Mountain Grove Community, Part One

Mountain Grove Community,  Part One                                                Richard Nichols 3.15.11

In 1968 I was 26, and found myself with nowhere to go. I had escaped the draft and Vietnam, was out of college, took karate as a pastime, worked at the bakery, drank to much, smoked to much, and got fat on bakery goods, (pie with whole cream, yum!), and had a girlfriend I didn’t love. All of it felt very empty, I had no future and no prospects. My pal and mentor Ron Crozier, a co-worker from Helms Bakery, was a friend to Art and Gloria, who lived in a small house in the hills above Whittier Caifornia. I was invited to a party at their house and got to know. They announced they were going to help start an Intentional Community called Mountain Grove, a community of people with a common interest and a common goal, to be established on 400 acres of land in Southern Oregon. After I expressed interest, they suggested that I go and meet the founder, David Young, living in Ojai. David was a teacher, and a friend and follower of Krishnamurti, an internationally recognized spiritual teacher. The idea of the community was to establish a school based on Krishnamurti’s teachings. After my interview, I was invited to go to Mountain Grove and help Art and Gloria make a start. I have no idea what I said that qualified me to make this move, but make it I did. In the spring of 1969 my Dad and I packed my meager belongings, mostly books, into his station wagon and he drove me from Los Angeles to Mountain Grove, in Southern Oregon. I didn’t know until years later that my parents thought that I was mentally unstable, and my dad offered to take me to make sure I’d be OK. He stayed for a week, then left, and here I was to make a new beginning, to change directions.
The Mountain Grove property is nestled in its own little valley, with a year-round creek, several bottomland hay fields and meadows, and stands of second growth timber encircling the valley. The original homestead was placed up near the end of the high meadow, the house and barn derelict. All the signs of a classic homestead, dairy barn, chicken coop, old equipment, even an old oak icebox lay scattered about the place. Mr. and Mrs. Allen sold the land to the educational foundation and went into retirement. They had been on the place since the 30’s. Mr. Allen told me they left city life to raise their kids in a safe place. Mr. Allen built a huge hay barn and small house down at the end of the valley, nearer the highway, and that was home for the new green, recruits who were to explore the New Age ideas, and replace the outdated social and educational norms of mainstream America.
Art and Gloria and a single man had arrived 3 weeks before I did, and he had already departed, having been made very sick by a spider bite. We had some drawings for the main building that was to house the school, and immediately started to wonder how we could accomplish the ambitious project without money, and without any building skills. Art and Gloria began expressing doubts about the project. Gloria pushed to leave after having a nightmare, in which the founder David Young appeared as a demon. Art announced they were leaving and invited me to go with them, but to go where? I had left LA for good, and could think of no reason to return to LA, and so with spring approaching, but with gloomy rain most days, I found myself the sole resident of a beautiful valley, seven miles from the nearest town, and with not a clue what would happen.
For several months I lived alone, caretaking the property, while David Young, still in Ojai, kept teaching so that the mortgage payments could be met. I was living off funds I'd  saved working at the bakery. My days were occupied cutting and splitting firewood, taking walks in the valley, and writing letters to David reporting on the situation. Mr. Allen would drop by on occasion for a visit, and taught me how to use the old Farmall tractor, hay cutter and the hay-baling machine. We also had a D-9 Caterpillar dozer used to dam the creek so water could be pumped to the fields. After using it a few times, tearing the earth and spewing diesel fumes, I realized the monster was more than we needed and sold it.
Summer was coming on and the wildflowers bloomed in abundance. David invited several people to come and check out Mountain Grove for the summer, and soon we had a little community of two young women, Billie and Muffy, and a young man, Tom, who had carpentry skills. We built a little cabin for David to stay in, and I planted a vegetable garden for the first time in my life. That summer we lived off the garden, and 100-pound sacks of rice and beans. One of the goals of Mountain Grove was to be vegetarian as well as alcohol and drug free.
The summer passed by quickly with a few people dropping in for short stays. I cut and baled several tons of hay, also a first, and sold it for something like 50 cents a bale.  Old friends Brian and Paulette came for a while, but their relationship was in trouble and they soon left.  At the end of summer everyone left, and I was alone again for a short time, when a couple arrived and announced they wanted to stay. This was a short-lived enterprise as I soon learned. They were there simply as a spot to land, with no interest at all in the project. Within a few months I was alone again, and spent a lonely winter caretaking the place. My occupations were firewood splitting, repairs to the buildings, taking care of the laying hens and reading. A letter I wrote to David Young reports “Greeting from wet, wet, wet Oregon It has rained almost every day… I have been watching where the water flows… it flows everywhere!” In the spring of 1970 a young, sweet couple, Gregory and Cynthia, and then Ralph, a carpenter, arrived. We made an attempt to get to know each other, and become a foundation for the community. We had serious discussions about being the core group of people that would establish the community and welcome a tidal wave of youthful idealists invited to come in the summer. And come they did in force. Part Two of this story talks about a collection of college students, spiritual seekers, pot smokers, new age idealists, the woman I met and married, the lifelong friends I made, and the effort we made at being a community.