This letter is nearly a month after the previous one. I suspect that at some point during that gap, Marcy must have told her parents she was pregnant, given the casual tone of her mention of it here.<\/p>\r\n
I did some research on the background for this letter. For example, the “Six Day School” that she mentions is something that I remember my parents mentioning, but I didn't know much about it. It turns out, according to Wikipedia, that “It was a school that prepared students for survival in the midst of Armageddon through map and compass reading, survival in the wilderness and occult studies,” founded by James Neil Hollingworth<\/a> (1933-1996), a.k.a. Ambrose Hollingworth Redmoon, “a beatnik, hippie, writer, and former manager of the psychedelic folk rock bands Quicksilver Messenger Service and Ace of Cups,” otherwise best known for having written the line “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than one\u2019s fear.”<\/p>\r\n For more on Hollingworth and the Six Day School, see:<\/p>\r\n Anyway, all that is just backstory for one throwaway phrase in this letter: the Six Day School people apparently pointed Marcy and Peter to people who wanted to start a school in Mendocino, and that\u2019s how Marcy became part of the Caspar Community School. About which more anon.<\/p>\r\n In this letter, unlike the other letters, I'm including Marcy\u2019s page numbers, because they\u2019re amusing. (Also because they exist; most of the other letters are at most two pages long, and only rarely have page numbers.)<\/p>\r\n <\/p>\r\n <\/p>\r\n Postmark: Sep 26, 1967, Mendocino, CA. Handwritten: “Rec\u2019d this 9\/30.” Also: “Sent Ambodryl + Plimisin to them on 10\/6 — air mail.”<\/p>\r\n Attached to this letter was an article by Senator J. William Fulbright, “Distortions on the War,” condensed from his book The Arrogance of Power<\/cite>, and published in the San Francisco Chronicle<\/cite>, July 27, 1967. Also a column by Charles McCabe: “Of Wowsers and Hippies,” also from the Chronicle<\/cite>, July 11, 1967.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
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\r\n Saturday night\r\n\r\nH'lo.....just indulging in my favorite activity of getting\r\nall kinds of papers and junk into some semblance of order\r\npreparatory to sitting down and writing a whole bunch of\r\nletters; finding all kinds of interesting things. Like some\r\nclippings I've been wanting to send you, which I'd put in\r\none of those very safe places that I never find again; like\r\na ton of incense, which is duly using itself up; like some\r\nold letters I'd really been going to answer x; like a whole\r\nbunch of things we can use for the school that I knew I was\r\ngoing to be able to use some day (ah, the vindication of an\r\ninveterate pack rat!).....Peter has went to the city for a\r\nday so I have the time and space for such things---it's\r\nreally tiny in here, and impossible to put anything into\r\norder when anyone else is in the room. We're saved by having\r\nand elevated bed (on platform about 3 1\/2 feet high, built\r\nby previous tenant who had a very neurotic dog that would\r\notherwise have smothered him nightly) with lots of storage\r\nspace beneath.\r\n\r\nSo. Not to imply above that writing this letter was part of\r\nsaid activity, but just that that's what I'd been doing and\r\nwhere my head is as I begin.....which I'd done yesterday\r\njust as one of my little kids and his little brother and\r\nanother friend (the xxxxx latter more x like our age) showed\r\nup to have dinner, and went stark staring out of my mind\r\ntrying to type with a kid in the WHY stage around....just\r\nthe thought of it drives me to error. Finally ripped the\r\npage out and gave up........the \"one of my little kids\"\r\nphrase is an indicator of the changes I've been sliding in\r\nand out of in the past two weeks as the school got\r\nstarted....Now it's under way, and I'm a teacher again, and\r\nperhaps somewhat the better at it after nearly a year's\r\nvacation. Much more relaxed and easier and looser; but then,\r\nso is the school.............Actually,\tthe only\r\nconnection the Six Day School has xx withthis one is that\r\nthey are the people who first turned me on to the idea that\r\nthe people up here were trying to start a school, so we came\r\nup here with that in mind. This is a community school (it's\r\ncalled the Caspar Community School, tho it's in Mendocino.\r\nCaspar is a very small rural community 6 miles north of\r\nhere, where most of the kids live, and especially where live\r\nthe people under whose impetus it got started.) in that\r\nwe're trying to involve partents and other people in the\r\ncommunity who are interested in working with kids. It's\r\nhard, as we've been concentrating on academic stuff, which\r\nparents aren't too super good ad at working with, but we're\r\nmaking plans to branch out into trips and big projects and\r\nsuchlike events. Problems now include: l)No Home. We're\r\nusing a building that's quite large, but meant for living\r\nin. It used to be a carpenters shop, then a pottery barn,\r\nthen a home, and now a school. I'ts big, and cold, and the\r\npeople who lived there aren't fully moved so their stuff is\r\nthere. All kinds of projects to rent a school (unused) from\r\nthe local school board and similar things have fallen\r\nthrough. Right now our main hope is to raise enough money\r\n(grants applied for; goodwil from the few rich community\r\nmembers hoped for) to buy or be given a few acres of land\r\nwith good drainage and fertile soil, and build our own\r\nschool house and teachers residence, perhaps eventually xxxx\r\nraise and grow enough of our own food to be self-sufficient.\r\nProbably such buildings would be geodesic domes (a very\r\ngroovy new kind of building, made easily and incredibly\r\ncheaply (like a few hundred dollars for a super big one,\r\nauditorium size) of wood and heavy plastic, earthquake, rain\r\nand snow proof (no guarantee about floods; you can worry for\r\nus if you like.....), heatable, coolable, expandable, easy\r\nto light and clean and maintain.....there's a whole town of\r\nthem in Colorado, called Drop City. One of the men who\r\nstarted it is currently living at Longreach, the ranch in\r\nCloverdale where we got married. building a duck dome and a\r\ngoat dome and a chicken dome and possilbly one for rabbits\r\nand several for people....)\r\n\r\n 2wo\r\n\r\nBut then the reason that someone hasn't come through with\r\nland or a building already is the nature of projects around\r\nhere. Things tend to start off with a bang and ploop along\r\nfor a while gaily, then fall off or fall over or collpase or\r\npeter out, or kind of melt slowly like a candle in the sun.\r\nThere have been many such in the past few years; one of the\r\nfathers of one of the chickies was enumerating them: a\r\nmustard field half full of tiny potatoes; a monthly paper\r\nthat comes out twice a year; an art gallery that's open\r\nabout once a week and never sells anything; a Fourth of July\r\npie baking contest that xx had 4 pies (I was in on that and\r\nbaked one of them); he forgot to mention a glass-blowing\r\nshop that got dis-assembeled for repairs and never got back\r\ntogether, 'cos that's his own personal lack of success. So\r\nno one wants to xxx sink a lot of bread or land into a\r\nproject that might be successful for a while and then take a\r\nyear or so to die.....Somehow, I can't help thinking this\r\none is going to work. Partly because we've all been so\r\nsurprised that it's worked so far. Bertha (the other\r\nfulltime teacher) and I have both been sort of half making\r\nplans x to do xxxx other things as soon as this fails, which\r\nwe expected it to do in the first two weeks, and are so\r\nsurprised and delighted that we've pretty much decided to\r\nmake it work from here on out.-----end of problem #1.\r\n\r\nProblem the second is that we can only take kids from 4 1\/2\r\nto not-yet-eight, till we get incorporated and are then\r\nsubject to the inspections and official rigor and red tape\r\nthat will keep us out of the building we're using. So at the\r\nmoment we have ten kids in that age range, and 4 hours, 4\r\ndays a week, to work out learning to read , write, and xxxxx\r\ncipher (chiper? ciper? cipersh? anyway, do math) with that\r\nnumber of kids, all at different levels, each with a full\r\nset of different needs and demands and circumstances. Public\r\nschool, being so regimented, is really easy: all the kids\r\nlearn the same stuff at the same time, like it or no, ready\r\nor not, do or die. What a stupid mess; but how much easier\r\nfor the stupid teachers.\r\n\r\nend of problems two and three. Nuff of that. Oh, except that\r\nof course the school has no funds at all, so neither Bertha\r\nnor I get paid anything. In tangibles. Tho if we need money\r\nwe can borrow it from people who are lending it to the\r\nschool till it raises some money. Which we are doing this\r\ncoming weekend at a rummage sale, and monthly thereafter at\r\ndances for the local teenyboppers. So far, we've done okay;\r\nPeter has a steady job for a few months, fairly flexible\r\nhours, working for a local architect who's renovating a\r\nhouse (a beautiful, beautiful house! incredibly grand) 26\r\nmiles north of here in Westport. Low pay, boring work\r\n(painting and carpentry; which may be fine for painters and\r\ncarpenters, but Peter is a welder), costs a dollar in gas\r\neach day for transportation (did I tell you? (guess not)\r\nthat we have a car: a Chevrolet station wagon, 1958, bright\r\nred, in beautiful shape, easy to drive ('cept it's so damn\r\nbig I can't ever back it up without hitting something or\r\nanother) and very roomy. with a mattress in back we could\r\nlive in it if we're ever evicted or when camping or when the\r\nhouse burns down or somethong.)\r\n\r\nI hope all the lists of problems don't sound negative to\r\nyou. Just the fact that they're few and small enough to talk\r\nabout makes it a very positive scene; plus the\r\nbetween-the-lines factor that everything is very beautiful\r\nand hopeful and looking like it will work xxxxx soon and\r\nsomehow. The kids are lovely and the school is tremendous\r\nand it really looks like I might be going to have a baby\r\n(April or May) and we are comfortable and happy and full of\r\nenough things to do and think about and work with to keep us\r\nthat way.\r\n\r\nPlans to live elsewhere or perhaps at the Sonoma ranch where\r\nthe 6-day-school is and suchlike have given way before the\r\nvast impetus of the school here. Peter will still be\r\ncommuting to Sonoma to teach a math class to x adults once a\r\nweek. You ask about a degree, which I fail to understand.\r\nWhat is needed to teach anything is knowledge and interest\r\nand the ability to spark other minds. Degrees are so\r\ninstitutions can check up on you and retain some measure of\r\ncontrol over xxx whom they allow to teach in their\r\ninstitutions. Nothing to do with ability or knowledge at\r\nall, just with salaries and prestige and self-righteousness\r\nand pomposity and that kind of crap.\r\n\r\nOh, hell, it's hayfever season again. I could use some more\r\nambodryls (a bottle ) and Peter has been taking plimacen if\r\nit's convenient to send either, twould be appreciated.\r\n\r\n 3ree\r\n\r\nLook up some stuff about natural childbirth, if you at all\r\ncare about how I'm going to have my baby. It's really\r\ninteresting even though you're all through with it. You\r\ncould try the library or planned parenthood or the La Leche\r\nleague or the Natural Childbirth Foundation (or some such\r\nsimilar name) in the phone book or the library or anything\r\n.....but if you don't care to, you'll hear x very little\r\nmore about it from me. There's a book called \"Thank You, Dr.\r\nLamaze\" that's supposed to be quite good, though I haven't\r\nread it yet. If you run into anything interesting let me\r\nknow; I'm hardly a fund of information at all, and don't\r\nexepect to be ever more than decently and adequately\r\ninformed, so probably you'll find out a lot of things I\r\nhaven't encountered. and PLEASE do not ask me why I do not\r\nwant anaesthetics and operating rooms and lots of x fusses\r\nand nonsense; see if you can figure it out.\r\n\r\nHave to go start on my homework (we're producing our own\r\nreaders and workbooks) and put up some sourdough bread or\r\nthere won't be any bread tomorrow, and write some more\r\nletters and read some of my kids' books so I'll know what\r\nI'm sticking them with, and finish xx listening to the Bach\r\nB-minor mass (which is an extremely fine thing to do of a\r\nSaturday night) and find a recipe for pickled beets and go\r\nto SEELP, or whaterver it is ...... regards to all......\r\n\r\n(Peter went to San Francisco to see some people and go to a\r\nWobblies meeting --which is kind of a Thing up here--this\r\none is the regional meeting for California, expected to have\r\nabout 7 or 9 people there; there are about 20 local wobblies\r\n'cos the cat who organized them locally is kind of an\r\nassiduous nut....anyway, but he says to say hello and all\r\nthat.)\r\n\r\n [handwritten: Much love, Marcia]\r\n<\/pre>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
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