the flap in a criss-cross) to thepole where previously marked.

Hoist the pole and canvas (you may need help), set the pole's butt into position anddrop it into the last space in the rear crotch. Turn the pole as you lift it and let it fallso that the cover is always on top. If the cover fits too high or too low where thepoles cross, swing the lifting pole back down and relocate the tie flap tapes.

Unroll the cover around each side of the frame to the front. Tie a pole (the oneyou'll later set in front of the tipi door) across supports D and F1 to stand on whileyou tie the smoke hole base tapes together and insert the top lacing pins. The covershould be slack enough to allow you to lap the south (left) over the north (right)side. Remove the cross bar as you button down the front of the tipi.

Insert the poles in the upside-down smoke flap pockets. Cut these poles just longenough to stretch the flaps tight when their butts cross or barely touch close againstthe back center line of the tent. Round the pole tips to protect the flap pockets.

Loosen the smoke flap poles so they just help hold the cover even and beginpushing the frame poles out against the cover. Do not push the poles out tightlyuntil the cover is properly pegged down. . . but do space them out evenly to aid inlocating the pegs. By the way, as soon as you're sure the tripod is placed correctly,set the three poles with a shovel . . . if you intend to set them.

The peg loops are 3/16" cord tied in a square knot around a 3/4" pebble six inchesabove the cover's lower edge. Tie the loose ends of the cord into another squareknot, insert and twirl a peg to twist the cord tightly into a no-slip grip. Peg downthe front, then the rear and - finally - both sides of the cover. Use a sledge and longiron rod to make lead holes for the pegs in hard or rocky soil.

Now push the poles tightly out against the cover (loosen the anchor rope for this, ifyou have to). For a permanent camp, plant all the tipi poles by loosening a fewpegs, digging under a pole, twisting it into the ground, replacing the pegs and

in our lodge, and to us it neverseemed crowded. Bags of meatand fruit that my mother had driedhung from the lodge poles, out ofour way; and around the outercircle of the room, In the spacewhere the beds were andunderneath them, folded robesand clothing, our toys, and ourmother's tools and materials forhandwork were kept."

THE ARAPAHO WAY Althea Bass

moving on around the circle. If you find the door pole is too long, as sometimeshappens the first time a tipi is raised, plant it deeper or chop it off. If you chop itoff, of course, it will cause no trouble next time.

Spacing the poles for the first time is the hardest part of pitching a tipi. Once youget them right, swing a cord off the center peg and measure the distance out to eachone. Write the figures down and use them the next time you erect the tent. You'llalso find that smoke from fires in the tipi will darken the cover everywhere butdirectly behind each pole . . . and you'll soon be able to line up the supports withthe white stripes on the canvas. Once you've got `em, retie the anchor rope.

Set a 6 or 8 foot pole in front of the door to tie the smoke flap cords to . . . and yourtipi is up. The door itself - a piece of canvas laced over a willow rod frame - ishung from the last lacing pin over the doorway.

A little study of Figure 8 will give you the basics of living year-round in your tipi. Set the smoke flaps quarteringdownwind under any given conditions and you should have little trouble making an inside fire draw properly.Stick up a brush windbreak and pile small logs around the bottom of the cover in the winter. This is nothingunusual for the Plains, you know: People there still stack bales of straw around the foundations of frame housesduring the cold months. Roll up the tent's sides and take down the liner on still, hot summer days. And don't betoo proud to cut a few boughs and lean them against the sunny side of the shelter on hot days when the wind is toogusty to raise the cover. It's all - just like sitting on the ground outside and reclining against the tent's slantingsides - fair use of the tipi.

Once the lining is hung inside and its bottom six inches turned in all around, robes, a waterproof tarp, oilcloth,burlap, old linoleum or a plywood floor can be put down inside and lapped over the liner's edge. Waterprooflayers are really only needed under the beds and other items affected by dampness.

Ditch around the tipi to lead water away, make a couple of willow rod backrests, hollow out and line a fireplacecircle with rocks and you're ready to dedicate your lodge. If you want to make sure the fire draws exceptionallywell, you might dig a trench, remove the tops and bottoms from some tin cans and bury them in line to make avent pipe leading from outside the tipi to the bottom of the fire pit.

So, hang your shield and other medicine articles from a pole behind the altar of your lodge and move in. Forgetstorm windows, leaky faucets, plugged eave troughs, water in the basement, sticking doors, cracked sinks, missingshingles, compound interest and forty year mortgages.

You're home.

TIPI MATERIALS

POLES: 15 poles 25 feet long, approximately 3-4 inches in diameter at the butt and 2inches across at the tie point.2 poles, somewhat shorter than above (cut to length during first pitching), 2inches in diameter at butt.

COVER & DOOR: 70 yards of 8 or 10 oz. waterproofed duck canvas, 36 inches wide*.

LINING: 36 yards of 36-inch wide* muslin or 8-10 oz. duck canvas.

ROPE: 45 feet of 1 /2-inch Manilla rope (for anchor).20 feet of 1 /4-inch rope is the alternate method of hanging liner is used.

CORD: 200 feet of 3/16-inch cotton cord.10 feet of tie tapes (which you can make, or buy as "twill tape").

PEGS: 25-30 hardwood pegs (chokecherry or ash are best), 18 inches long and about3/4-1 inch in diameter.One or two anchor pegs 1 1 /2 to 2 inches in diameter and 30-36 inches long.

LACING PINS: Eleven to fourteen pointed and seasoned hardwood sticks completely peeledexcept for the final 3-4 inches on the butt end. These pins should be 12-14inches long and 3/8-inch in diameter. Dowel rods can be substituted.

WATERPROOFING:

If your fabric has not been waterproofed during manufacture, about 6 gallons of achemical waterproofingsolution will be needed for the cover. Three gallons of a wax or chemical solutionwill also be used on theliner. Allow about 5% for shrinkage of the fabric.

MISCELLANEOUS: Thread, needles, paint (if you decorate the finished, use ordinary house paint orenamel applied to a damp - but not wet - canvas), streamers or swatches of hairto hang from pole tips and other odds and ends will vary from individual toindividual. Read through the directions and make your own list.

*Other widths of material may be used if you refigure yardage.

TRANSPORTING THE TIPI

It's not hard to roll up a tipi cover and liner for transportation in a station wagon, cartrunk, trailer or truck. Seventeen poles - 20 to 25 feet long and weighing a total ofapproximately 300 pounds - is a little different matter. But don't sweat it: The problemhas been faced and solved before.

In the old days, before the Indians obtained horses from the white man, they simplylimited their tipis to a size with poles small enough for a dog to drag. During the 1800's, when the tribes hadplenty of horses (and a good horse could drag eight to ten poles), large tipis were transported throughout thePlains. As the buffalo were killed and the prairie fenced in, the Indians turned to wagons. Today, tipi poles aresometimes shipped from one place to another or carried on trucks, campers or cars.

Here's a rack the Laubins rigged up with the help of a Sioux blacksmith friend. With it, they can haul a completetipi, of the size described in this article, on top of a small coupe.

About 29 feet of half-inch galvanized iron pipe, eight T-joints, two unions and four elbows were used in the basicrack with a 6 foot long 3/8" iron rod swung on a flat hinge from each side of the windshield as a brace. Thebottom ends of the four uprights simply slide into sockets of 3/4" pipe fastened to the inside of the verticalsections on the front and back bumpers.

The only joker is the fact that the Laubins' car happened to be one of those sturdy old gentlemen of 1940ishvintage: You know, the kind with big, rugged, honest bumpers that really stick out in the breeze. If yourautomobile is one of today's sleek, streamlined monsters with the recessed, tinfoil articles front and rear, you'llobviously have to come up with another system . . . but the sketch should give you some ideas.

The Laubins load their tipi poles with butt ends forward and sticking over the front rack just a few inches. Thelong, slender top ends of the poles are allowed to protrude, maybe, 5-6 feet. This brings the tail end of the loadjust over the front of a small trailer they sometimes pull. If you make a rig like this and don't pull a trailer,remember to hang a red flag or two on the tips of the poles.

Cover, liner stakes and all the rest can be bundled up and carried on top of the "raft", if you like. Design your rackso the load just clears the car top and put some kind of a pad between the roof and the poles. Lash everythingdown securely.

Issue 1 - January/February 1970

A GENTLE PEOPLE'S LIBERATION or

How some city peace creeps came to the country, picked wild flowers, developed some muscles, made a lot of friends

and set the North Land free.

Jane Bevans

While the militants and the liberals argue whether we're dropping out or copping out (maybe even flipping out!),we're out planting peas and dancing our eyes on all the new green leaves. Collectively we've been through years ofpickets and vigils, planning meetings and fund appeals, demonstrations and happenings, peace walks, sit downs,sit ins and climb overs. We figure maybe we just dropped in.

Where it's at is in the action, not in talk. So in the north country of Minnesota, where it still snows sometimes inMay . . . we're doing it.

We live here, 7 of us now; we have our hassles and our laughing times. We work together, share our lives, growour food and love our kids (only one so far, but he mostly belongs to everyone and we give him lots of differentnames so he'll spread further). Here we live without laws, armies, or cops and no one starves, no one getsmurdered or even commits suicide because things aren't going his way . . . and things get done. This is our newworld. Here the revolution is almost over . . . all but the tears and the grief, all but the hard part when you find outyou're not Christ, or Che, or Allen Ginsberg, or Ira Sandperl, maybe you're not even the you you thought youwere. It's all over but the hard part, realizing that you not only know very little about nonviolence, you don't evenknow how to live with people you dig. Then here at last the revolution is beginning . . . . .

A GRAND MASTER PLANto build a world without fear or hatred to share

one's life and livelihood to become what one really is to find the human way

Step one: Go somewhere where no one else that you know is. Buy some cheap land, a copy of Organic GardeningEncyclopedia and some seed. Establish a base camp disguised as a self sufficient farming community.

Step two: Make friends with the local farmers. Ah, good people! They don't have much, but they'd share that.Always they give us more than we can return, but like one neighbor says . . . "What's a few pumpkins betweenfriends."

Step three: Infiltrate the local peace group. And good people they . . . Come to visit us with electric coffeeperculator, "Where's the plug?" We heat it on the wood stove and talk til midnite. Later they invite us into town tospeak on panels: "Americanism in the '60's" or "Civil Disobedience." Turn people on to doing things forthemselves. ("Stop bitching for better schools or housing or welfare. Go out and build them. Stop paying taxes forwar. Refuse the draft.") Turn people on to community and living simply. Turn them on and see the light go click

behind their pale eyes. ("But you just can't live on an untaxable income!," "But, man, we're doing it! . . . muchlaughter.)

Step four: Make friends with Heads and friendly students at your local teachers' college. (Even up here there is apsychedelic shop. Under the rocks and behind the trees come a few draft resisters, a poet and a folksinger, too.)Get them to set up a draft table at the college. Get almost thrown in the lake by the campus veterans. Retreatsometimes . . . but return again. Invite them on to being turned on without drugs. Let them turn you on with theirmusic. Look at each other and smile a lot . . . who can help it!

font size="3" face="Times New Roman, Times, serif" color="#000000"> Step five: Make friends with your local Feds. (Ali, not so good people!)Entertain them when they arrive to ask you how come you're writing all those letters to the draft eligible men in the county or how come you're not in thearmy or how come you aren't married to the girl you live with. Offer to show them the cow. Or offer to show them the door. But remember their names.They will most likely come back . . .

Step six: Drop ideas on peoples' heads instead of bombs. Swoop into Duluth for a conference at the U. Let anaudience capture you and spread the word. We're Free! You're Free! All you have to do is do it. Whatever bondshold you are tied with your own hands. And you don't have to go to college for 4 years, or get a "Good" job, or getmarried, or cut your hair short, or wear a girdle, or join the army, or pay taxes. You may pay a price, but thenthere is a price for everything. Whatever it is that you really want to do, do it now, for life is short and love isfleeting when it's not spent. Meet new draft resisters. Love them all. Sing. Talk. Drink wine. Invite them out to thefarm for a week when school's out. Then retreat.

Come home. Dig your toes in the warm dirt. Pick a tick off your friend's neck. Have a few stupid arguments.Write to the urban poor telling them you'd like to help families get out of the city if they want. Go out and plant arow of carrots. Make a mistake. Roll in the grass and begin again.

Patsy RichardsonFree Folk

Pennington, Minn.

Issue 1 - January/February 1970

YOGURTIf you're tired of plastic supermarket chow and you'd like to grow at least part ofyour food . . . but you live in a fifth floor walk-up or on board a pirate radio ship. . . keep the faith, baby. This series is for you - and anyone else interested in theworld's best tasting, most natural, least processed, least poisoned, most nutritious. . . and least expensive foods. For, surprisingly, some of the very finest (fromevery standpoint) eating is not only easily grown right in the house - but ispositively better when so produced.

One such food is yogurt. Yogurt? Yes, yogurt . . . and I know all about the stuff they sell under that name down atthe local market. I don't like it either. All I can tell you is that pure, natural homemade yogurt-just like home-baked breadis a quantum jump ahead of the artificially sweetened, flavored, preserved and processed variety.

Trust me - even if your first batch falls flat on its face. Mine did too . . . but the second was better and the fourthor fifth was superb! Relax, experiment a little and you'll soon be producing perfect runs of one of mankind'soldest and most beneficial foods.

And, if you're wondering what you'll do with all that yogurt, Catharyn Elwood has pretty well summed it up in herbook, FEEL LIKE A MILLION! (Pocket Books, 75¢), "Yogurt has a delightful smooth-as-velvet consistency whenproperly made. It can be eaten any time of day as a between-meal or before-bedtime snack, because it is not toofilling. It leaves the mouth with a fresh "clean" taste. Yogurt may be eaten by itself, as a dessert combined withfruits such as berries, pineapple, peaches, grapes, apricots, honeydew melons or any sprightly-tasting fruit. It is anexcellent vegetable-salad dressing when combined with parsley, tomato sauce, and grated horseradish or spikedwith chopped chives and Roquefort cheese. You'll use yogurt at every meal, including breakfast, once you acquirea taste for it."

If you need more ideas, DaisyFresh (see the classified section of this issue) has compiled a booklet of somethinglike 373 ways to use yogurt. Just remember; it tastes good, it's packed with B vitamins, protein and calcium, it aidsdigestion and very learned doctors believe it can - if eaten regularly - materially lengthen your life. Besides that,it's dirt cheap when you make it yourself: Twenty to thirty cents a quart.

Once you really get into making your own, you'll want a "Culturizer" or yogurt maker. This is a constant-temperature, electrically-heated base and a set of poly or glass (which I prefer) containers with tight fitting lids.Culturizers make four individual pints or quarts of yogurt at a time, take out all the hassle, are foolproof, cost from$10.00 to $15.00 and can save you $50.00 - $100.00 or more a year for years.

You can start on a smaller scale with covered Pyrex containers or plastic freezer cartons and a heating pad, hot airfurnace outlet, steam radiator or other steady low-heat source.

Just like people who bake their own bread, real yogurt heads have a lot of recipes for the final product. Here's afew. . . just remember that needlessly disturbing the yogurt during incubation may cause the tender, custardlikecurd to break up and "weep" or "whey-off".

GAYELORD HAUSER'S YOGURT

Add 1/2 cup of powered skim milk to one quart of fresh milk and mix with an electric mixer or by shaking in aMason jar. Heat milk very hot but not boiling. Test by putting a drop on your wrist: It should feel hot but not burn.Stir in 3 tablespoons of the best tasting, unflavored ready-made yogurt you can find. Pour the mixture into adouble boiler or into a pan set into a larger pan of water and place near a radiator or on the pilot light of a gas

stove. Cover with a folded towel just like you cover raising dough when making bread. You'll have more than aquart of fortified yogurt in about 5 hours. Keep in refrigerator. Hauser recommends eating a pint of yogurt a day.

BEATRICE TRUM HUNTER'S YOGURT

Any raw, pasteurized or homogenized cow, goat, soybean or other milk may be used. Reconstituted skim milk isalso good. Keep all materials and utensils scrupulously clean. Pour a quart of fresh milk into a pot and bring to anear boil. Cool to lukewarm (105 to 115 degrees F. on a cooking thermometer or warm, but not hot, on the wrist).Mix the contents of a packet or bottle of Bulgarian yogurt culture into the milk with a wooden spoon. Pour themixture into prewarmed cups of a yogurt maker and leave undisturbed for about 2 hours. At the end of this time ,remove the cover from a container and gently tilt the glass. The yogurt should be about the consistency of heavycream. If it's still liquid, let it incubate longer and check again. When the yogurt thickens, remove and refrigerate.It will continue to thicken as it cools.For subsequent batches, set aside a small portion of yogurt from the first batch. Within 3 to 5 days, "grow" anotherbatch of yogurt following the above directions and using one quart of milk and t tablespoons of the "starter".Renew culture after one month.

NOTE: The original culture may take as long as five hours to "set". . . so don't get discouraged.

GOOD TIMES YOGURT

You will need: A water thermometer (can be obtained from pet store that handles aquarium supplies) A clean 1/2 gallon container with tight-fitting lid. (Glass is best but plastic is OK) 1/2 gallon reconstituted powered milk with 1 1/2 to 2 times as much powder as is normally used. 3 tablespoons of commercial plain yogurt for starter. Yami works well. Old Country Bulgarian (from health foodstores) is expensive and doesn't always work . . . but, when it does work, is fantastic.

Finding a fairly constant source of low heat is the hardest part of making yogurt. A gas stove pilot light is usuallybest but a stove burner at lowest heat can sometimes be used . . . or a heating pad. Place the thermometer in a potof water that is big enough to hold the yogurt jar. Experiment for several days until you find a combination(moving the pot closer to or farther from the heat source, turning the pilot flame up and down, covering anduncovering the pot with a towel) that maintains a nearly constant 94 degrees F. . . overnight, if possible.

The rest is easy: Mix the yogurt with the milk, cover, place in the pot, fill to the brim of the jar with water andleave for 8 to 10 hours. Then taste. If the yogurt is watery and still tastes more like milk than yogurt, let it set for afew more hours. If the culture is sour, try a lower temperature or a shorter time with the next batch. Refrigerate.

Be sure to reserve a few tablespoonfuls in a separate jar (to keep it clean) for starter of the next run. When theculture begins to deteriorate, get some more commercial starter.

SPECIAL FLASH: As I finished this piece, I received in the mail the $6.00 packet from Daisy Fresh. There's notime now to really review the Daisy Fresh material, but Joe Reimuller of that company is really into yogurt. If youuse yogurt at all, you've got to get the Daisy Fresh info. Joe's method of keeping a culture fresh for a year willmore than repay your investment and, if you follow his instructions, there's just no way for you to make badyogurt.

And, as long as we're dropping names and giving our free plugs, here's another: Chocolate and cocoa are verybad for you. Carob, which tastes even better than chocolate, is very, very good for you. For an absolutelydelicious variation on the basic yogurt recipes, try stirring 3 to 6 tablespoons of honey into each quart of milkbefore you scald it. Then, when you add the culture, stir three to six tablespoons of carob flour into the milk. Theresulting yogurt will be rich and chocolately and fantastic. If you have trouble obtaining carob, drop a line toCarob Products. They've got an ad somewhere in this issue.

Issue 1 - January/February 1970

DIGGER BREADEvery time we make this bread, it's a big hit around our house. Have a big hit around your house. You will needtwo coffee cans for two loaves. The same cans are used for measuring and baking. It's a good idea to use the threepound size for measuring and the one pound size for baking, since the small tins bake most thoroughly withoutburning.

Do up the wet mix first:

1/2 cup lukewarm water (but not over 85 degrees, as the yeast would be killed). 1 cake or 2 packages of yeast (the cake works faster; if the recipe is doubled or tripled this is still enough).1 tablespoon of flour 1 tablespoon of honey or raw sugar

Mix all of these in the can. If you wish, you may add a couple spoonfuls of honey, molasses, brown sugar, ordextros. A well-cooked potato put through a blender and incorporated into the water at this stage can take theplace of the milk below.

Mix the dry ingredients while the wet mix stands: 1 level can of whole wheat flour. Nasty old white flour will never do! Rye flour must be mixed with other flour or gluten because the loaf it makes is dense and does not rise well.Coarse ground flours, like stone ground and meals, also must be mixed with fine ground flour or gluten. (Note ongluten: this is the substance that holds the dough together and contains the yeast bubbles when the bread rises. It isdeveloped naturally by kneading.)

Add to taste any of the following: Salt - add a tablespoon or so. 1 /8 can of powdered milk Handful or two of raisins Something weird, wheat germ, soya flour, food supplements, nuts, dried dates, etc.

Mix the dry ingredients in a huge bowl or pan. Combine the dry and wet mixes and blend until it is uniform.Toward the end of this process such things as ripe bananas or sliced peaches may be thrown in. Let the dough risein a warm place until it has risen by half. The top of a stove with the oven on is about right. Sometimes this takesan hour or two. Take this opportunity to grease the cans and light a joint.

Kneading -Alter the dough has risen, sprinkle some flour on a counter or a table top. Be sure to keep the flour on thekneading surface, dough, and your hands! Turn the dough out on the floured surface. Knead by pushing down thetop and folding the edges up onto the top again. Kneading usually takes 10-15 minutes. A well-kneaded dough isrounded and springs like a plump baby's bottom.

"Why does a poor man make good bread?"

"Because he needs it a lot." Be sure all cans are well greased. Divvy the dough, knead the halves into balls and putinto the cans. Let rise again until dough has almost doubled in volume (about 45 minutes to an hour). Now youmay switch to the baking portion of this here recipe.

Baking - Put can upright in an oven preheated to 390 degrees, and bake for one hour. The larger cans take longer to bake.After baking, let the cans cool for 5 to 10 minutes. With pot holder in hand, twirl bread in the can. It will glideright on to the counter or whatever. Eat healthy!

-from the HAIGHT-ASHBURY ST. LOVE

CORRECTION: This classic recipe had passed through several hands before I received it, and - somewhere along the way - a portion of theliquid must certainly have been forgotten by someone. Mike Renaud now bakes much of the bread around here and - when he brews up abatch of the Digger article - he substitutes 1-1/2 cups of water and a banana for the one-half cup of water called out in the recipe. The bread,so modified, is delicious. - MOTHER.

Issue 1 - January/February 1970

by

Rod MacDougall

The weather was perfect! Even the crying of the two car sick children and an assortment of frayed adult temperscould do little to dampen the enthusiasm of visiting one of Ontario's first rural hip communities.

Situated in northeastern Ontario, five rural communal farms have been formed in the last year by young adults insearch of life . . . they have found it.

The author and a group of eleven Alternate Society menbers from Toronto spent five days living, working andgrooving on a 100-acre farm known as Morning Glory Farm. The meals were an adventure in themselves: Applepan dowdy, fresh baked corn bread, soy bean concoctions, natural cereal breakfasts and many other wholesome,naturally delicious foods untainted by Standard Brands or General Foods.

On arriving, we were amazed by the serene beauty ofthe scenery. Past glimmering lakes, brooding hills,fields that spoke of limitless and unfettered freedom,we drove. The children - made ill by miles of droningengine and slowly weaving blacktop - were nowwide-eyed and breathless with smiles frozen on theirfaces in the excitement of their rural roller-coasterup-hill, downhill ride.

After a comedy of wrong turns . . . the splendor ofMorning Glory Farm!

Most of the farms in the area are without electricity,though the power lines run by most farms. MorningGlory is no exception. We left the power line (and,with it, the last vestage of organized society) behind and travelled a half mile through a creek bed valley and upthe hill to our new home.

Morning Glory is a group of well kept and sturdy buildings situated on 100 acres of rolling greenery crossed withcharming stone fences and stands of beautiful fir trees. The soil is similar to that of the area in general; rich sandyloam.

The owner, Mike, is a healthy and purposeful 18-year-old of amazing ability and inventiveness. His farm haseight or nine buildings and a large, comfortable house made warm with an abundance of human love. Somebuildings are being converted to serve other purposes: The smoke house is being transformed into a sauna and the

hay loft to a music and play room.

To solve the problem of cold storage for food, Mike has single-handedly dug an 8 x 4 x 8 foot hole that will be hishuge underground freezer.

Morning Glory has 1/4-acre planted with various vegetables that will suffice to feed the four permanent membersthrough the winter. Any surplus produce will be traded with other hip farmers in the area for items Mike may lack.

The hip farmers of the area have a deep and abiding love for the land. They practice organic farming. That is, noinsecticides or artificial fertilizer. All garbage of organic nature is saved and dumped on the gardens. When thesuckers run in the local creeks, they are netted and used for fertilizer as the Indians have done for centuries. ..these fish are considered "coarse" and no limits have ever been set on catching them. Pollution and poisoning ofman's environment are two things the hip farmers are leaving behind.

We spent the first day in wonder at the undertaking, and early the next morning weeded a large part of the garden.The author was first in the garden to start the weeding and - because he could find no substantial argument infavour of staying dressed in the warm morning sun - stripped nude. The second worker kept his clothes on untilhe, too, felt unable to justify so doing. By noon men, women and children were busily changing their winterwhites to summer tans (or reds, in some unfortunate cases).

The meals are prepared in the "summer kitchen", a separate building, so that the heat from the wood-burningstoves will not mar the coolness of the house in summer. However, the evening meals are eaten in the main houseby the soft light of coal oil lanterns.

In the cool of the evening, the community exchanges its functional dress for beautiful colourful capes and robesfor peaceful walks of meditation through the countryside . . . to groove on bright and limitless stars, the soundsand smells of the evening air and the meaning of one's own existence.

Another day, and a house raising at a neighbourhood farm. Will - a handsome, steel-spectacled and well-tannedman of nineteen years - bought a 15 acre spread ($450) and an abandoned log school house ($50) and - afterhaving the logs dragged by tractor to his spread - proceeded to erect his new home.

All the people from the hip communities in the area gathered at his place at 9 o'clock on a sunny morning andstrained their muscles to place the large, heavy logs into position. None had experience in construction - few inany job entailing physical labour - but the building was raised in one day of laughter, friendship and cooperation.

The women prepared their special recipes and, at dinner, I had the most incredible meal of my life. Under amagnificent shade tree (Will's home until the house is ready) we pitched into a myriad array of delicious foodslaced with love and laughter.

A shortage of cutlery only added to the fun. Delicious pea soup was passed around in a great pot accompanied byone large spoon. Next came a truly wonderful salad that was served in an equally large pot and eaten with thefingers. Following that was an array of fresh-baked corn breads, wheat cakes, robust stew (the same spoon doubledhere), apple pie, unpasteurized fresh milk still warm from the cow and countless other treats. It was easy to pitythe overclothed well-managed patrons of the Royal York who had to accept the pomp and ceremony that isoffered by that establishment back in the "big smoke".

The house up and the work done, we were cooled by a sudden summer storm. It was taken advantage of bystripping down and taking an unexpected shower. . . running through the wet fields, laughing and feeling the purejoy of being alive.

As we piled into our rented bus, Will - standing on the overlooking hill - shouted, "Come on back, friends. Myhouse is as much yours now and it always will be." We knew and felt that was true.

Morning Glory, we love you . . . but we will have our own land and our own lives. The cost of Mike's farm wasunbelievable: $4300 with yearly taxes of $50. Will's place, with its self-built home, cost $500.

There is much land available at incredibly low prices. Of the 12 people who went on the trip, six are buying a plotof 35 acres - complete with house and six buildings - for $2,000. Two others are also buying land next spring. I'llbuy land as soon as I get together a small group of people who are compatible and want a better life.

Issue 1 - January/February 1970

THE FREEDOM WAYIt's a little dated now, but the $1.00-a-week food plan is still good.Copyright: Victor A. Croley

INTRODUCTION

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Lethim step to the music he hears, however measured or far away. "

-Henry David Thoreau

Two fearful explosions, coming as a complete surprise to a bewildered world, changed the course of the world andthe lives of everyone in it - including your life - and heralded the beginning of the Atomic Age. Civilization as weknow it was doomed when the echoes of those atomic bomb blasts in Japan died away. What next?

The world asked that question. It is still asking it. Of what use to build magnificent, costly cities, if they can bewiped out in a jiffy? Of what use to struggle and strive to build up a fortune, if in the flash of an eyelid everything- including life itself - can be wiped out?

We are now at that uncertain stage in life. We are confused. We are afraid. We are bewildered. We cringe. Wedon't know what to do next. We are afraid we may not only lose our possessions; we are afraid for our lives.

It has been said so often that it has become an axiom and even a proverb, that some good comes out of every bad.Another axiom is to the effect that every weapon carries with it its own defense. And if you will couple these twoproverbial expressions, do a little thinking to get your ideas straight, you will have the answer to survival in anatomic age. Let a good life come to you from this bad omen for civilization, and use the only weapon against theatomic bomb which has ever been devised.

The good life? It is unquestionably the simple life - and more and more each day Americans are turning to it, inone form or another, grateful that there is an escape from the complexities and problems of modern city living.

And the defense against the atomic bomb? It is one simple but inexorable thing - space. For, don't you see, if youare not near enough where an atomic bomb may explode to be harmed by it, in your life it is harmless.

Therefore if you find a better life in the simple life, far enough away from the crowded cities to be uninteresting tothe men who launch atomic attacks, you can survive. More: you can find a new measure of satisfaction in livingby getting back to the simple form of living.

There's nothing new in this. A hundred years and more ago a lean, lanky, hawk-nosed New England philosopherand writer wrote an entire book about it. The book was called WALDEN. It was so unpopular in its day that theauthor - Henry David Thoreau - had to publish it at his own expense, and was left with most of the books on hishands. Once he wrote a friend: "I own a library of 712 books, 700 of which I wrote myself," - the unsold copies ofWALDEN, a book about the simple life.

Nobody was interested in the simple life then. Everybody wanted the complicated life - build big cities, build bigfortunes, surround yourself with possessions and servants, and outdo your neighbors. So Thoreau's voice wasliterally one crying in the wilderness.

But see what has happened in the last century. No writer is more respected than Thoreau, no book is read moredevotedly by intelligent people who have discovered it than WALDEN. Maybe too late it has dawned on us that inthis life which Thoreau championed, the simple life, the life of time and leisure and thought and good things

which do not cost much money, there is the best life a human being can find.

And, as you read a short time ago, it is not only the good life now; it may be the only life a man can lead andpreserve his life, because always over us like a pall of smoke is the threat of sudden, devastating, complete atomicattack.

But suppose such an attack doesn't come. We are still likely any day to wake up to the fact that our ancient andpowerful enemy, Depression, is riding again. Remember the Depression which set in in 1929? Remember breadlines? Apple sellers on the street corners? Leaf rakers? Suicides among the once wealthy men? Pinched faces onthe street? Worry and woe and the fear that you might never eat again?

The simple life will help obviate that. Better than money in the bank, bonds in the safety deposit vault, credit atthe stores are the things with which you live surrounded when you live the simple life.

This, then, is your guide to getting back to the simple life; a practical everyday manual which will help you to putyour feet astride the path that leads to the only life that, since the beginning of man's stay on earth, has led to hiscomplete development and satisfaction--the simple life!

SECTION I

WHAT IS THE SIMPLE LIFE AND WHY YOU SHOULD LEAD IT

"Our life is frittered away by detail. . . Simplify, simplify. "

- Thoreau

The literal meaning of the word civilization is life in the city, and when we speak of the growth of civilization, wemean the growth of urban or city life. Unfortunately, city life is tempting, alluring, and so in ever-increasingnumbers people turn to it.

But it isn't the most wholesome nor the most enduring form of life, and now, what with the threats you read aboutin the introduction, civilization is facing its gravest peril since the time when Ghengis Khan and Tamerlane justabout wiped it out with their barbaric hordes.

When you read in the papers that the atomic bomb can destroy civilization it doesn't mean that everybody alive onearth will be wiped out. It means only those who are in the easy path of atomic bombs - that is to say, living incrowded cities - will be destroyed. If you destroy the cities, therefore, you destroy civilization. You have thechoice of being destroyed, if the cities are attacked, or of saving your life. To save it, merely get far enough awayso that the attack will not carry you in its wake. See how simple it is, how practical, how obvious to survive in anatomic world?

The simple life is merely the life which gives up the complexities and useless possessions of modern city life. Itdoesn't mean reverting to savagery, eating raw meat, not washing. It, indeed, means leading a fuller life than youlead now - as ever so many educated, intelligent people who have willingly gone back to the simple life will tellyou.

There's that brilliant editor of Mears, Michigan, Swift Lathers, for your first exhibit. As long ago as 1912, SwiftLathers, law-trained, far-sighted, looked on city life, turned his back against it, moved to an isolated little villagein the dune country on Lake Michigan, and started a newspaper which is still the smallest weekly newspaper inthe world.

"Consider me at my age," he recently asked his youngest son, Nathan, in describing the kind of life he hopes theboy will lead. "What do I need? What do I want? Firewood, food, shelter from the wind, a shelf of books, chessand two good feet that will let me walk fifteen miles on a March afternoon in the solitudes of the dunes. Nightcomes and the smell of potatoes frying for supper. And the patter of little children coming to spaghetti.

"There, Nathan, you have the recipe for a happy life. We seek fire, food, shelter and riches of the mind. We haveto live only one day at a time. But every day should have a little bit of heaven. And that might be five minute'stime to sit down on a rock in a new mown meadow or a half hour of quiet reading solitude with Thoreau."

Another city man who decided on the simple life was Ted Richmond. After years of struggle in cities of the South,he bought a poor, worn-out 10-acre farm near Jasper, Arkansas, in one of the last frontiers in America. He was acity man, with soft hands, a liking for bright lights and movies, and his friends all thought him touched.

After he had been living the simple life for a year, his friend, Charles Morrow Wilson, visited him. He foundRichmond completely remade in health, in outlook on life, in the measure of happiness he found. And he wasliving so economically that his cash outlay for his flourishing life was less than $100 a year, for everything. Andyet he was living better, more fully than when he was earning much more in the city, and spending it all for "aliving."

Another: George Livingston Baker. He had the further handicap of no money and 64 years of age when he set outto live the simple life in the Colorado Rockies above Denver. Less than $100 to his name he owned, and he was illbesides. But did he ever regret it? Not for a minute. At the age of 75 he is still going strong, cooking his ownfood, cutting his own wood, and making his adequate living in the ways that fill every day with satisfaction andadventure.

One thing you will get out of the simple life is greater satisfaction in living. In the city the majority of the peopleare bored. "Let's get together soon," they tell one another. "How about a movie tonight?" "What's there to doaround this joint, anyway?" "What'll we do now?" "I hate Sundays - they bore me," - you hear these expressionson every side.

But no one who moves away from all that and gets back to the simple life is ever bored for a minute. C.W.Whitemore discovered that years ago. Whipped out by life in Philadelphia, "with axe, pick axe, and saw I camehere (to the Pitts Hill Road in the Berkshires) and decided to build." He earned $1 a week as correspondent for aweekly paper, lived on that practically, and a year later wrote: "I am the wealthiest resident on Pitts Hill Road!" Henever had a bored minute, always found an entrancing panorama of Nature, whatever the season, found treasurethere he never found in the city.

And health, too. Bob Davis, the roving correspondent who looked in on everything interesting, discovered hishealthiest man on Caledesi Key, Florida - Henry Sherrer.

"It is difficult to believe that this amazing man is in his seventy-eighth year; that his diet is bread, eggs, bananas,and an occasional cereal; that six hours of sleep is enough to refresh him," exclaimed Mr. Davis. "He readswithout the aid of glasses and can hear a mile away the cooing of a turtle dove.

"The chest of him is like a cask, his arms are as iron and the muscles between his shoulder blades ripple when hestrides. The clasp of his hand is viselike, and his voice rich with kindly intonations."

Maybe you have thought often - who among us hasn't? - of leading such a life. Maybe you wondered, livingwhere you do in a large city or a small town that seems to offer no opportunity to break civilization's shackles,how, in the first place, you could do it, and where, in the second.

If that has been your problem, you can take heart from this fact - that there are smart men and women leading thesimple life everywhere in the world; yes, right on the outskirts of the largest cities. You don't have to traipse off toMexico or the Andes or Morocco, cut all ties with the phases of your life you like, in order to lead the simple life.All you have to do is make a minor change-in the way that will be discribed in the next Section.

SECTION II

WHERE YOU CAN LEAD THE SIMPLE LIFE

"If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has

imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected..."

-Thoreau

Next to the question of deciding that you are going to lead the simple life, come what will, is that of deciding justwhere you will live it. The very phrase simple life connotes getting away from it all, up into the fastness of themountains or on the far-flung desert, and you are wondering, with your slim resources and dependence upon beingwhere you can sell your skill, whether you're quite ready to make drastic breaks such as this would entail.

You needn't worry about that part of it, because the fact is that the important thing is to want to lead this sort oflife. Given that, places where you can live it abound.

Near large cities? Within twenty, thirty minutes of the largest cities you will find men and women living it. In anystate?

Why not? One state is as good as another, although in the West, where there are vast areas of public domain in theform of national forests, it is easier to find land, and cheaper, because, as you will read in due time, you can leasefrom the Government sufficient land for simple living for as little as $5 a year - but that isn't the only kind of landon which you can live this simple life.

For instance, as long ago as ten years, there was a young Englishman working as a clerk in a London bank. If youthink the city in which you live is crowded, try living and making your way in London once. And if you think thecountryside around where you live is settled up, try finding a place without people near London; almost anywherein Europe, for that matter.

But this young chap was determined he was going to get away from the city. He managed it easily enough; hemerely rented enough room for his tent from a friendly farmer, paid him a few pennies a day rent is all. "It is adelightful country, beautiful and quiet."

From this beautiful and quiet countryside the clerk commutes to crowded, dirty London every day. When he'sdone with work, he hies back to his simple life-his quarters, winter and summer, consist of a tent 7x10 feet in size.It is furnished with a bunk along one side, a small trunk and a converted sugar box which he uses as a larder andkitchenette. Living thus simply, he has reduced expenses to a minimum-and raised satisfaction in living to amaximum. And all within 20 miles of the world's largest city.

Or New York City. It would be pretty hard to find a place close to that city where this sort of life could be lived,you would think, wouldn't you? But two girls, secretaries in downtown offices, have managed it. They, too, rentfrom a friendly farmer, live ecstatically and very economically in a small cabin, built with their own hands.George Baker, whose story you have partially learned in Section I, the 64-year-old man who found ease and peaceand satisfaction in the simple life, chose a spot in the mountains forty miles west of Denver, Colorado. He didn'tbuy his 14 acres. He leased it from the Forest Service at $1 per month.

At the other end, to show you how you can fit this simple life into any scheme of living you fancy, there's a mannamed Clark Richardson who, tired of the city, tired of being broke, tired of working and having so little to showfor it, decided that for him the real wilderness life was the thing.

He had managed to save only $500, no more, but that was enough to get him past the Canadian Governmentofficials, who screen those who enter their country. With that $500 he was able to "retire" permanently. He built acabin on rented ground in British Columbia, and earns enough working by the day for a few weeks a year to livein comfort and satisfaction for the rest of the time.

So don't hold back from making your leap into simple living because you happen now to live in a large city. Eithermove to the spot where you have always fancied you would like to live, or, if circumstances require you to be inthe city for business each day, move out of the city far enough to find the sort of living you want. Don't say it can'tbe done. It can. Hundreds have done it. How do you know you can't until you have tried it yourself?

In this country for the past dozen years there has been a back-tothe-land movement that has elicited thecooperation of the Government in Washington. Shortly after World War II, for instance, the Goverment opened uptracts of five acres, under the Five-Acre Tract law, passed in 1938, in the desert of California. Hundreds offamilies and individuals have leased these tracts at $5 per year, $1 per acre per year. The requirements are notstrict. The Act merely requires that you state the purpose for which the land is to be used. It can only be used as ahome, camp, cabin, health, convalescent, recreational or business site, and not for farming. You have also to provethat you have financial responsibility to maintain yourself and carry out the undertaking for which you propose touse the land.

Information about where to write for such land is included in Section VII. There also you will find informationabout other Government lands which are available for your use in living the simple life.

But don't worry too much if there isn't public land near where you are. There's land. That is all that counts, becauseif you are persistent and earnest about it you can find a place for your experiment, all right. The main thing is, areyou in earnest?

If you are, you are ready to read Section III. It tells you just how you can live this simple life, what kind of houseor other shelter you can live in, and how easy it is to provide yourself with the essentials of a roof over your head.

SECTION III

HOW YOU CAN LIVE

"Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts, of life are . . . positive hindrances. "

-Thoreau

Your first requirement, of course, in leading the simple life, in going back to it, is to have something to live thesimple life in. In other words, shelter. You have been used, maybe for your entire life, to apartments, hotel rooms,city dwellings, so you know what rent means. Budget experts figure on 25 per cent of the income for this one itemof shelter alone. So if you have been earning $400 a month, you have been accustomed to laying $100 a month atleast on the line for rent. Chances are, what with rents inflated like everything else, you have been paying out morethan a fourth of your income for the mere sake of a roof between you and the stars.

You are concerned about going back to the simple life for fear you can't afford what it costs, if you cut yourselfloose from your income.

Is that one of your misgivings?

Forget your past conceptions of what it costs for shelter, because the simple life implies that you can get alongwith a different kind of shelter; one which is just as good but which costs you just a fraction.

Part of the fun of the simple life is cutting yourself clear away from old ideas. Instead, for example, of living in acity apartment, at $125 per month, with its varnished floors, steam radiators, and janitor service, you get as faraway from that as you can, and live in the simplest shelter imagimable.

Why, you might even live in a cave! It sounds preposterous at first, but many persons have done and do it. PatLynch, born into an aristocratic Irish family, ran away from home, sailed the seven seas, then settled down in anisolated valley in the Rocky Mountains, still named Pat's Hole in his honor. He couldn't be bothered aboutbuilding a house, so he cleaned out and patched up a natural cave just above the river. Here he lived in blissfulcomfort for 50 years. During his latter dayshe died at the age of 98 just a few years ago, hale and hearty to theend-some of his neighbors "took pity on the poor old man", built him a tidy log cabin, and moved Pat and hiseffects into it. But he didn't like it. He went back to his hole in the cliff. Those who visited him there found it neatas a pin, clean, sunny, and bright; as good a home as any human being could want.

It shows one thing, what can be done. Chances are you will want a different kind of shelter, and no reason whyyou cannot have one for little or no cost.

For example, the market abounds with U.S. Army tents, sixteen feet square, made of the best canvas procurable.With sidewalls of lumber and lumber flooring, these pyramidal tents of the Army are as good a home for a simpleliver as anyone could want, light, airy, wind-resistant, warm.

What about winter in a tent? All right, what about winter in a tent. No one can answer that better than a simpleliver who tried it, and here is the experience of Mr. and Mrs. Charles H. Macomber. Thomas Drier tells about howthey managed it: "If as some philosophers have said, we are rich according to the number of things we can getalong without, Mr. and Mrs. Charles H. Macomber are multimillionaires. They lived in a tent all last winter nearPlymouth, New Hampshire. One time the temperature got as low as 32 degrees below zero. Attempts were madeto persuade the Macombers to move into a house, but they protested they were entirely comfortable and neitherthey, nor their cat "Mittens", nor their dog "Peaches" had any desire to desert their tent.

A trailer makes a fine home for a simple liver, and used trailers are going onto the market in increasing numbersnow that the housing shortage is being relieved. Out in the west are ever so many persons who swear that a sheepwagon is the best place on earth for a human being to live, the most compact, the most comfortable, the mostfriendly. Frank Robbins of Glenrock, Wyoming, for instance, has spent maybe half his life in sheep wagons, on thebleakest, coldest, windiest spots in Wyoming. He never suffered, and although he owns a comfortable ranch housenear town, he prefers living in his sheep wagon. Life there, he says, is simpler. It is reduced to its elements. It isbeautiful.

But if you want a permanent home-if you have the AngloSaxon feeling that only when a man lives underneath hisown roof does he live-why that opens up a whole new field of delight for you.

Build your own home. Let it be, according to the locale in which you build it, a log cabin, an adobe house, arammed earth dwelling, even one made of bamboo or palm fronds. But if you build it yourself, you will enjoy itthe more. And how do you know you can't build a perfectly satisfactory home for yourself?

There are dozens of cheap manuals on log cabin, rammed earth, adobe, or other construction on the market, andthe best advice you can receive is to buy yourself one of these books, live with it until you know it practically byheart, and then-go to it.

While you are building your home, you can live in a cave or in a simple tent. George Baker, for instance, who hasbeen introduced to you before and whom you will meet again in the next chapters, because he is such a paragon ofall the pioneer virtues which make simple living practicable, did that. He had an 8x 10 wall tent. This he pitchedon his rented homesite. In it he lived all one summer while he fashioned a oneroom log cabin with his hands. Hesaid that no period of his life gave him greater enjoyment than the weeks he was arising early, working late on thefirst home of his own he ever built.

You don't need much equipment to do the rough and ready building you are going to do. And you might, likeThoreau, even borrow what you need, but if you do, do be as careful as he was when he returned his borrowedtools to have them sharper and in better shape than before!

Mr. Baker, when he built his house, had the most meager kind of outfit. He had: a shovel, a hoe, an ax, a belthatchet, one crosscut saw, one panel saw, a brace and two bits, a sharpening stone, and two files: And that was all.

His personal outfit, while we are on it, because you will need a personal outfit yourself, you know, consisted of thefollowing: 3 pairs of U.S. Army blankets, bought second hand; one Hudson's Bay blanket, a canvas tarpaulin,sheet iron stove, set of cooking utensils, water pail, water bag, and small wash tub.

In clothing he has a sheeplined coat, an army hat, several pair of heavy shoes, socks, an extra pair of trousers, twosuits of underwear, an overcoat, one slicker.

Don't let not having S 100,000 in government bonds or two or three business blocks hold you back from leadingthe simple life. Your shelter is going to cost you next to nothing-after you get your cabin built $3 to $5 per monthis going to take care of that. And your actual living, food to eat, other expenses which are inevitable to a humanbeing as long as his breath holds out, are not going to cost you much more.

The few dollars it is going to cost you per month to live you are going to have little trouble in getting, as you willsee when you read the next Sections.

SECTION IV

FOOD AT SMALL COST

"We can call always fire on less, when we have more to live for. "

- Stephen McKenney

Maybe you have yearned for years to lead this simple life, but have been afraid you weren't ready for it, becauseyou did not have an assured income from investment of from $100 to $1,000 per month, depending upon theextravagance of your tastes or your experience in what constitutes a living in a modern city or town.

Revise your concept of what a living means and you can live like a king on very little, for much less, as a matterof fact, than $1 a day. And anyone can earn $1 a day regardless of where he is, regardless of how unskilled he is,because $1 a day can be picked up with just a few hours work a week.

You are used to grocery bills running $100 a month and up, but it doesn't cost more than 10 per cent of that tosustain life and health and keep you well nourished. The trick is to buy simple foods, which are alwaysinexpensive, instead of fancy foods which are always dear.

Not only will these simple foods cost you less money, but they will nourish you better and actually keep you at ahigher level of health.

A man named Frank Tarbeaux was convicted of some petty crime in England a number of years ago, sent toprison for 27 months. He had been a successful gambler, a high liver, and what they fed him in prison at firstdismayed him. He thought surely he would die of starvation, either that or boredom, because the meals were allthe same.

For breakfast and supper he and his fellow prisoners received a bowl of oatmeal, a chunk of bread, a jug of water;at noon they received bread and a large bowl of soup. And he thought he was badly treated. But after a fewmonths such health as he had never known came to him, and when he was discharged and wrote a fabulous storyof his life, he declared: "I am grateful to that sanitarium."

Of course, it isn't necessary for anyone to go to jail to learn and practice the benefits of simple fare. Just let himlive on a few cents a day, confine his purchases to items which can be kept within, say, 50 cents a day foreverything under today's higher prices.

Seven or eight years ago a research foundation in Minneapolis interested in proper nutrition, made a study of theactual cost to maintain a human being in the peak of health and fitness. The foundation concluded: "The averagenormal American needs only a few pounds of food a day. He can buy it at an average cost of eight cents perpound. He can be amply nourished, if he will build his diet around a few simple plentiful foods.

"Millions of low income and moderate income American families are undernourished because of wastefulspending of their food money," the report continues, "which in turn is the result partly of 'over-civilized' eatinghabits and partly of lack of education in food values. Much of their precious food money goes for items of littlefood value - 'taste-ticklers' and stimulants."

As to what is needed, these are the essential or protective foods: a pound of whole wheat foods and a pint of milka day, which will supply most of the proteins, vitamins, and minerals needed for healthful, vigorous living. Thisbasic diet can be fortified, according to this report, with an occasional orange or can of tomato juice and a bit offatty meat two or three times a week.

When this report was issued, the cost per pound of essential foods was around eight cents. Say it has doubledsince. That makes only 16 to 20 cents per pound.

Current prices on essential low-cost foods as this was being written, in a large city market, ran: Soy beans, 18cents a pound; split peas, 11 cents; navy beans, 11 cents; pinto beans, 12 cents, spaghetti, 18 cents; rice, 16 cents.Apples were selling for 10 cents a pound, tomatoes at 14, flour at 8, potatoes at 3, lettuce at 10 and sweet potatoesat 10. Milk was 17 1/2cents a quart.

Some frugal buyers can shade even this report. There is V. Berglin, of Tucson, Arizona, for example. For years hehas not spent more than $75 to $90 per year for his food, only $6 to $10 per month - and he is one of the best-nourished and peppiest individuals in the Southwest.

One month's supply for a simple liver - this is an actual marketing list of a man who has followed this system forliving for a long time - would run like this: 20 lbs. white flour, 10 lbs. corn meal; 6 lbs. bacon; 1 lb. salt pork; 1 lb.coffee; 1/4 lb. tea; 5 lbs. sugar; 10 lbs. potatoes; 3 lbs. macaroni; 2 lbs. raisins; 3 lbs. navy beans; 6 large packageseach of corn flakes and oat meal; 12 cans of condensed milk. The cost will run you at today's prices around $12.And that, plus fresh meat which you will pick up or fish you will catch or small game you will snare or trap, willsustain you easily and well and give you a feeling of satisfaction and creature comfort.

One of the saddest stories from World War II told of a British aviator whose plane was shot down over the jungle.He parachuted to safety but soon became lost and before he could reach friendly hands; before searching partiescould reach him; his strength was exhausted and he died of starvation. When found, the body was lying in a bed ofpurslane-a common weed found in various parts of the world. In Europe, poor families often use purslane as asalad, and nutritionists have found that this common weed has a food value about equal to green string beans. Theunknowing flyer had actually starved to death in the midst of plenty.

Southern California today is one of the richest agricultural areas in the world. Rich soil and mild climate make foryear around harvesting. But yet when the Spanish fathers first ventured into this territory they faced several yearsof precarious existence. Time after time they were on the verge of starvation and on the point of abandoning theenterprise. The small sailing boats took months to make the difficult journey from Mexico against adverse winds,tides and storms. Many of the crew died of scurvy each trip, and the meager supplies they, could bring werealways inadequate to support the few dozen soldiers and priests in the early California missions. By luck, prayerand near-starvation they managed to hang on until gardens and crops could be planted and harvested and alivelihood assured.

But in the meantime, there were many tribes of simple Indians whom the Franciscan monks had come toChristianize. These peoples - and anthropologists estimate they numbered about 100,000 had few or no clothes,only the simplest kinds of snares and weapons, and their homes were rude shelters of boughs, on the lee side ofrocks. They needed nothing more. They lived on seeds, small birds and animals, the fruits and pulp of certaincactus and other desert plants, and their principal food was a meal ground from the abundant acorns of the liveoaks and made into a porridge or baked into cakess and bread.

The Spaniards, accustomed to a diet of cereals, meat, wine and olives, starved rather than try the food of theIndians. And many, many others - even today - are just such slaves of habit and custom, ready to starve to deathbefore trying a new and strange food. Corn, called "maize" by many European peoples, is considered by them tobe fit only for animal food. Relief agencies, trying to aid starving millions, have often been in despair by therejection of such things as canned corn, hominy, cornmeal mush, corn-pone or "Johnny cake," which so many ofus Americans regard as delicacies.

Habit and custom bind all of us with heavy chains, but when combined with ignorance they form a barrier whichis well-nigh insurmountable.

Man is perhaps the most omniverous feeder of all animals. The stomachs of cows and grass eaters are especiallyadapted for their diet. Cats, dogs and similar creatures are particularly suited for a meat diet. But nature hasapparently made the digestive apparatus of man so adaptable that it can handle the widest variety of foods.Fanatics have many times proved that man can live healthfully on a raw fruit and vegetable diet; on a diet thatexcludes all meats and animal products, and even on a completely liquid diet. A famous physician who hassuffered so severely with amoebic dysentery that he was able to handle nothing but boiled milk, still livedcomfortably and well for many years. A well-known engineer, faced with the problem of completing his senior

year of college on a very small income, solved his problem by mixing large batches of dry oatmeal with a littlesugar and a few raisins. He had no facilities for cooking, but ate several handfuls of this Spartan ration daily,washed down with plenty of water. He suffered no ill effects on this diet, maintained normal weight and healthand graduated with honors. On the other hand, the life of the Eskimo proves that a diet of meat and fish can beequally successful. The famous explorer, Viljalmer Stefanson, once spent a year in the arctic during which timehis diet consisted solely of meat, yet he returned to civilization in vigorous health and weighing ten pounds morethan when he left.

Diet in man, therefore, seems to be very largely a matter of choice and education. Everyone who has watched amother wean her baby must realize this. The infant is accustomed to a diet of milk and recognizes nothing else.When a spoonful of porridge is given him, he promptly spits it out. Only by the patience and persistence of themother, during which time the food is spilled over bib and clothing, rubbed in the hair and played with, is hefinally taught to eat it. Each new item of diet is more or less a repetition of the same routine. Where the mother isbusy and impatient, or where the income and available food is limited, the diet of the child, and his food likes anddislikes carried over into adult life, may be very limited. Pellagra, beri-beri, scurvy and other nutritional diseasesarise not from starvation but from a restricted diet. Even the meat-eating Stefanson found that to maintain health,he had to eat various kinds of meat and include fat, such as seal blubber, and the body organs - heart, liver, etc.

Modern nutritionists now agree that the preferred diet is one that is varied as much as possible. Variety in dietinsures ample supply of vitamins, amino acids and other trace elements which seem to be essential to health. Withsuch a varied diet there should be no need for supplemental vitamin pills or potions.

Perhaps more important from the standpoint of health than the actual diet itself, is the quantity of food taken.Although it has been estimated that at least half the world's population, chiefly in such densely populated countriesas China and India, do not have enough to eat, it is equally true that a large part of the population, and especiallyin the United States, suffer from evereating. Gluttony is more common and more pernicious than drunkeness.

Overeating is a habit more difficult to conquer than many forms of drug addiction. A large majority of all the illswe suffer are due directly or indirectly to overeating Excess food acts in the human body just as excess gasoline inan automobile engine. Valves stick, carbon accumulates, sludge clogs up the working parts and eventually slowsdown, damages and stops the motor. In a similar manner, too much food impairs and breaks down the functioningof the human body; fat accumulates, circulation becomes sluggish and labored, the heart is distended, strained, andall the organs suffer in consequence.

It is interesting to note that the first man to warn of the harmfulness of overeating lived in Medieval Europe. LuigiCornaro, a Venetian, came from a wealthy family and wasted his early years in such riotous living, drunkenessand gluttony that by the time he was 40 degenerative diseases had reached such a state that physicians despaired ofsaving his life. Given up to die he retired to a small country estate and took stock of himself. He was an intelligentman; well-educated for his time, and capable of profound reasoning. He came to the conclusion that the humanbody was designed to function most efficiently and well on the minimum amount of food that would maintainnormal weight and strength. Overeating was not simply a waste of food but a definite strain and burden upon thebody organs. He decided to experiment upon himself and found that - in his case - an intake of about fourteenounces of solid food daily, with a pint of wine best satisfied his needs. His food was the plainest and simplestkinds, a coarse whole grain bread, a little meat - usually fowl - and a green salad. Caloric values were unknownfive hundred years ago and so Cornaro concerned himself only with quantity. He found that in his own case thebalance between enough and too much was so delicate, due to damaged organs, that the addition of only twoounces more than he required would produce a severe digestive disturbance. This was perhaps fortunate for itstrengthened an already formidable resolution and Cornaro was able to stick to his diet so faithfully that heregained his health; became a noted architect; one of the leading citizens of the powerful Venetian republic;fathered a large family and lived comfortably to the ripe old age of 102.

Cornaro wrote of his experiences and advised others to follow his example, but he prescribed no diets, andsuggested that each person should experiment with the needs of his own body to discover the kinds of food andthe minimum amount of food which would maintain health, weight and vigor. He recognized that this would varywith the individual and the kind of exercise and work performed.

But, although Cornaro's advice has been widely read, and his writings translated into many languages andpublished many times over, it is rare that anyone can be found with the courage, resolution and will-power toadhere to them. One notable exception was John D. Rockefeller, Sr., who recovered his health and lived to the ageof 96 through careful attention to a minimum diet. In his case, as in Cornaro's, it must be pointed out that severedigestive troubles practically forced the limitation of diet. With most of us, food and the pleasures of eating are soimportant that we can seldom summon the will-power to practice such Spartan restraint. It is, however, a goal tobe cherished and remembered, for the nearer we can approximate this end, the greater will be our reward inimproved health and a comfortable long life.

Although the annual seed catalogs list a large variety of vegetables, these are chiefly the familiar ones handeddown from generation to generation of gardeners. Often they are not too well suited to our particular locality andoften they have been selected and inbred for so many generations that they are now lacking in qualities whichonce made them desirable. Too few realize that varieties of weeds growing in the fields and along the roadsidesmay be just as edible; indeed may even be more nutritious, more appetizing, than our cultivated vegetables. Again,custom and habit and the resistance to change may blind us to the possibilities that lie around us. Just as thepurslane in which the aviator lay down to die of starvation might easily have saved his life, so many of us wasteour money on processed and factory packaged foods while much superior products may be trampled underfoot.Most country people know that tender dandelion leaves, lamb's quarters, and curly dock are superior to spinach asa cooked green, but there are countless other edible wild plants. Hunting edible foods in the hedgerows, fields andwoods is as much fun as hunting game and perhaps even more profitalbe since these foods are sources of minerals,vitamins, and other health-promoting substances which so often are deficient in cultivated plants. If you areinterested in the subject, there is a very helpful book which will serve as a guide. It is EDIBLE WILD PLANTS,by Oliver Perry Medsger, published by the MacMillan Company, New York City, in 1947. Perhaps your locallibrary has a copy.

Meat is equally available to the knowing. Rabbits, squirrels and game birds are available in most parts of thecountry in season, but few realize that other small creatures often considered pests are just as valuable for food . . .the grass-eating marmot or wood-chuck, the opposum, raccoon, muskrat, yes even the skunk or porcupine. Someyears back, in an effort to encourage hunting of the pestiferous crow, dieticians investigated the food possibilitiesof this maligned bird and found it could be prepared as tastily as chicken. And almost every small boy who hasplayed Indian has discovered that the sparrow and noisy starling, plucked, cleaned and roasted on a spit over acampfire are as delectable as quail, dove or plover. To this list should be added fish, frogs, turtle and crayfishavailable in most streams and ponds.

In this Section, too, it should be pointed out that while the snares put out by various trappers supply houses aremost efficient, there is at present a growing interest in the small boy's slingshot, made from a forked crotch, a pairof rubber bands and bit of leather for a pocket. Lopsided and misshapen stones which we used for ammunition inchildhood prevented accuracy, but modern slingshot fans have found that lead shot, or small round pellets of clay,dried hard in the sun, can be fired with accuracy equal to the best bow and arrow and, indeed, comparable to asmall rifle.

The art of cooking is something that can be as elaborate as the concoctions of a skilled French chef, or as simpleas the tin can of "Mulligan" on the hobo's fire. Taste, time, inclination and equipment dictate how and what wemay accomplish in this line. For economy of time, effort and money, many simple one-dish meals cooked encasserole are possible. Simplest of all, of course, is famed "mulligan stew" in which available meats from a soupbone to a chicken are put into a kettle, or even a large tin can, together with vegetable, salt and pepper and cookedtogether to the consistency of rich soup.

The Mystery Chef, famed radio commentator on cookery, once told of observing the unemployed duringdepression periods in London survive in well-nourished comfort on a similar dish. These poverty-stricken men,unable to find work, would gather up the discarded outer leaves and slightly blemished vegetables thrown out asunsalable by the green-grocers. With a few pennies cadged at panhandling or running small errands, they wouldpurchase the cheapest cuts of meat such as shin bones, neck bones, etc. Cooking these together they would havethe equivalent of a "mulligan" stew which was not only satisfying but also contained the elements for completenutrition.

During the depression of 1907 a Boston newspaper reporter, Elmer Rice, made a carefully checked demonstrationof how a working man could eat satisfactorily at a total cost of only one dollar a week. Food costs were, of course,considerably lower than in our day, but the chief factor in Mr. Rice's success was the stove, an unpatented deviceknown as the "Atkinson stove." Since cooking costs were included in Mr. Rice's allotment and he was restricted toa low-cost-sleeping room of the type then used by so many unemployed it was important that his stove beefficient, simple and economical. The Atkinson stove was all of these. Heat was supplied by an ordinary,inexpensive kerosene lamp. The stove proper consisted of an insulated metal cover which rested on a grill a fewinches above the lamp, so as not to interfere with the air supply. The slow gentle heat accumulating under theinsulated cover cooks casserole dishes without shrinkage or burning and retains and blends food flavors in a waythat can hardly be duplicated.

The Atkinson stove can be used as readily for frying, boiling or baking. Set on a table, the lamp could supplyevening light at the same time cooking is done. Costs are surprisingly low, depending upon the cost of kerosene.Doubtless the stove could be adapted very easily to use with a charcoal pot, alcohol, gas or gasoline burner. Theessential element is the insulated metal cover, and this can be contrived by removing the bottom, from a five-gallon motor oil can, setting it inside a corrugated cardboard carton with a two-inch airspace between the can andcarton, and packing this airspace with lightweight glass wool for insulation.

SECTION V

HOW YOU CAN EARN A LIVING

"I have never been able to find one good reason for working at all, except for bare subsistence or for the funof it. "

- Charles Allen Smart

Of course, even a meager living requires money, and money comes only in exchange for work of some kind, soyou have to give some thought to the problem of earning a living, if ever so simple.

And simple it is to earn a simple living, which is all you need.

This man, Baker, for instance, comes back into the picture once more. As you have been told, he had less than$100, was 64 years old, decrepit and discouraged when he set out on his simple living jaunt. He didn't knowwhether he would be able to make a go of it or not. Besides, he lived 40 miles away from the city in an isolatedmountain region. His only training was that of an office man and surveyor, both of which aren't badly needed inthe hinterlands where he settled. So he had many hours during his first month or two to worry about whetherthey'd one day find a lonely old man starved to death in his cabin.

He laughs now at the remembrance for he is confident that no matter where he would go he could earn all theliving he needs. He has the know-how, you see. He got it during his first year of the simple life when he found 30different things to do to earn money.

What kind of things? The same kind you yourself can turn your hand to. He had a garden, raised more than heneeded, sold his surplus - he earned $40 a year at that. He acted as a guide for fishermen and hunters - got $5 aday for that. He drove parties of tourists over the mountains (mountain-scared tourists who wouldn't drive theirown cars). He experimented with different herbs, found a cough syrup his neighbors were willing to buy. He maderustic furniture, found it had a ready sale.

Another man, John Burnham, living in upper New York State, went through the depression of 1929 - on withoutknowing there was a depression. His recipe is one you can copy and follows. "There never will be a time wheneverybody is broke," he believes. "nor will there ever be a time when every job that needs doing is done. There arefences to repair, wells to dig, letters to write, advice to give. Find out what somebody in your neighborhood wants.Then do it for him. Do it so well and at such low cost that you surprise him. Always give people more than theyexpect, and you'll always find plenty to do."

So you will. So you will. No matter where you are, you can turn some of your talents to money and the little

money you need will not require many of your talents nor require them for a very long time.

What will be left in the way of talents, and energy and time will be yours to spend gloriously as you see fit, inliving this most blessed life of them all - the simple life.

SECTION VI

HOW TO START LEADING THE SIMPLE LIFE

"There is not a dream which may not come true, if we have the energy which makes, or chooses, our ownfate . . . It is only the dreams of those light sleepers who dream faintly, that do not come true. "

- Arthur Symons

If you have read this far in this course you are convinced, aren't you, that the simple life is an easy life to followand also the most desirable life,, and you have made up your mind that it will be your life.

Don't wait too long to start in. Don't be like so many persons, dreamers who go on year in and year out saying that,Next year will be the year I will do it. But next year never comes, and in the end it becomes too late. Be, rather,like the Chinese gentleman who had a sign in his garden: "ENJOY YOURSELF. IT IS LATER THAN YOUTHINK," and start as soon as you can.

There is a certain amount of mental orientation and conditioning necessary before you set out, to be sure, and noone but yourself can make that change - about which will be required.

You first of all have to decide whether the simple life is really what you are after and if you are willing to makethe changes necessary. You have to do some giving up. You can't have the same kind of corner drugstore comfortsyou have in the city. You may have to build your own fires, wash your own clothes, read by a coal oil lamp, andeat off an oil cloth instead of damask linen, such as you are used to in the fine hotels.

Your social life is going to be different. You can't spend your time at cocktail parties or chamber of commercebanquets or watching night club acts; and if these things are more important to you than the peace and serenity andindependence which come from the simple life, maybe you had better not consider making the change.

But if you go into this thing with your eyes open - always realizing in the back of your mind that in case ofeconomic or atomic attack it may mean the difference between survival and destruction - you'll never find a betterlife anywhere than the life that is simple.

But start preparing for it at once. Begin by buying the outfit you need to get started - sleeping outfit, cookingoutfit, building tools, gardening tools, and the like. There's a world of fun even in preparing for the simple life,and mail order house and seed catalogs will enthrall you for weeks or months before you actually are ready to startin.

Do not delay too long. There's a new life awaiting you out there, a fine life, a full life, and it's a shame, if youhave gone this far toward living it, for you not to go the rest of the way - and fast!

SECTION VII

INFORMATION SOURCES YOU CAN DEPEND ON

"Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes. "

Thoreau

For detailed information about different phases of your new life, here are sources of information:

ABOUT LAND AVAILABLE: Write to the Department of the Interior, Land Management Bureau, inWashington, for circular concerning five-acre tract leases. This is free.

The Forest Service, also in Washington, will send you a circular about tracts in the national forests which you canrent.

Read the Sunday classified ads. Frequently you can pick up small parcels of land for just a few dollars an acre.

Talk to a dependable real estate man in the vicinity of the place you want your simple life to unfold, and ask aboutrenting or buying land.

CABIN BUILDING: The U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, will send you on request a catalog ofGovernment publications, several of which pertain to building cabins and other subjects of interest to simplelivers. Many of these publications are free; others cost a few cents each. All are valuable to you.

Ask your local library for books on cabin building and other phases of homesteading. There is a fairly largeliterature on the subject, and a few weeks of reading will make you expert in knowledge - only a few monthsactual work will make you expert in actual construction! But get the theory first.

The publishers of POPULAR SCIENCE MAGAZINE (New York) have several excellent manuals on homebuilding and repairing. They cost $1 apiece. This magazine and POPULAR MECHANICS (Chicago) are filledeach month with practical howto-do-it articles which it would pay you to read.

CAMPING KNOWLEDGE: If you've never done much outdoor lisving, you had better read a book or two in thesubject. Although fairly old, no other book gives you more background knowledge than Horace Kephart'sCAMPING AND WOODCRAFT (The MacMillan Co., New York). This is a two-volume work and is amonument to Horace Kephart, who, incidentally, did exactly the thing you are contemplating - left it all behindand went to live the simple life. He was 43 at the time, librarian of the Mercantile Library, and apparently in a rutfor life. But he bucked his way out, took a few hundred dollars, and hiked to the Big Smoky country in NorthCarolina. Here, living alone in a deserted cabin, he found a wonderful life. He likewise found a satisfying careeras writer, friend of the natives, champion of conservation, and father of the Big Smoky National Park.

The library will get you other books on camping, but start with Kephart's; he's one of your kind.

FISHING AND HUNTING: A large literature exists on this subject, too, and you will find hours of interestingreading in it. Any manual on fishing in the vicinity of where you are to live will be invaluable; the same about abook on hunting. One of the most thorough and workable books on fishing is called FRESH WATER FISHING,by Arthur H. Carhart, published by A.S. Barnes Co., New York. It costs $5 but is well worth the price because ittells everything.

If you plan to do some trapping write to FUR-FISH-GAME in Columbus, Ohio, for a list of the trapping manualspublished by that firm. These are inexpensive, around $1 usually, but cover a world of practical experience.

SUPPLEMENT TO SECTION IVFOOD ONLY $1.00 A WEEK

"Only one thing in life matters - independence. Lose that, lose everything. Get old like me, you'll find that out.Keep your independence!"

- John Galsworthy in "Old English. "

Soon after the first edition of the Course was distributed friends began to chide us and point out that, after all, it -was some years ago that Mr. Rice made his experiments in living on $1 a week for food. The world has come along way since then (most of it for the worse, many insist) and food costs in particular have advanced greatly.They doubted that anyone could live on $1 a week for food today, or anywhere near that amount. "Be reasonable,"they said. "Make it $10 a week and more folks will believe you!"

Frankly, we began to feel a little uneasy ourselves. We don't live on $1 a week for food; never have and don'texpect to. We think it unnecessary for anyone in these times to impose such Spartan restraints. We only intendedto point out that it could be done, and done satisfactorily, if necessity demanded.

As doubt increased, we decided that we'd better have a careful test made and appealed to a man who had practicedthe simple life for several years to give us the benefit of a laboratory experiment. His report follows:

"Dear Friends: You know I'm in sympathy with your ideas, but I didn't expect to be made a guinea pig. At least,not in mid-July when my garden is burgeoning with the first ripe tomatoes, green beans, sweet corn, new potatoes,peas, et cetera, and you tell me I have to pass them all up because some of your Doubting Thomases may not havegardens. My advice to them is to locate where they can have a garden. What is life without a garden?

"But since you were so urgent, here is my report, and I'm willing to seal it with blood, notarize it, and swear on astack of Bibles if you insist.

PURCHASED SUPPLIES

3 pounds whole hard wheat from feed store. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12

1 pound soybeans from feed store. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .05

2 pounds powdered skim milk from bakery. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20

1 pint blackstrap molasses from bakery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10

1 package iodized salt from grocery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .05

1 yeast cake from grocery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .05

1 pound salt pork from market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24

Total .81

"There are several varieties of soybeans; and I like the big white ones the kind used to make bean sprouts.

"Blackstrap molasses is the refinery residue and contains all the concentrated minerals and vitamins removed inprocessing for white sugar. Bakers use it for flavoring and sweetening.

"Buying is important when there is need for economizing. At the time these purchases were made the market forselect hard wheat was $2.22 per hundredweight; for soybenas, $2.43. These are the prices the growers get fortheir top quality. The feed store is entitled to a fair mark-up for handling. But a local Health Food Store asked 350a pound for whole wheat in a fancy package; 25¢ a pound for soybeans; 30¢ a pound for powdered skim milk;and 30¢ a pint for blackstrap. They have a very limited market and must charge accordingly, but you don't have tobuy at these sources.

"Milk dryers were charging 5¢ a pound retail at their plants. I don't know what blackstrap was selling for at therefinery, but it is comparatively inexpensive; most of it goes into stock feed. The very dark molasses at the groceryis "blackstrap" - they just don't admit it. They priced it at 18¢ for 12 ounces.

"Of course, no one likes to sell in these little quantities and you wouldn't want to buy in dribbles either. Wastestoo much time and temper. Better economy would be to buy fifty or even a hundred pounds of wheat, if you cankeep it in dry, clean storage; ten or twenty-five pounds of soybeans; a fivegallon tin of blackstrap, and ten poundsof powdered milk, providing you can keep it in air-tight tins, or tight glass jars. It absorbs moisture from the airand turns rancid if exposed needlessly.

MONDAY

"Breakfast: I ground half a cup of wheat through my old coffee mill, adjusting the burrs to a coarse, percolatortype grind. This I cooked with water and a pinch of salt, and ate it sweetened with molasses and drenched withmilk. I mix the powdered milk with water, shake well, and let it stand overnight in my spring cooler.

"After breakfast I took a couple of pounds of the wheat and put it through my coffee mill, adjusting the burrs tothe finest, drip type grind. It put it through three or four times until it came out like flour, but coarse, of course.

"Where did I get the coffee grinder? I bought it at the hardware store for 50¢. Said he'd had it on the shelf since1922. You don't expect me to charge that in my week do you? That is a capital investment.

"I measured out one and three-fourths pounds of this flour and stirred into it one level teaspoon of salt. Then Icrumbled the cake of yeast into a cup of warm milk, stirred it up good and added another cup of warm water. This,mixed with the flour, made a dough of good consistency. I then set it aside to rise for twenty minutes.

"After scrubbing my hands, I rubbed them with a bit of the salt pork, which I also used to grease two tins. Thenkneaded my dough good, dividing it into the two tins. There was lots of life in the yeast, so I set the dough aside torise again and in about half an hour it was swelling over the top of the tins. Meanwhile, I had the stove going toget a good hot oven. It took about an hour to bake the bread well done, with a nice hard crust, which I like.

"I soaked a cup of soy beans in water while I made bread and when it was done, I put the beans into a crockerypot with a tablespoon of molasses and a couple of strips of salt pork and cut the stove down so it would simmercook the beans for the evening meal. I put in plenty of water so they didn't need watching.

"For noon lunch, I had three thick slices of my fresh bread and a slice of salt pork. I fried out most of the greaseand dripped it onto my bread. With a glass of milk, this was very satisfying, but I took a walk down to the backpasture afterward and ate a few handsful of wild raspberries, which are beginning to ripen now.

"Since you won't let me use my garden sass, I also gathered up some still tender leaves of lamb's quarters, sometender wood violet leaves, some watercress, and a small bunch of sour sorrel. These would be chopped up,drenched with salt pork drippings and made into a very tasty salad.

"Half the beans, the salad, a cup of hot mint tea, and a slice of bread spread with molasses made the evening meal.I suppose I should have picked a saucer of raspberries and eaten them with milk and molasses, but I didn't thinkabout it, so will have them later.

"The mint grows along the run-off from the spring and I use a lot of it, and dry the leaves for winter. I like the teastrong and straight, but sometimes I sweeten it with a little molasses and sometimes I put in a pinch of crushedsorrel leaves, which gives it a little tang like lemon.

TUESDAY

"Breakfast consisted of a couple of slices of bread, toasted lightly and smeared with a little salt pork drippings,plus a cup of coffee. To make coffee, I put a tablespoon of the blackstrap into a cup and pour boiling water overit. Then I stir it up good and lighten it with a little milk. Tastes about like postum, and now that I'm accustomed toit I prefer it to the tannic acid solution that used to give us heartburn and indigestion in the Navy.

"For lunch, I warmed up the beans and polished them off with a glass of milk and a slice of bread. You'd like mybread . . . it is 100 percent whole wheat and no fooling; heavy and dark, with a rich nutty flavor. It's the kind of'swarzbrod' the poor peasants of Europe had to eat while the nobility ate cake. But you'll remember that thepeasants lived long and heartily while the aristocrats lost their teeth and their heads at an early age.

"A family of rabbits has been making free with my cabbage since early spring and I decided this would be a goodtime to reduce their numbers. I set a snare.

"For supper, I took half a cup of soy grits, which I make by grinding them coarsely through my coffee mill, apinch of salt and some salt pork drippings for added flavoring, and boiled the mixture in the simmer-cooker tomake a thick, rich soup - very like old-fashioned split pea soup. A slice of bread, a cup of mint tea, and a dish ofraspberries and milk filled me up.

"Afterward, I cooked up a batch of whole wheat cereal with bits of salt pork from which I had fried out most ofthe grease. When it was thick and done I poured the mixture into a pan to cool and set overnight, to make avariation of scrapple

WEDNESDAY

"I was up bright and early and sure enough, there was a cottontail about three-quarters grown in the snare. I killedit with a quick rap on the back of the neck and cut his head off with a heavy knife, saving all the blood I could ina tin can. This blood, mixed with ground cereal or soybeans makes fine catfish bait and I like to have a can of itburied in the cool mud by the spring where it keeps quite a long time.

"The head I carefully split in two with a long ear for a handle on each side. Then I buried both pieces in mycompost heap for a use I will tell you about later.

"I skinned and cleaned the rabbit, cut it up and wrapped it in a damp cloth to store in my food box in the spring. Ilike to have all the animal heat well cooled before I cook it.

"For breakfast I had a bowl of whole wheat cereal with molasses and milk, and a cup of molasses coffee.

"For lunch, I cut some of the scrapple into half-inch slices and fried them brown and crisp with a slice of saltpork. A glass of milk and some wild salad greens went with it.

"For supper, I fried the two back legs of my rabbit, ate a bowl of wild salad greens, a slice of bread and finishedoff with a cup of mint tea and a dish of raspberries and milk.

THURSDAY

"Breakfast: two slices of toast, a slice of salt pork fried and drained, and a cup of molasses coffee.

"After breakfast, I put the remaining pieces of rabbit in a paper sack with half a cup of whole wheat flour, and apinch of salt and shook them around until they were coated well. Then I browned them good in a frying pan andput them in my crockery casserole with half a cup of soaked soybeans, a handful of tender lamb's quarters leaves,and three small wild onions. These wild onions are small but potent and have to be used with caution. I sometimeschop the green tops in my salads - when I don't expect visitors! I sprinkled the casserole with a little more salt anddripped a tablespoon or two of salt pork grease over all. Then I boiled a cup of milk with two tablespoons ofwhole wheat flour until it thickened, and poured this in the pot. I put the casserole on to cook soon after breakfastbut by lunch it still wasn't done, so I continued to simmer cook it all afternoon.

"For lunch, I fried what was left of my scrapple and ate it with a glass of milk which I warmed, flavored with aspoonful of blackstrap, and drank.

"By supper time, the rabbit casserole was done just right and I ate half of it, with a slice of bread, before my beltbegan to feel tight. A cup of mint tea and a dish of berries and milk for dessert.

FRIDAY

"Breakfast: whole wheat cereal and molasses coffee.

"Lunch: two slices of bread made into a sandwich with a filling of chopped watercress, and a glass of milk.

"After lunch I dug the pieces of rabbit head out of the compost pile. They really weren't ripe enough, but I figured

they'd do. I tied a length of stout string to each ear, got my minnow net and went down to a swampy, slow-waterpart of the creek. Here I tossed the rabbit heads in about three feet from the bank and left them for half an hour.When I came back and slowly pulled them up they were covered with crawdads (crayfish is the scientific name). Irepeated the operation until I had selected about five dozen nice ones, each about three inches long.

"I washed them good, took them home and dropped them into boiling salt water. They turn a bright scarlet whencooked, look like miniature lobsters, and when the tails are separated from the inedible bodies and shelled, theytaste very like fresh water shrimp. I ate half of them for supper with a salad of wild greens, a slice of bread, and acup of tea. The rest of the crawdads I put in a covered bowl in my spring cooled food storage box.

SATURDAY

"Breakfast: two slices of toast and a cup of molasses coffee.

"Lunch: warmed up rabbit casserole and finished it. Slice of bread, glass of milk and dish of raspberries - plentifulright now.

"Supper: two slices of bread soaked in milk and fried brown on' each side in salt pork grease. Cup of mint tea.

SUNDAY

"Breakfast: wheat cereal with molasses and milk. Coffee.

"Dinner: I fried the rest of the crayfish with a bit of salt pork; fixed a salad of wild greens. Two slices of bread, apot of tea, and raspberries.

"Supper: I eat a late noon dinner on Sundays - around two or two-thirty - and usually skip the evening meal.However, I was afraid you might cry 'foul' on me, so I ate some bread and milk in the evening and called it aweek.

"P.S.: Never got around to spending the last 19¢, so I think I'll splurge it on an ice cream soda next time I'm intown. Folks who use the kerosene burner would probably spend most of it on fuel. I use wood and charcoal whichcosts me only sweat.

"What would I do in a big city? Well, there are woods, fields, bunnies, and edible plants as well as fishing lakesand streams within trolley and walking distances of most cities. In the big cities, too, pigeons are a nuisance. Butthey are fat and easily snared, and they cook up nicely if given plenty of time on the simmer-cooker. I've lived inNew York, Los Angeles, Omaha, Denver and lots of cities in between and I noticed most city park lily ponds areswarming with crawdads. They are pretty well distributed all over the country and, indeed, all over the world.

"You must keep in mind, also, that meat is not vital. George Bernard Shaw recently celebrated his 94th birthday.He has been a strict vegetarian for half a century and his good health and work capacity -he has just completed anew play - are testimony to his beliefs. Soybeans are the only vegetable which approach the protein content ofmeat and are therefore the best meat substitute. But soybeans can be prepared in hundreds of satisfying ways.

"Soup bones, chicken feet, and government inspected horse meat are also cheap additions to a low-cost dietavailable to most city dwellers.

"If you think my week's menu was a bit monotonous, just remember that in my garden now (July 26) I have ripetomatoes, sweet corn turnips, carrots, kohlrabi, kale, cabbage, edible podded peas, lettuce, cucumbers, summersquash, new potatoes, onions and green beans.

"What about winter? Well, I'd eat more meat; might even get a deer. But there are also raccoons, possums, and redsquirrels in addition to rabbits. For greens, I grow watercress in a Small aquarium and lettuce in a window boyinside a sunny window. I also sprout soybeans. That's in case you wouldn't let me use the stuff preserved from mygarden - which would include dried and canned vegetables and fruits, as well as potatoes, rutabagas, squash, etcetera in the root cellar.

"And say, I have a loaf of bread and another day or two of food left on hand. Maybe two can live as cheaply asone!

Yours faithfully"

Competent authorities now agree that diet is the most important single factor in the environment of all livingthings. More simply stated: "You are what you eat!"

Stockmen whose livelihood depends on their skill in raising superior beet; poultry-keepers whose success dependson the egg laying abilities of their hens, have long known this. It is incredible that, in the face of continuousexperimentation and demonstration of the amazing improvements and benefits possible in animal husbandry, thescience of human nutrition has lagged so far behind.

Organic gardening - growing food plants with natural composts and fertilizers as opposed to strong chemicals andpoisons - has proved again and again that more vigor and greater resistance to disease and insect pests can bedeveloped in the plants and that their food value and appetite appeal is greatly enhanced.

Scurvy, pellagra, beri-beri have long been recognized as diseases caused by diet deficiencies. But how much moreof our ill health is due to faulty nutrition? A little flourine in the drinking water may prevent tooth decay. A littlepantothenic acid in the diet may prevent gray hair. Now scientists are discovering that certain elements in the dietgovern brain power and intelligence.

We are blind, indeed, if we cannot profit from this new knowledge to make our own lives healthier, happier andlonger through a simple diet of easily available, natural foods, properly prepared.

"Only one thing in life matters independence. Lose that, lose everything. Get old like me, you'll find that out. Keepyour independence! "

John Galsworthy in "Old English"

Issue 1 - January/February 1970

Twin Oaks

The Great Farm Revolution

They publish a little booklet titled "The Revolution is Over:We Won!" , or as the subtitle says, "The RadicalCommune Approach to Revolution." All of which is a good introduction to the Twin Oaks Community quietlythriving in its third year down in the heart of Virginia. They live on 123 acres of what used to be a tobacco farm -the first year on the place they even raised a crop of the noxious weed under the direction of a friendly localfarmer. But now farming gets less attention as their hammock manufacturing industry grows large enough tosatisfy much of their "outside" economic needs. When we visited the place there were 13 actual communitymembers along with five or six visitors. These visitors were part of a never-ending stream of people who come tosee the new life at Twin Oaks and their presence raises the actual population at Twin Oaks to about 20 people atany given time during the summer. Visitors from the outside, like we two, are very important to the revolutionthey speak of. For while Twin Oaks was designed to be a living experiment in community, it also aims tostimulate others to do the same. As one member said ". . . we generally hold to the opinion that people who don'tstart communities (or join them) are slightly immoral." It's all part of the revolution being over - they definerevolution as a "radical restructuring" of society, both economic and, more important, cultural. (But maybe youcan't really separate the two.) One member summed up a desirable post-revolutionary society as: "a society thatcreates people who are commited to non-aggression; a society of people concerned for one another; a societywhere one man's gain is not another man's loss; a society where disagreeable work is minimized and leisure isvalued; a society in which people come first; an economic system of equality; a society which is constantly tryingto improve in its Many will, of course, dismiss all of this as mere rhetoric claiming that communities are escapistor that, if they ever did become a real threat to society, then society would destroy them. But Twin Oaks peoplesee themselves as only the beginning of what they expect will become a very large movement - a movement ofyoung people forming groups so alternate social structures may be experimented with to find the structures thatproduce the things that people value. Twin Oaks people will tell you that the size of this movement and itsobviously better way of life will make it impossible to repress. You can get the impression - because of thestrength of their belief - that some of them even get kind of religious about these notions. But religious or mysticalthey are not. Their first and foremost belief is that answers to social questions come only from socialexperimentation and scientific observance of the results of these experiments. They think of philosophers andpoliticians as being on the same level as religion - dead! The ideas behind Twin Oaks originated in behavioralpsychology and the Community is in a great many ways modeled after Psychologist B.F. Skinner's Walden II,which is a description of a fictional utopian society.

Twin Oaks was started by a group of people who met while attending an "academic" conference during 1966, atAnn Arbor, Michigan, on the formation of a Walden Il community. (Former Grinnel Professor George Eastmanwas a committee chairman of this 1966 meeting.) One of the Twin Oakers related how this conference resulted ina very elaborate, academic type plan on how to get a Walden II community going. But when the conference wasover the professors all returned to their teaching posts and nobody had any idea where they would get the severalmillion dollars that the plan called for to start the thing. So, eight people decided to start right away with whateverresources they could get together. One of the original founders had enough money to purchase the farm wherethey are presently located - he has since left due to a disagreement about the way the community was being run,but he is leasing the farm to the group on a 12-year lease at the end of which time he will deed the farm over tothe Community.

Twin Oaks Community either already is, or is working toward, all of the above-hence, the members think ofthemselves as a post-revolutionary society. ability to create happy, productive, creative people."

Twin Oaks is different than most other rural communes in three important respects: It is not an agriculturalsubsistence commune; they raise only part of their food - the rest they purchase with money earned by their

hammock-making industry. They consider this a more efficient use of time (hence less hours of work) than tryingto raise all their own food. Second, Twin Oaks embraces rather than rejects modern technology - their aim is touse technology in every way possible to reduce the per-person work load and enable people to lead moresatisfying lives. Twin Oaks is working hard to develop a strong economic base. And third, Twin Oaks is not areligious or drug-mystical community. Rather, it is based on experimentally altering societal structures so as todiscover structures that are most satisfying to the people of the community. This process is an ongoing thingwhich will take into account peoples' changing values - this is especially important for the first transitionalgeneration that will only gradually be able to throw off their previous conditioning by straight society.

Ideas at Twin Oaks are oriented towards an ever-expanding group of people. Twin Oakers hope their owncommunity will grow to encompass a large number of people, perhaps 500 to 1,000. Then other communities willbe formed, some by people who have lived at Twin Oaks. All of these communities will hopefully cooperateeconomically and in other ways. They don't want to be isolationist, rather, they and their counterparts want toeventually have a system of living, government if you will, that can be successfully applied to whole nations ofpeople.

Central to Twin Oaks is the "labor credit" system of dividinglabor among the members. Briefly described, the communitydecides each week how much work and what jobs need to bedone. Then people sign up for the jobs they want to do. Thenumber of hours each person must do is determined bydividing the total number of hours of work for that week bythe number of people there are to do it. The various jobs aregiven different "labor credits" depending on their"desirability" or "non-desirability" and this is determined bythe number of people who sign up to do any given job. If notenough people sign up to do a certain job, say dishwashing,the labor credit value of it is increased (hence, a person willhave to work less hours doing that job to receive the samelabor credit) until enough people want to do the job. The labor credits are constantly changing as people get tiredof a job, the seasons change, etc. Visitor labor ("slave" labor as one member referred to it) is figured into thesystem and materially lowers the total amount of work a person must do. When we visited the community, peoplewere doing about a 40 hour week - actually comparatively little compared to the typical straight world person, asthe 40 hours at Twin Oaks included such things as cooking, dishwashing, shopping, etc. And at Twin Oaks, aweek is seven days long; work, play and rest going on every day - as opposed to the straight world's five day"work" week and two days of "rest" (recovery).

A person is expected to do his share of labor credits - but he may do them atany time he feels like it (excepting some jobs like milking the cows whichmust be done at a specific time for the cows' sake). You often see some peopleworking in the hammock factory while others are standing by doing nothingother than enjoyably rapping with the workers, entertaining them while theywork. And no hard feelings there as people know everyone will do his sharebefore the week is out. The hammock industry was picked as Twin Oaks' firstindustry as it was something they could get into with little capital. The type of

woven rope hammocks they make are not currently produced by machine in this country and the hammocks havea relatively high return on the hand labor that goes into them. Most of the market for Twin Oaks hammocks isthrough specialty shops on the East Coast - their advertising has generally been through word of mouth, thoughseveral of the members tried going to stores and playing "salesman", but no one liked this kind of work so theyhaven't done this recently. This past summer they had all the orders they cared to fill.

Twin Oaks is "run" by a group of three elected planners, one of whom rotates out of office every six months. Thusfar, six of the members have been planners at one time or another. These planners appoint "managers" who are incharge of seeing that the various divisions run smoothly - for instance, there are managers for housekeeping,

farming, hammockmaking, and child raising, to name a few. The child raising manager is in charge of handlingdiscipline problems that may arise with the children in the community. The biological parents are not permitted todiscipline their children. This is a step in the eventual dissolution of the traditional family structure. Severalfamilies have come to Twin Oaks in the past, but in every case so far their previous conditioning with regard tothe tight "family" unit has caused them to feel ill at ease in their new surroundings and thus far the families havenot stayed very long. There are several young people in the community - and the choice between going to "school"in the community (that is being taught by community members) or attending the nearby public schools is left to theyoung persons themselves. This has raised some interesting questions for the community: "Is it all right for a TwinOaks person to go out for football? How about cheerleading? If so, does a member get credit for drivingparticipants to the games? This must, of course, be put in the context of the fact that, generally speaking, TwinOaks people look like freaks - and there aren't many freaks in central Virginia schools.

Wen we were driving around trying to find the place we stopped to ask a guy who was changing a tire on hisworn-out car where Twin Oaks was - before we could say a word he said, "Oh, you must be looking for TwinOaks," and pointed the direction. And we didn't look freaky either. Twin Oaks has a policy of not going out oftheir way to irritate the surrounding countryside (a KKK stronghold). For this reason, they don't argue (or evendiscuss) the Vietnam war, sex, merits of grass, etc. with the locals. Twin Oaks does not allow drugs in thecommunity so as to avoid trouble with the police. Recently a visitor was asked to leave because he was turningcommunity members on. Thus far the community has avoided serious trouble with the law or with local rednecks.The sherrif has dropped by on a number of occasions to check for "runaways" (he never found any) and is evensort of a friend nowadays - he bought a collie pup from the community. They acknowledge that the area they arelocated in isn't the most ideal in terms of culture clashes - but since the farm is the only place they can presentlygo, they are making do with the situation.

We accompanied several community members on a shopping trip to nearbyLouisa - and they seemed to be well accepted by the town. One old farmer evenstopped and had a long talk with one of the freaks. The community has a newbusiness of raising calves for the "pink veal" market - in this the calves are keptconfined and fed a diet of milk only. This produces a meat of a lighter color andmore tender flavor. They are also starting to breed cows for selling to dairyfarmers in the area. Most of the agriculture that goes on at the Community iscentered around the cattle operation. with large crops of hay and wheat beingraised for use as feed. As a consequence of the dairy cow endeavor, there areunlimited supplies of milk, and the members make butter, cottage cheese andother dairy products from surplus milk. They also raise hogs, have a smokehouse (really delicious bacon!), chickens, geese and a large assortment of catsand dogs.

Women's liberation, in a very practical sense, is a serious concern at Twin Oaks.The manager of the farm division is a girl, and boys are expected to do theirshare of the traditional "womenly" things such as cooking and dishwashing.Several of the women have instituted a class in "remedial automobile mechanics." Because of the behavioristicorientation of the community they are more aware than most of the effect of conditioning by a screwed-up societyon men and women. When you visit Twin Oaks you realize that something is different and that here are somepeople who have taken concrete steps to thwart that conditioning.

One area where problems were still obviously present was the subject of "interpersonal relations." They have acode of conduct which states "We will not discuss the personal affairs of other members, nor speak negatively ofother members when they are not present or in the presence of a third party." The section goes on to say, "Thisrule is both unusual and difficult. Most of us find a certain pleasure in gossiping or grumbling about other people.We feel that this type of talk is harmful to a small community. If a member is unpleasant, or lazy, or gross, leteach other member discover this for himself : . The Community is constantly trying other means of dealing withinterpersonal complaints and problems." The Community uses first names only, and does not recognize senioritynor heirarchies (in theory, anyway). The planners and managers are supposed to think of their job as just another

form of (undesirable) work and are not supposed to think of their positions as "power", as ego trip, etc. Comingout of straight society as all of the first generation members must, this takes quite some doing. We did think,however, that Twin Oaks was the most equalitarian and "leaderless" group of organized people that we have everencountered.

And Twin Oaks is organized. Many left type people would be rather completely turned off by the totalorganization of the place - but Twin Oaks would counter by saying that they are only making a workable societywhich can rapidly respond to changing desires of the members. Twin Oaks is primarily an experiment in rapidcultural change - and according to the plan of the final degree of organization - or lack of organization - will bedirectly related to the needs and wants of the people-or to the basic qualities of the "human nature" that willeventually be discovered through scientific investigation.

And all of this will be constantly adjusted to the ever-changing level of technology and its corresponding, butcurrently unknown, effect on human behavior.

Twin Oaks is always seeking new members (expansion being one of their goals) and a new member is admitted toa three month trial period during which time both he or she and the community can decide if they want to livetogether. Thus far, every prospect who did not stay, left voluntarily - but the present members have an option toreject prospects after the trial period.

One of the current problems of the community is its small size and the attendant difficulties of members finding asatisfactory mate. At present, Twin Oaks operates on a more or less typical "monogamous couple" pattern ofsexual relationships. One member said the main reason thus far that people left the community is that they wereunable to establish satisfactory sexual relationships. Eventually the sexual pattern of the Community may evolveinto a more complex pattern which would allow more freedom in sexual patterns. But, again, the strong culturalconditioning of the first generation members may take a long time to overcome. Single visitors of either sex causeproblems also in that they bring with them their unliberated values with regard to the opposite sex.

One 15 year old girl member said, when asked what she has learned since coming to Twin Oaks: "Virtuallyeverything I know. Italian history, shorthand, most of my typing, cooking, housework, planting and hoeing,driving a tractor, driving a car. How to use positive reinforcement to handle a small child, what happens when youtry to answer aggression with aggression. Just before I came here I discovered that I really don't have to do muchof anything I don't want to - or at least that hardly anybody has any authority to speak of if you want to push themfar enough. Basically I can get away with doing whatever I want. But at Twin Oaks I am beginning to believe thatin the long run I don't really want to try to get away with everything. Because I've seen other people here act likethat, and seen how it affects the whole group, and I think people who act completely selfishly are shits. I don'twant to think of myself that way."

And another said, "I have learned to be completely comfortable with and take for granted the friendship of over adozen people. Before I came here I never had more than one or two friends at a time. I don't mean that everyonelikes me. But everyone here has a pretty realistic view of me and likes or dislikes me pretty much in proportion tomy virtues and faults. There aren't any pretenses to speak of, and very little fear."

As their booklet says: "Experiment with social structures and find the ones that produce the things that we value."

Krystine Newman and Henry WilhelmReprinted from PTERO by way of WIN

Issue 1 - January/February 1970

The Little Car That CouldBy MASON in the Berkeley TRIBE

This is a Modest Proposal. Some people will think it's anything BUT modest, butpeople scare easily these days.

Take a point; our atmosphere smells like Hell, literally. Any minute we may all choketo death. And that isn't a fantasy; it's a fact, attested to by sober scientists. Add acodicil; under no circumstances will Americans give up their cars and roads, and returnto rail travel . . . and don't mention the sky, for good and sufficient reasons. They will not surrender their cars,ever; they'll die first. And so will the remaining pedestrians.

Take another point; the steam automobile. For thirty years, steam cars ran faster, more cheaply, and more safelythan gas-fueled cars. And they did NOT emit poison fumes, not ever. Then, they vanished, for reasons which hadabsolutely nothing to do with engineering, ecological good, or cost. They were outsold, by vast amounts of moneypoured into advertising, by good old American salesmanship, which always works hardest when selling an inferiorproduct. The gas car won. Now, look, Wow.

Over the last few years repeated attempts have been made to revive steam cars as a commercially sold vehicle;every such attempt has suddenly, and often rather mysteriously, stopped, just short of actual production. Now,with the current yells of pain from gassed citizens, you keep hearing of a steam car . . . next year, maybe. Butsomehow not today.

Lear, who made huge promises, invested millions in development, and was, according to publicity, ready toactually produce a steam car, suddenly, and with no good reason, stopped dead in his tracks. Again, I won'tspeculate about possible reasons; do your own paranoia trip.

Third point. Groups and communes, popping up here and there, looking for economically feasible ways to make it.Well, not all of us are farmers.

All right. A commune; ten, twenty, or more people, a farmhouse, and a great big barn, and maybe none of themare farmers. Machine tools; a good big lathe, a milling machine, some welding equipment, sheet metal tools, andaccess to one of those great mines of spare parts, the American auto junkyard.

All of these people are working, together; not the way men work on a Detroit auto line, but each at the craft hedoes best. In that big barn . . . building steam cars, one at a time, as cars were once built till the assembly line wasinvented. The frames and parts may be rebuilt junked gas cars, at least at first. The engine and boiler? Right now,anyone who wants can buy a steam power plant for an automobile, which he can bolt right into a standardAmerican car, lobotomized of its poison-gas guts; the price, last I heard, ran around $1200 for the works. Maybeour communards buy these engines, and maybe, after a while, they buy merely rough castings, boiler tube andother raw parts.

But these people CAN, at a profit, produce steam cars. In the early days of automobiling, plants with only a fewmen in them made such cars, a few cars a week at most, of course. There won't be enough of these cars made toworry Detroit much . . . not unless more people get the same idea.

BUT . . . these cars will travel at the same speeds, with greater safety, than gas cars. They will use kerosenes, No.2 oil, old candle ends or dead cats, but what they burn will not come out as poison gas, nor will the rapidlydepleting fuel reserves of our planet be burned nearly as fast. They do NOY need shifts; nor do they needautomatic transmissions. The Stanley had a total of seventeen moving parts, and the Stanley still holds the stock

model speed record for a run at Daytona beach in the early 1900s.

They will have drawbacks . . . but please note, they won't explode. And just incidentally, a gasoline car will, andoften does, to the surprise of its driver . . . if he survives.

One drawback, for instance, would be a short time, up to three minutes, required to warm up to driving powerfrom a totally cold engine. (Most Americans seem to believe that a gasoline engine does not need to be warmedbefore zooming off. They stay with this belief firmly, in spite of blue oil smoke clouds billowing from half-oiledand burned up engines . . . oh, well.)

They need water from time to time . . sometimes as often as every couple of hundred miles. Filling a tank withwater is almost as time consuming, but not as expensive, as filling a tank with gasoline at forty-five heavily taxedcents per gallon. Isn't it?

But there's one enormous drawback to a steam car . . . if you happen to be a garage mechanic, or a shop owner.They require only about a tenth as much repair work, most of it fairly simple; and they last, and last, and LAST.(There's a beautiful steamer running around these parts, wearing a Packard body as a disguise; but under that 1940tin beats the stout pulse of a 1915 Stanley.)

All right. There's your commune, building a car or so a week; selling them at a price which is about the same asthe price of a 1969-70 gasbuggy. Who's buying?

Take a choice. A 1970 GM product, made of materials that you damned well know are inferior, if you know beansabout engineering. Assembled by men who hate their jobs, who do not, literally, give a damn. Sold by hucksterswho do not care if your car collapses under you, once the financing contract is signed. It will last, at best, five orsix years. It will depreciate in value to half what you paid for it, the day you drive it out of the showroom. It willneed constant repairs, expensive ones, and half the time you'll be solidly skinned by the mechanic you take it to.

And, more, that monster will gulp gasoline, and convert it into cancer gas, at a steadily increasing price. It'll hurt atboth ends, as the man said when he ate the chili. But don't worry; if the steering gear fails, or the automatictransmission suddenly kicks in when you didn't expect it, it may kill you before it wears out.

And for the same price, you might buy a car that needed no gearshift, thatjackrabbited 0-60 in a time that wouldmake a professional dragster blench, that rolled along at a good clip, using fuel that would set you back all of acouple of cents in ten miles . . . and which would NOT make smog, not ever.

That car could be assembled by craftsmen, who were part of a living family; who felt pride in their work, whosehands touched that machine with the thought and feeling that a good workman gives. (There's a reason for theprice of a Rolls, and it damned well isn't the speed, because I can wash out a Rolls with a hopped-up Chevvy.)

And maybe that one little family of People building Cars might scare the hell out of the companies that slaptogether jalopies. Especially if more such families got the idea, and built cars, or generators, or tractors, orwhatever there is to be built.

I wonder if anybody will do it. I keep hoping that somehow, someday, the people will take the great art ofengineering back, away from the peddlers and medicineshow salesmen who own it today. I'll bet it could be done.

You can put me down for a sedan, and paint it sunrise color.