MEN At Work

Uh-oh, I have a new obsession.

Luckily this new one dovetails nicely with my old one - being Cheap.

Here’s how it came about.  On the last Saturday, my hub and I were working out in our veggie garden.  It’s really coming along great.  As we were working I heard the mailman out front. So I went out to get the mail.  I ordered some books from Amazon, so I was hoping they might be coming.

No such luck, but I got something even better - a birthday present from my brother.  It is 38 years of Mother Earth News Archives, plus an awesome poster, plus (I think) a subscription for this year.  This is great, because it so happens that Mother Earth News and I are the same age.  And we like the same things.

I immediately wiped a bit of dirt off of myself and popped the first CD into my computer.  This CD is the archives for the articles from 1970-1980.  Oh, boy.  This is some good stuff.  Since my computer is a laptop, I can even read in bed before I go to sleep.

So far I’m up to 1974.  I LOVE it.  Sometimes the articles crack me up, because they like to talk a lot about what to do when you don’t have any “bread” (that’s money, which I often call “dough”, Ha).  I like that, because I always want to know that, too.

Sometimes the article authors refer to themselves and their friends as “Freaks” or “Hippies”.  But they mean that in a nice way.  Maybe I am a Freak.  A Frugal Freak, for sure. (I thought Hippies were a ’60’s thing, but I guess they were floating around the 70’s, too).

When I read these articles I am in a Time Machine.  In 1973, I came across an article that gives a recipe for “Familia”, which seems to be granola to me.  Was this the year granola made it to the U.S.?

A lot of the articles are about a movement that was apparently popular back then called “Back to the Land”.  There was a lot of economic turmoil back then, just like now.  A recession, oil shortages, record unemployment - sound familiar?  People wanted to be more self-sufficient, as a means of protecting themselves from all this upheaval.  A lot of Freaks felt that the only way they could do this was by going out into the country, getting some (cheap or free) land, learning how to grow their own food and get away from dependence on things like cars, electricity, and supermarkets.   What a sense of Deja Vu.  It almost gives me the shivers.

Even though I was alive when all this was happening, I don’t really remember this.  My parents were the age of typical Freaks, but were definitely NOT of a Freakish persuasion.  We were People of the Suburbs.  Still are.

But since I apparently have such a strong Freak Streak, I am learning a lot from this material.  I think I can incorporate much of it into my Dallas Suburban lifestyle.  I’m already off to a good start, with my vegetable garden.

Stay tuned for more updates from Mother Earth News - The First Four Decades.  I can’t wait to share.

Thanks, Bro! I love it!

P.S. Those books I’m expecting from Amazon? -  How To Cook with TVP, and another on making and using Seitan.  See, I am a Freak!