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Shoulder to Shoulder tells the stories of five on-going environmental and social justice campaigns powered by ordinary people.
For fifteen years, Evelyn Hess and her husband David lived in a tent and trailer, without electricity or running water, on twenty acres of wild land in the foothills of the Oregon Coast Range. When they decided to build a house - a real house at last - they knew it would have to respect the lessons of simple living that they learned in their camping life. They knew they could not do it alone. Building a Better Nest chronicles their adventures as they begin to construct a house of their own, seeking a model for sustainable living not just in their home, but beyond its walls. What does it mean to build a better nest? Better for whom? Is it better for the individual or family? The planet? Green...
Our current moment is filled with despair about climate crises and the possibility of coming to any kind of agreement that might change the dire outcomes. In this important antidote to the paralysis of hopelessness, Shoulder to Shoulder offers hope and a path forward in telling the stories of communities in Western North America who learned to talk to each other and to solve the conflicts between stakeholders. Loggers, cattle ranchers, river keepers, corporate developers, tree huggers, and indigenous peoples from many tribes are just a few of the real people in these stories of hope for our climate. This book is for anyone wanting to make a difference, anyone looking for camaraderie with others of like mind, anyone believing that democracy requires engaged citizenship, anyone looking for hope. The message throughout is that progress can be made when large numbers of caring, involved, thinking, co-operative people come together to protect both democracy and a livable planet. By working shoulder to shoulder, we can make positive change happen.
The true story of a couple who, in their late fifties, traded modern conveniences for life in a tent and trailer without electricity or indoor plumbing.
In 1987, Barbara Drake and her husband sold their home in Portland and moved to a farm in western Oregon's Yamhill Valley. In PEACE AT HEART, Drake reflects on ten years of country living and on the happiness that this rural landscape has brought her. She combines gentle humor, practical advice, and deep respect for the work and the land.
In 1970, Margaret Grundstein abandoned her graduate degree at Yale and followed her husband to a commune in the backwoods of Oregon. Together with ten friends and an ever-changing mix of strangers, they began to build their vision of utopia. Naked in the Woods chronicles Grundstein's shift from reluctant hippie to committed utopian. Grundstein, (whose husband left, seduced by "freer love") faced tough choices. Could she make it as a single woman in man's country? Did she still want to? Although she reveled in the shared transcendence of communal life, disillusionment slowly eroded the dream. Brotherhood frayed when food became scarce. Rifts formed over land ownership. Dogma and reality clash...
For Eileen O'Keeffe McVicker, born in 1927 to an Irish immigrant sheep rancher and a school teacher, growing up on a homestead in the West made for "a hard, happy life with layers of riches." McVicker's memoir of a childhood spent on the southern slope of Steens Mountain offers a real-life, personal account of eastern Oregon history.An "outdoor child" all her life, McVicker tells stories that revolve around life on the ranch-tending sheep, picking wildflowers, doing chores-and describes everyday adventures: a rabid coyote threatens the family; a wild mustang stallion tries to kill her father; a Merino buck sheep leaps through the schoolhouse window. Images of Steens country-wild sagebrush an...
This open access book examines the significance of gay neighborhoods (or ‘gayborhoods’) from critical periods of formation during the gay liberation and freedom movements of the 1960s and 1970s, to proven durability through the HIV/AIDS pandemic during the 1980s and 1990s, to a mature plateau since 2000. The book provides a framework for contemplating the future form and function of gay neighborhoods. Social and cultural shifts within gay neighborhoods are used as a framework for understanding the decades-long struggle for LGBTQ+ rights and equality. Resulting from gentrification, weakening social stigma, and enhanced rights for LGBTQ+ people, gay neighborhoods have recently become “le...
A clueless big-city guy, dropped out from newspaper work, ends up at a new hippie commune in the mountains in the late 1960s, but his luck holds. As he falls in love with the place, he moves into the local community, where people have a checkered opinion of hippies, but it's the kind of place where people help each other out, even if they don't always agree.