Midian Farm
- Description
- Reviews
- Citation
- Cataloging
- Transcript
If it had happened in America, Midian Farm would be a Hollywood script. Instead, its legacy is memorialized through a compelling point-of-view historical Canadian documentary. From 1971 – 1977, Midian Farm was a back-to-the-land social experiment created by a community of urban baby boomers from Toronto. Part of the youth counterculture movement during a period of social and political re-imagining, its utopian vision eventually collapsed. More than four decades later, filmmaker Liz Marshall unearths a transformative piece of family and Canadian history.
"Liz Marshall's Midian Farm is a fascinating personal journey that gives us an intimate look at the dreams and disappointments surrounding an idealistic life experiment." - Chris Hegedus, Pennebaker Hegedus Films
"A very personal act of excavation and reclamation that speaks to the ideals and disappointments of a generation." - Tom Charity, Vancouver International Film Festival
"Through beautiful footage, Midian Farm reveals the contours of a Christian rural utopian community in the late nineteen sixties and early seventies. Amidst the warmth of a southern Ontario summer, the reunion of many of its members plumbs the depths of what it means to have hope and work hard for a vision while revisiting the site to see the poignant kindled flame four decades later." - Dr. Christopher Ross, Clinical Psychologist, Emeritus Associate Professor in Psychology and Religion, Wilfrid Laurier University
Citation
Main credits
Marshall, Liz (film director)
Marshall, Liz (screenwriter)
Marshall, Liz (film producer)
Deogrades, Roderick (film producer)
Other credits
Editing, Roderick Deogrades, Mike Munn; music, Ken Whiteley; cinematography, Liz Marshall, John Price, Justin Lovell.
Distributor subjects
No distributor subjects provided.Keywords
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That really go wild in there.
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Look down the driveway. Oh my God.
The driveway. It was so beautiful.
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When we arrived.
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In 1971,
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my mom and dad co-founded a
large farm community in Ontario.
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It changed our lives,
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but its story from beginning
to end is fractured.
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When I first, this thing
is big eye looking.
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I first met your dad skiing at a
manning park, a young life event.
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No, I met you first. No, no. It was at
the with the salmon. Came up to spawn.
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No, on the bus. We're on a bus. I
sat beside you. That's when it was.
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You guys have a different story
about everything. That's okay.
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When is the last time that
you were here together? Oh,
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50 years ago. No,
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it would've been March, 1974,
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just before I left. 1974.
84. 9,404. 40 years.
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40 years ago. Two years ago. 42
years. 42 years ago. 42 years.
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Your dad and I had met through Young Life,
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an evangelical Christian organization
founded in the United States,
00:02:37.950 --> 00:02:41.280
and your dad was a leader
on the staff in Vancouver.
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Throughout my life,
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my parents have referenced their
world travels from the 1960s as the
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life-changing event that inspired
them to live in community.
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The impact was mind blowing
because every time we talked
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to anybody, they couldn't believe what
we experienced, but it was the world.
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We're out in the world, Pakistan, Iraq,
00:03:03.660 --> 00:03:07.000
and we went through adventures where
we almost got killed a few times,
00:03:07.000 --> 00:03:09.520
and so we were full of the world.
00:03:10.480 --> 00:03:13.900
I had such an immersion at age 20,
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I turned 20 on that trip. For me,
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it was a profound sense of
that no one is an island
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unto themself. Were an
interconnected part of the web,
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of the continent of life.
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I wanted to save the world after that.
I always sort of did and she always did,
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and we didn't really fit in young life.
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After we had that trip around
the world and studied in the
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Philippines, we both kind of
realized we needed something more.
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And I was depressed from India
from all the poverty and stuff,
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and I had to find my roots deeper
than what I had in young life through
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Christianity. So you went to Knox
College? Oh, it was amazing. Yeah,
00:04:08.890 --> 00:04:13.570
it was brilliant. So all I did was
study at U of T. I'd say to your dad,
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could we have just a little walk
together, the two of us, ah,
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I'm too busy, or I got to do this or that,
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and write an essay and here's
another paper to type. Oh, now,
00:04:25.120 --> 00:04:25.953
yes.
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This is Northy Drive list here on the left
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new house. It's not the.
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One we do.
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I asked my parents if they would take
me to Northy Drive so I could see the
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house where it all began.
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77. This one right here? No, not 75, 77.
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I know this one right here.
It isn't changed at all.
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You guys were at the center of
a pretty big social community.
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Yeah, called it. I hate to use
Charles Manson's term, but the family.
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I never called it that. Why?
Because I didn't see it as a family.
00:05:02.320 --> 00:05:05.110
I saw it as a community.
It was a fellowship.
00:05:05.320 --> 00:05:07.480
It was kind of an alternative to a church.
00:05:08.500 --> 00:05:11.950
Our home on Northy Drive
became kind of a busy place.
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People coming and going and we
would have weekly meetings that
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were a gathering place for discussion,
for prayer and for singing.
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How I met everybody was, I think
it was 1970. I was in grade 11.
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Your dad was my teacher and your
dad was interesting and current
00:05:33.340 --> 00:05:35.650
and really charismatic.
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It totally turned me around. I left my
parents' home. I came into your home.
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That was my first home away from home.
He was an out of the box teacher.
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Your father had a lot of charisma.
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There was something about
him and I do remember feeling
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challenged to question the status
quo and institutions, so there.
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Was a new lens presented.
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Creating an intentional community
was promulgated to those of us who
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were receptive to that kind of idea.
00:06:07.730 --> 00:06:11.930
And so we began meeting on Monday nights
where also we would do some singing.
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And I started to go to meetings
in your mom and dad's home.
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They always had people, always intense
conversations around the dining table.
00:06:22.460 --> 00:06:23.990
I was the one looking out for the kids.
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The relationships were really
important with the kids.
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You guys were really important to me.
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It was like a community that was building
and they had to pay like $80 a month
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for groom and board and participate in
washing dishes and getting groceries and
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cleaning the house. So
you lived as a family?
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I left and ran away from home at
a very, very young age. For me,
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Granger was a person that
cared about other people.
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The fact that he and Diane took me off
the street and offered me a place in your
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family so I could have a place to live,
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family was something that
we were all looking for.
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A lot of people at my
generation were doing drugs,
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questioning just about
everything that you could name.
00:07:09.560 --> 00:07:12.620
There were a lot of issues
that we wanted to explore.
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This is a newspaper clipping
that I found, and in it,
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you see it talks about doorway.
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Doorway was the drop-in center that
Granger and Diane Cowie started
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as a place for us to have an outlet
and the point was to talk about
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issues, things that were troubling
us, things that were bothering us,
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things that we just wanted to work out,
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and if something like
doorway hadn't opened up,
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I'm really not sure how some of
my friends would've ended up.
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Know. There was stuff going on in the
States in the hippie movement. Well,
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we had ours. There was a lot of
drugs going on too at the time.
00:07:52.670 --> 00:07:57.140
I mean there was a revolution going
on because, and I don't mind sharing.
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Those were the days where I was doing
a lot of acid and smoking a lot,
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doing masculine smoking, a lot of
hack and those were great times too.
00:08:06.260 --> 00:08:11.090
So I think this was a center to try to
help us. Some of us could have gone over.
00:08:11.780 --> 00:08:12.613
The deep edge.
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Doorway was just full of conversations.
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This was an outreach to all the kids who
were cruising around trying to have a
00:08:21.170 --> 00:08:23.510
place where they felt they
could belong and come to.
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So it's just gathering people. So
it just grew and grew and grew.
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Yes, grew and grew and
grew and grew and grew.
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Your dad was kind of
the resident theologian,
00:08:31.970 --> 00:08:36.860
but others were educated too and
we would often all contribute
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ideas because we were trying to
speak to the bigger structures of
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society. In a way, we were
trying to be counter-cultural.
00:08:48.200 --> 00:08:50.540
We all came out of being baby boomers.
00:08:50.600 --> 00:08:55.310
I grew up with a set of values that was
hard and fast in terms of the need for
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definition with strong family
values, traditional in many ways.
00:08:59.670 --> 00:09:01.650
We knew the world was changing.
00:09:01.800 --> 00:09:06.690
We knew that the post-war fifties
world was being challenged on all
00:09:06.690 --> 00:09:09.960
sorts of fronts, but
that just created chaos.
00:09:15.300 --> 00:09:19.890
It was all about civil rights,
feminism, peace, movement.
00:09:20.040 --> 00:09:22.590
It was compelling, attractive,
00:09:22.590 --> 00:09:27.150
and it was meaningful and was
really looking for wanting to make a
00:09:27.150 --> 00:09:27.983
difference.
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We felt.
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How about if we had a place where people
could gather and we could learn from
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each other and expand our world,
00:09:40.170 --> 00:09:44.130
trying to look at ways to live
differently in the society.
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We had create things that were different,
that were more peaceful, more real,
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more truthful.
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I set out to find everyone across Canada
to stitch together the story of the
00:10:02.980 --> 00:10:07.530
farm more than four decades
later, and to my surprise,
00:10:08.040 --> 00:10:10.230
everyone had a piece of the puzzle.
00:10:18.520 --> 00:10:23.040
So Ian was the back to the
land arm of that social
00:10:23.040 --> 00:10:24.240
movement that you were part of?
00:10:24.540 --> 00:10:26.910
That's right. It was
partly back to the land,
00:10:27.090 --> 00:10:30.870
but it was still tied into what
was going on in the city. I mean,
00:10:30.990 --> 00:10:34.140
aside from your dad, we
had very little idea,
00:10:34.230 --> 00:10:36.660
but we wanted to know that we
could do something different.
00:10:37.500 --> 00:10:42.360
We'd envisioned the farm being an
outreach for kids from the city who were
00:10:42.360 --> 00:10:46.860
struggling with drug abuse and
emotional scarring from parents and
00:10:46.860 --> 00:10:47.693
families.
00:10:48.000 --> 00:10:52.050
It would be a really healthy thing to get
people out of the city and give them a
00:10:52.050 --> 00:10:56.610
chance to experience what the country
was like, what farming was like,
00:10:56.610 --> 00:11:01.020
what Putting your hands in dirt was like
what? Being around animals was like.
00:11:01.950 --> 00:11:04.080
I was one of the original owners.
00:11:04.380 --> 00:11:09.300
I can remember the day we went to sign
the arrangement for the sale At that
00:11:09.300 --> 00:11:13.950
time, it was kind of big for us feeling
very committed. After that meeting,
00:11:14.190 --> 00:11:16.980
you were going to do this. It
wasn't just talked about anymore.
00:11:17.880 --> 00:11:22.620
I remember it was $26,000 for
85 acres, including a farmhouse,
00:11:22.620 --> 00:11:27.060
a barn shed, and bush. They're
all putting an equal amount in,
00:11:27.070 --> 00:11:29.340
so it was important that
everybody had their say.
00:11:29.730 --> 00:11:32.100
Most of us had never
seen that much debt load.
00:11:37.770 --> 00:11:40.800
The back woodlot was magnificent.
It was mixed. Climax,
00:11:40.800 --> 00:11:44.160
forest of beach and maple, ash and oak.
00:11:45.000 --> 00:11:48.630
I never felt, because I was an owner, I
had more power of decision making ever.
00:11:48.870 --> 00:11:50.730
I thought everyone was
putting in their fair share.
00:11:51.540 --> 00:11:55.210
So I always believed that whatever
anyone could do physically, emotionally,
00:11:55.210 --> 00:11:57.910
mentally, service rise,
whatever was equal.
00:11:58.210 --> 00:12:01.540
So I never thought I had any
more power than the next person.
00:12:02.020 --> 00:12:05.110
Collectives, communes, faith, communities.
00:12:05.140 --> 00:12:09.760
I mean these things were just coming
into play and we were influenced,
00:12:09.760 --> 00:12:13.570
I guess by the whole movement in
the sixties and seventies anyway of
00:12:13.570 --> 00:12:18.220
collectivism just looking at ways
of trying to do things differently,
00:12:18.520 --> 00:12:20.290
an alternative to private ownership.
00:12:20.980 --> 00:12:25.060
There were messages that I heard and
embraced that housing should not be a
00:12:25.060 --> 00:12:27.910
commodity. Bought and sold for
profit. Everybody needs a house.
00:12:27.910 --> 00:12:28.900
Everybody needs water.
00:12:28.900 --> 00:12:32.920
Everybody needs food and stewardship
of the Earth's resources was another.
00:12:32.920 --> 00:12:34.750
We were recycling way back then.
00:12:35.470 --> 00:12:40.270
I think I had five bucks a backpack
with a toothbrush and hitchhiked across
00:12:40.280 --> 00:12:43.510
Canada. Just wanted to participate
in whatever way I could.
00:12:43.960 --> 00:12:47.350
I remember my friend Jack Segley. He
was my best friend in high school.
00:12:47.590 --> 00:12:51.130
He was an owner in fact of this
farm. He said, good enough for Jack.
00:12:51.130 --> 00:12:52.450
I'm going up there to check it out.
00:12:52.810 --> 00:12:56.890
That's when I showed up at the farm
and just participated where I could.
00:12:57.400 --> 00:13:01.750
To me, I didn't see it as a
philosophy. We were all just there.
00:13:02.200 --> 00:13:07.030
I left everything. When I came to Midian
farm, I left my family, my friends,
00:13:07.060 --> 00:13:08.050
my country,
00:13:08.140 --> 00:13:12.610
and I married Jack and I believed in
what the intentions of the farm were.
00:13:12.970 --> 00:13:15.280
I felt that it was a valuable thing.
00:13:15.910 --> 00:13:20.710
I had hitchhiked across Canada and had
spent some time in San Francisco before I
00:13:20.710 --> 00:13:25.300
ended up at the farm and was
beginning to tap into that communal,
00:13:25.450 --> 00:13:29.920
late sixties, whatever you want to
call it, the hippie thing. For me,
00:13:29.920 --> 00:13:34.840
it was just changing your perception
of the directions your life can go
00:13:34.840 --> 00:13:36.430
in. Oh, that's possible.
00:13:37.600 --> 00:13:42.400
It was about trying to understand our
faith in light of engaging with the
00:13:42.400 --> 00:13:44.560
world and the issues of the time.
00:13:45.010 --> 00:13:49.420
Maybe it was more self-conscious
those days or maybe you were more
00:13:49.450 --> 00:13:52.780
evangelical. Were you
wanting to convert people?
00:13:53.240 --> 00:13:58.000
I think I just wanted people
to feel welcomed and loved.
00:13:59.320 --> 00:14:01.570
What it was or what it is is about.
00:14:02.020 --> 00:14:05.980
It's about justice and that's what
the Christian story is justice.
00:14:06.010 --> 00:14:08.890
So we had the doorway, the drop-in.
00:14:08.900 --> 00:14:12.820
We had hundreds of kids coming
in the city six nights a week.
00:14:13.120 --> 00:14:15.670
We didn't go and preach to
them. We didn't go say, oh,
00:14:15.670 --> 00:14:19.930
you should become a Christian. We
listened to them. We listened to them,
00:14:20.470 --> 00:14:22.420
and the farm was the same.
00:14:22.430 --> 00:14:25.000
We didn't have meetings up
there to make people Christian.
00:14:25.600 --> 00:14:28.750
What we did was we
simply acted out of love,
00:14:29.320 --> 00:14:33.670
which is the Jesus story,
and it includes everybody.
00:14:33.680 --> 00:14:37.090
It includes everybody. You don't
have to say, oh, I'm a Christian.
00:14:38.080 --> 00:14:42.790
But the point is it's to do
with just being human to your
00:14:42.790 --> 00:14:44.890
deepest core and listening to people,
00:14:45.370 --> 00:14:48.190
and for us working for justice.
00:14:49.120 --> 00:14:51.220
I trusted these people implicitly.
00:14:51.500 --> 00:14:54.710
I felt that they were very
committed to what they were doing.
00:14:54.830 --> 00:14:59.030
I felt that they were for sure and
nobody knew how it was going to turn out,
00:14:59.480 --> 00:15:01.850
but everybody was in it for real,
00:15:01.880 --> 00:15:05.900
and it felt like I was coming home
even though it wasn't my home at all.
00:15:05.960 --> 00:15:09.350
I felt welcomed and looked after.
00:15:10.130 --> 00:15:14.750
We were looking at the world and seeing
the hurt and the pain and responding to
00:15:14.750 --> 00:15:19.460
it and making it better and
recognizing that we need to do
00:15:19.460 --> 00:15:23.060
something about it. Not just go
to church on Sundays and be good.
00:15:23.330 --> 00:15:26.990
There was social action involved. There
were people that needed to be impacted.
00:15:28.970 --> 00:15:33.650
The young life thing was
a very evangelical sort of
approach to meeting young
00:15:33.650 --> 00:15:38.120
people and telling them about
Christianity, telling them about Jesus.
00:15:38.210 --> 00:15:40.970
Whereas this was a more
practical approach.
00:15:41.900 --> 00:15:45.200
I know your dad was always big on
that. When we do things together,
00:15:45.210 --> 00:15:49.760
that's how we really begin to experience
what this community could be and find
00:15:49.760 --> 00:15:52.640
out how to support each other
and how to move in the world.
00:15:57.740 --> 00:16:00.200
Great. I love this one.
Tell me about your wedding.
00:16:00.800 --> 00:16:02.300
I never felt it was just my wedding.
00:16:02.450 --> 00:16:05.930
I always felt it was the opening of
the farm. It was like to the world.
00:16:05.960 --> 00:16:07.640
Here we are, medium farm.
00:16:44.810 --> 00:16:49.400
Certainly something like Nancy and
John's wedding and the barn dance
00:16:49.400 --> 00:16:54.170
afterwards and the sense of
joy we had with the music
00:16:54.170 --> 00:16:57.080
and the dancing and new
kids were very happy.
00:16:58.040 --> 00:16:59.900
There were so many joyful moments.
00:17:03.980 --> 00:17:08.720
It was a lot of work, but it was a lot
of people came together to make it work,
00:17:09.420 --> 00:17:14.030
so it was a real kind of building
event. So yeah. How many people?
00:17:14.600 --> 00:17:16.730
Somewhere between 50 and a hundred maybe.
00:17:17.540 --> 00:17:18.530
Who was your best man?
00:17:19.400 --> 00:17:20.390
My friend Bob Dolman,
00:17:21.860 --> 00:17:26.720
and I remember the time he
had a girlfriend who came
with him, but she was ful.
00:17:27.220 --> 00:17:32.000
She wanted to leave after 10 minutes.
It was really quite different.
00:17:40.910 --> 00:17:45.290
Did you believe as a collective that
what you were doing would actually
00:17:45.290 --> 00:17:47.120
affect greater change?
00:17:47.360 --> 00:17:48.800
The way it was set up,
00:17:49.260 --> 00:17:53.100
there was a direct link to Toronto
and what was going on in Toronto,
00:17:53.850 --> 00:17:56.280
and it was more about a back and forth.
00:17:56.940 --> 00:17:59.070
Nancy and I lived there
full time the first year,
00:17:59.520 --> 00:18:03.540
but there wasn't a group of us
who were there just to be there.
00:18:05.220 --> 00:18:09.480
Sixties and seventies. It
was the era of possibility.
00:18:09.480 --> 00:18:11.040
Utopian aspiration.
00:18:11.580 --> 00:18:16.110
When I think of utopia, a place
called the farm come to mind.
00:18:16.570 --> 00:18:16.740
In the.
00:18:16.740 --> 00:18:17.850
States. In the States, right?
00:18:18.360 --> 00:18:21.900
They went on their own place and
that's where they lived and worked and
00:18:21.900 --> 00:18:26.850
developed, and they set
it up to consciously be
complete alternate community.
00:18:27.750 --> 00:18:30.390
That was not the sense of Midian farm.
00:18:30.570 --> 00:18:33.750
It was much more tied to what
was happening in Toronto.
00:18:36.180 --> 00:18:39.000
Our neighbors thought
we were hippie commune.
00:18:39.480 --> 00:18:43.020
You knew from the facial
expressions or some of the comments,
00:18:43.200 --> 00:18:48.090
it was strange to them and they were
worried about a group of young people all
00:18:48.090 --> 00:18:50.880
living in one house and
what was going on here.
00:18:52.350 --> 00:18:54.540
We looked like hippies, definitely.
00:18:54.630 --> 00:18:58.920
A lot of the females were into
long dresses, no underwear.
00:18:58.980 --> 00:19:02.460
The guys had long hair, often
tied back with a piece of leather.
00:19:02.580 --> 00:19:05.850
I could understand why the
neighbors would wonder.
00:19:07.620 --> 00:19:11.490
We weren't about drugs at all. We were
not about sex, drugs and rock and roll.
00:19:11.490 --> 00:19:16.290
We were the antithesis of that,
but we were perceived as being sex,
00:19:16.300 --> 00:19:17.220
drugs, and rock and roll.
00:19:18.420 --> 00:19:20.910
People call me a hippie. I would
say, well, what's a hippie?
00:19:21.510 --> 00:19:22.680
And if they meant drug,
00:19:23.310 --> 00:19:27.990
if you're on drugs and you have multiple
partners, no, then we're not hippies.
00:19:29.310 --> 00:19:31.440
That's not what we're
about. We're alternative.
00:19:33.390 --> 00:19:35.280
We're into alternative ways of living.
00:19:37.620 --> 00:19:41.610
It was never called a commune. It was
never a commune in the hippie sense.
00:19:42.150 --> 00:19:45.060
It was an intentional community.
It was a very intentional thing.
00:19:45.990 --> 00:19:48.390
The kind of music that we listened to.
00:19:48.420 --> 00:19:51.810
It was very popular with
the Woodstock generation.
00:19:52.140 --> 00:19:56.550
I heard every Cat Stephen
song hundreds of times.
00:19:57.480 --> 00:19:59.910
And so what was the
songbook of Midian farm?
00:19:59.970 --> 00:20:02.700
People have referenced
certain artists and songs,
00:20:02.700 --> 00:20:07.440
but I'd like to hear from you what your
memory is of what that songbook was.
00:20:08.520 --> 00:20:13.380
One sort of part of it was that
carrying forward all of the
00:20:13.380 --> 00:20:17.850
songs that had been sung through young
life. So there was all of that stuff.
00:20:19.080 --> 00:20:22.710
And then of course, other artists
like James Taylor, cat Stevens.
00:20:22.860 --> 00:20:27.090
So Cat Stevens was very popular
because he had this spiritual element,
00:20:27.480 --> 00:20:30.690
this social element, this
sort of catchy pop song,
00:20:30.690 --> 00:20:33.990
hit song element that
was accessible to people.
00:20:33.990 --> 00:20:38.070
So he was very popular and
then I brought all this
00:20:38.760 --> 00:20:43.140
gospel music that just
became part of it too.
00:20:48.460 --> 00:20:53.290
Where this soul world's in a terrible fix,
00:20:53.290 --> 00:20:56.800
but someone's got to
take it, blame for this,
00:20:57.910 --> 00:20:58.750
and it's a glory.
00:21:00.570 --> 00:21:01.403
Hallelujah.
00:21:02.440 --> 00:21:03.273
Since.
00:21:22.120 --> 00:21:26.980
We were aware that it was a bit of a
social experiment in the sense that could
00:21:26.980 --> 00:21:30.910
we be self-sustaining in many
ways as far as food was concerned,
00:21:31.000 --> 00:21:33.430
heat making sure you had enough wood.
00:21:33.940 --> 00:21:37.660
A lot of us had no idea what a winter
supply of wood actually looks like.
00:21:37.870 --> 00:21:42.160
We had to understand about wells and
conserving water and what happened if it
00:21:42.160 --> 00:21:44.800
went dry. We just kind
of had to figure it out.
00:21:46.780 --> 00:21:49.360
As a city kid, I'd never
even been in a tractor.
00:21:49.510 --> 00:21:52.570
I'd never done anything
farm like and farm.
00:21:52.570 --> 00:21:56.920
I'm running around with bailers and
hauling logs out of bush and doing maple
00:21:56.920 --> 00:21:58.480
syrup in the back, woodlot.
00:22:00.010 --> 00:22:03.100
All of these tasks
required a lot of labor,
00:22:03.100 --> 00:22:07.330
so we had very much of a communal
workforce in those first two years,
00:22:07.330 --> 00:22:08.860
and we had big projects.
00:22:09.160 --> 00:22:12.340
The farm was a working community.
00:22:12.790 --> 00:22:17.260
Anybody from my generation who wasn't
living at the farm could at least go up
00:22:17.260 --> 00:22:21.910
there to visit and participate and work
on the farm and see what it was like.
00:22:22.900 --> 00:22:26.650
There was always jobs to do,
so I remember at one point,
00:22:26.650 --> 00:22:27.910
which was insane,
00:22:28.450 --> 00:22:33.250
finding nails in the grass and then trying
to straighten them so we could reuse
00:22:33.250 --> 00:22:35.770
them. It was hard. It was hard work.
00:22:36.640 --> 00:22:41.350
And one particular Sunday I remember
they were pulling down one side of the
00:22:41.350 --> 00:22:44.770
barn and that was an education in itself.
00:22:44.830 --> 00:22:48.880
That end of the barn had gotten
wrecked probably by old age.
00:22:48.970 --> 00:22:53.800
There's no sense having a three
walled barn, especially in the winter.
00:22:58.720 --> 00:23:03.070
We did a lot of the painting over
there with Nancy and Joan and Peter,
00:23:03.430 --> 00:23:08.170
but I think a lot of the works that the
women did was of the vegetable gardens.
00:23:08.800 --> 00:23:11.110
It was a organic market garden.
00:23:11.680 --> 00:23:15.850
Dick both was visionary in
what he created in the garden.
00:23:16.600 --> 00:23:17.433
It was amazing.
00:23:17.680 --> 00:23:21.880
Well, Dick was ahead of the
times. He never used pesticides,
00:23:22.360 --> 00:23:24.010
and during the winter months,
00:23:24.020 --> 00:23:28.510
he and Mary would pump heat from their
wood stove under the ground to the
00:23:28.510 --> 00:23:31.810
greenhouse so that we had a
functioning greenhouse all year round.
00:23:33.700 --> 00:23:36.130
It was great to have it
because he was a farmer.
00:23:36.550 --> 00:23:41.170
He knew what to do with the land,
so we worked a lot in the fields.
00:23:41.180 --> 00:23:44.470
It was great for suntanning too. You
could get out there and look pretty good.
00:23:45.050 --> 00:23:47.570
That clip of two people in
the garden with bathing suits.
00:23:47.780 --> 00:23:50.630
That is me in the green bathing
suit. The other one's, Michelle.
00:23:51.410 --> 00:23:53.720
Do you remember how you
learned about Midian?
00:23:53.810 --> 00:23:55.970
It was through your mother originally.
00:23:56.240 --> 00:23:58.940
They needed someone who knew
something about gardening,
00:23:59.060 --> 00:24:03.050
knew how to manage a garden, so we
were looking for somewhere to go.
00:24:03.290 --> 00:24:06.530
Early years, they had trouble
keeping ahead of the weeds.
00:24:06.950 --> 00:24:09.830
Dick had been a professional
gardener in the past,
00:24:09.840 --> 00:24:13.700
so they got him to come
to help out the situation.
00:24:14.960 --> 00:24:19.100
The inspiration came from our
ideas about growing things,
00:24:19.370 --> 00:24:20.360
different methods.
00:24:20.540 --> 00:24:24.290
They had marigold's, remember they
planted marigolds in some of the circles.
00:24:24.440 --> 00:24:28.460
As a companion, you tried a lot
of companion planting. Yeah.
00:24:28.760 --> 00:24:30.050
Where did you learn that?
00:24:30.740 --> 00:24:32.330
Just from life.
00:24:32.510 --> 00:24:37.460
My time was spent useful
in looking at life.
00:24:38.600 --> 00:24:41.930
You're experimenting too,
and you read about it.
00:24:42.320 --> 00:24:43.400
Had you done it before?
00:24:43.820 --> 00:24:46.910
Well, on a major scale, I
was very first way doing it.
00:24:47.600 --> 00:24:52.280
Dick invested the money
into planting and you sold
00:24:52.460 --> 00:24:54.950
quite a bit at a stand on the road.
00:24:55.190 --> 00:24:57.050
So it was a source of income, right?
00:24:57.410 --> 00:24:58.243
Yeah.
00:24:59.030 --> 00:25:02.780
They would harvest the vegetables and
bring them down and sell 'em outside the
00:25:02.780 --> 00:25:06.620
Ontario housing projects because all
these immigrant people that were now up in
00:25:06.620 --> 00:25:09.860
the suburbs couldn't walk down
and get their vegetables anymore,
00:25:09.860 --> 00:25:12.740
and so they would bring the
vegetables to them to buy.
00:25:12.980 --> 00:25:17.540
Well, beans were a biggie.
Potatoes, cabbage, lettuce,
00:25:17.780 --> 00:25:22.190
peas, carrots, beets. Those
would be the main ones.
00:25:22.250 --> 00:25:25.190
I would say. Cucumbers, of course.
00:25:25.430 --> 00:25:26.263
Tomatoes.
00:25:26.330 --> 00:25:27.620
Tomatoes, definitely.
00:25:28.250 --> 00:25:30.890
I remember canning every
summer we would harvest,
00:25:30.900 --> 00:25:33.890
and prior to that my dietary
choices were very limited,
00:25:33.890 --> 00:25:35.990
but the farm just opened them wide up.
00:25:39.740 --> 00:25:44.510
Can you imagine just eating
food that was grown from the
00:25:44.520 --> 00:25:49.160
land that you picked and now you're
eating them at the dining room
00:25:49.160 --> 00:25:50.660
table that same day?
00:25:51.380 --> 00:25:52.850
Do you remember the kitchen table?
00:25:53.060 --> 00:25:54.140
Oh, absolutely.
00:25:54.920 --> 00:25:55.880
SAT 22.
00:25:57.500 --> 00:25:58.333
That's great.
00:26:04.970 --> 00:26:09.200
Salt pepper and pepper
piece of bread. Anyway.
00:26:10.370 --> 00:26:14.900
We had a really big round table,
huge round table in the kitchen,
00:26:15.050 --> 00:26:17.810
and I think we'd made it
from boards from the barn.
00:26:18.080 --> 00:26:22.490
Some days we'd sit down for noon lunch,
which was the big meal of the day at,
00:26:22.910 --> 00:26:26.210
I don't know, 20 people,
sometimes kids from the city.
00:26:27.110 --> 00:26:30.800
And we were working so hard that I could
out eat almost any guy sitting at the
00:26:30.800 --> 00:26:34.250
table. We were physically working
so hard that I was just hungry,
00:26:34.490 --> 00:26:36.050
but Ken Whitely was there,
00:26:36.050 --> 00:26:39.500
and one of the things that we liked to
make all the time was cheese and corn
00:26:39.500 --> 00:26:40.070
soup.
00:26:40.070 --> 00:26:44.880
Le I can remember numerous times
taking this out of the oven with the
00:26:44.880 --> 00:26:46.140
top all risen.
00:26:46.500 --> 00:26:50.700
And I got into cooking. I got
into canning that would make pies,
00:26:50.820 --> 00:26:54.720
and in the farmhouse I cooked
separate. That was one of my tasks.
00:26:54.730 --> 00:26:57.690
I enjoyed doing it and I
didn't have to wash dishes.
00:26:58.230 --> 00:27:01.770
Everybody did all the same
jobs. Women didn't just cook.
00:27:02.070 --> 00:27:05.250
The guys had to cook sometimes we
all took turns during the dishes.
00:27:05.700 --> 00:27:08.640
Most of us grew up in households where
the boys did the garbage and the girls
00:27:08.650 --> 00:27:09.900
did pretty much everything else.
00:27:11.250 --> 00:27:16.050
I remember doing the dishes and all the
guys doing the dishes because the women
00:27:16.060 --> 00:27:19.650
put us in a place. We had to do
things like that, which was good.
00:27:20.700 --> 00:27:24.930
I remember singing with Bill,
Barbara, Ann, and songs like that.
00:27:24.940 --> 00:27:28.110
They were really fun. So there was
some fun things in the kitchen.
00:27:31.470 --> 00:27:35.700
One of the things in my eventual
progression towards vegetarianism was I
00:27:35.710 --> 00:27:40.170
remember one of these
big events and we had 25
00:27:40.350 --> 00:27:43.800
hens that were no longer laying
anymore. They were too old.
00:27:44.370 --> 00:27:46.770
So we were going to make a big
chicken curry for everyone,
00:27:46.770 --> 00:27:48.240
a big huge pot of chicken.
00:27:48.240 --> 00:27:51.870
So we had to cut their heads off and I
always feel like anybody who's going to
00:27:51.870 --> 00:27:56.670
eat meat should experience what
it's like to take an ax and chop the
00:27:56.670 --> 00:28:01.140
head off a living thing because that's
what's involved with every time someone
00:28:01.140 --> 00:28:04.710
eats meat. That was no fun, I would say,
00:28:04.710 --> 00:28:07.050
and yet an important learning experience.
00:28:08.550 --> 00:28:10.350
Who would slaughter the animals?
00:28:10.590 --> 00:28:15.420
Sometimes they were done there. Take a
22 to their head. If they don't drop,
00:28:15.900 --> 00:28:18.510
then you have to take a
knife to their throat,
00:28:18.510 --> 00:28:20.160
but most of the time they would drop.
00:28:20.400 --> 00:28:24.030
So it was painless and they
had to be gutted and bled,
00:28:24.630 --> 00:28:29.220
so we had to hang on. So we had
a lot of lamb to eat. The pigs.
00:28:29.230 --> 00:28:30.120
We had pigs.
00:28:32.070 --> 00:28:36.480
Nobody really knew how to live on a
day-to-day basis on a farm. First of all,
00:28:36.480 --> 00:28:40.410
you don't get an animal till you have it
properly. Be able to contain it safely,
00:28:40.980 --> 00:28:43.710
and then you make it a pen that's
big enough and nice enough,
00:28:44.520 --> 00:28:46.860
you have to build a
fence. If you get a sheep,
00:28:47.010 --> 00:28:49.380
you have to have a fence to
keep him in. If you get a pig,
00:28:49.380 --> 00:28:50.910
you have to have a fence to keep him in.
00:28:50.910 --> 00:28:54.090
Otherwise he runs away and everyone's
running down the road trying to catch him.
00:28:54.430 --> 00:28:57.270
We're kind of idiot city people
that didn't build the fence first.
00:28:58.470 --> 00:29:00.090
And the goats were my favorite.
00:29:01.500 --> 00:29:04.560
And we had three goats.
Hannah, Mona and Sarah.
00:29:05.250 --> 00:29:07.980
They're way smarter than we
were. There were three of them,
00:29:07.980 --> 00:29:12.960
and we'd go out to milk the goats and
they stick their foot in a bucket of
00:29:12.960 --> 00:29:17.010
milk and then they were escaping all the
time. And then don't remember that ram.
00:29:17.220 --> 00:29:22.050
Corny. Corny. Yeah. If you
weren't watching, he would
ram you. It was comical.
00:29:23.190 --> 00:29:27.990
He allowed me to get close to him
because he would butt ram everyone
00:29:27.990 --> 00:29:28.823
else really.
00:29:28.840 --> 00:29:33.510
But he was gentle with me
And your parents let you
00:29:33.510 --> 00:29:38.020
experiment with that. I was sort of, we
were allowed to do whatever we wanted.
00:29:38.080 --> 00:29:41.320
You were free. A free wild child. Yeah.
00:29:42.610 --> 00:29:45.430
I named every animal after Peter Brook.
00:29:47.410 --> 00:29:52.060
You guys as kids, you were as much
part of the firm as all we adults were.
00:29:54.760 --> 00:29:58.510
And I remember you and Michael and Paul,
we were always there. You're always,
00:29:58.900 --> 00:30:03.130
someone was holding you on the laugh
and it was just precious to see you were
00:30:03.130 --> 00:30:07.990
just free little spirits there and all
these people that just embraced and
00:30:07.990 --> 00:30:12.460
loved it was wonderful. We were the
only kids, right? As far as I remember.
00:30:12.460 --> 00:30:15.640
Occasionally other people would
bring other kids, but not too often.
00:30:31.190 --> 00:30:35.320
When I first started
experiencing Midian farm,
00:30:35.350 --> 00:30:38.290
I mean I was probably 11, 12,
00:30:38.320 --> 00:30:41.170
and it wasn't until a
couple of years after that,
00:30:41.170 --> 00:30:44.110
I think that my dad bought
the place next door.
00:30:44.110 --> 00:30:47.170
So I used to live up there at Midian.
00:30:47.800 --> 00:30:52.000
The experience of having my horse
up there was such a huge part of it.
00:30:52.390 --> 00:30:57.130
And the horse's name was Higgins fellow
and they had a pretty good life up
00:30:57.130 --> 00:30:58.150
there. Well,
00:30:58.150 --> 00:31:01.450
because they had this a hundred acres
that they could wander around in.
00:31:01.450 --> 00:31:05.560
It was like the woods and the
fields, and so they were pretty wild.
00:31:07.690 --> 00:31:12.080
You look so much like your dad,
from what I remember of Omar, right?
00:31:13.150 --> 00:31:17.260
Yeah. He would've been 91
this year. You miss him?
00:31:17.590 --> 00:31:18.880
Yeah, I do.
00:31:20.530 --> 00:31:25.090
And Omar, of course, Omar was
so good for me. He was older and
00:31:26.800 --> 00:31:31.240
I could always go and talk to
him and he was so supportive
00:31:33.220 --> 00:31:37.570
and I maintained our
friendship. Right until he died.
00:31:39.010 --> 00:31:40.810
Your dad thanks to him,
00:31:40.820 --> 00:31:45.340
he documented the making
of the dome and he did
00:31:45.340 --> 00:31:47.170
document that process.
00:31:48.040 --> 00:31:51.250
I remember this book. Yeah.
We built a dome with it.
00:31:52.430 --> 00:31:56.680
It's a magazine. It's a magazine
about how to build geodesic domes.
00:31:57.160 --> 00:32:02.080
I came back from Montreal Expo seeing
the Buckminster Fuller dome and
00:32:02.200 --> 00:32:06.460
this inspiring you come back from
that is what you, I say 14, 15 year,
00:32:06.470 --> 00:32:11.050
year old kid got me inspired by all
this so that I want to get this book
00:32:11.410 --> 00:32:15.400
and learn how to build
domes. I really did.
00:32:16.100 --> 00:32:19.880
So you were both at Expo 67? Well, we
didn't know it, but we didn't know it.
00:32:20.020 --> 00:32:20.853
We didn't know each other.
00:32:22.390 --> 00:32:26.170
And after 40 years you say that
you were there. I was there.
00:32:27.430 --> 00:32:31.840
And you see it shows you all the
details as to how to put the triangles
00:32:31.840 --> 00:32:35.260
together, right? Exactly. Yeah.
And you get the angles right? Yeah.
00:32:35.980 --> 00:32:40.490
This was hard math for us
kids. Yeah, that's right.
00:32:40.640 --> 00:32:45.380
And we were all trying to understand
exactly what the concept was,
00:32:46.070 --> 00:32:50.840
but we understood the idea that it was
pretty cool that there was a way to
00:32:51.230 --> 00:32:55.880
build spaces without
using too much material.
00:32:56.330 --> 00:33:00.380
I think that was the key. It
was really difficult to build.
00:33:00.950 --> 00:33:05.240
They didn't know how to put this stuff
together. It was very tough. Yeah,
00:33:05.240 --> 00:33:07.280
look at that old notes. Yeah,
00:33:08.450 --> 00:33:12.600
it's just understanding I guess the
different Strutt lengths and everything.
00:33:24.950 --> 00:33:29.600
I think I dug most of the septic field
for the dome by hand out in the field
00:33:29.610 --> 00:33:31.580
because we couldn't
afford to get a backhoe.
00:33:31.700 --> 00:33:34.370
So these long trenches for the drain tile,
00:33:34.580 --> 00:33:37.190
I remember digging a lot of that by hand.
00:33:40.250 --> 00:33:44.120
Jack played a significant role
in sort of design and layout,
00:33:45.170 --> 00:33:49.880
and my function was helping to
cost out the materials needed and
00:33:50.180 --> 00:33:53.150
what labor we needed and
the timetable, Jack and I,
00:33:53.150 --> 00:33:55.310
and I think Corbett worked
a lot on the domes too.
00:34:11.000 --> 00:34:15.620
It took on its own personality,
which wasn't so much shaped by me,
00:34:15.620 --> 00:34:19.700
I didn't think. I thought it was shaped
by them and they did all the work.
00:34:21.470 --> 00:34:23.510
So I consider it their farm, not mine,
00:34:25.910 --> 00:34:26.900
but I sure loved it.
00:34:28.970 --> 00:34:31.470
It was an amazing place.
00:34:35.420 --> 00:34:39.200
I don't think we were ever
a perfect utopian society.
00:34:39.200 --> 00:34:43.820
I think we were trying to figure
out how to be a Christian community,
00:34:44.570 --> 00:34:48.410
and it was open their hospitable or
embraced everyone who had come there.
00:34:49.400 --> 00:34:51.650
And there was quite a diversity
of people who would come.
00:34:54.920 --> 00:34:58.850
There was a really strong sense that
this was going to be an egalitarian
00:34:58.860 --> 00:35:03.410
community and complete
equality between men and women.
00:35:04.100 --> 00:35:08.360
Whereas some of us had come out of
Christian organizations like Young Life or
00:35:08.360 --> 00:35:11.750
the church where women were
not treated fully equal,
00:35:12.350 --> 00:35:15.740
that we were sort of
subsidiaries, we were helpers,
00:35:16.460 --> 00:35:18.260
but we weren't full partners.
00:35:21.590 --> 00:35:24.560
And did you feel that
you were Granger's equal?
00:35:25.010 --> 00:35:27.860
I felt I was Granger's equal,
but I'm not quite sure.
00:35:27.860 --> 00:35:32.570
The dynamics of the relationship
and the world in which we married
00:35:32.570 --> 00:35:35.690
into was fully fleshed out in that time.
00:35:38.610 --> 00:35:42.960
We enjoyed what we did, all those
kids, and we didn't preach to them.
00:35:43.800 --> 00:35:46.920
It was the easiest mix you
could imagine. It was seamless.
00:35:47.220 --> 00:35:51.810
Diane was so respected and
especially with the young women,
00:35:52.050 --> 00:35:56.340
they just always wanted to be around her
and she talked to them, counseled them.
00:35:57.000 --> 00:35:58.500
I mean, when I was a minister,
00:35:58.500 --> 00:36:01.380
she used to come and sneak in
and rewrite my sermons for me,
00:36:02.670 --> 00:36:05.790
but that was because I was probably
way less literate than her.
00:36:08.100 --> 00:36:11.790
When I reflect on myself being needy,
00:36:11.970 --> 00:36:14.910
looking for parental figures,
00:36:15.400 --> 00:36:19.890
choosing Diane and Granger
as leaders, Diane was what,
00:36:19.890 --> 00:36:24.510
27? Granger was maybe 31.
00:36:25.020 --> 00:36:29.730
And I look at it now and I think
what a horrible expectation
00:36:30.120 --> 00:36:32.190
for those young people.
00:36:34.470 --> 00:36:38.910
Well, your dad was for sure the kind
of charismatic presence and your mom,
00:36:38.970 --> 00:36:43.290
the practical, caring,
emotional, sit down with you,
00:36:43.320 --> 00:36:45.690
work it all out. But
in terms of leadership,
00:36:45.690 --> 00:36:50.550
Granger was seen as the leader and
his vision was so strong that once
00:36:50.550 --> 00:36:53.880
you accepted that, that was an
interesting thing to be considering.
00:36:54.390 --> 00:36:58.500
You didn't feel like there was a lot
of room to deviate from the vision.
00:36:59.040 --> 00:37:02.850
There was a tendency to elevate
him to certain kind of status.
00:37:03.240 --> 00:37:06.480
He was like, what's his name
in that Scottish war movie?
00:37:06.720 --> 00:37:10.050
He was always the one who was
first there. He was the organizer.
00:37:10.050 --> 00:37:13.350
William Wallace. Yeah, William Wallace.
He calls himself William Wallace. Well,
00:37:13.350 --> 00:37:17.280
he's a large personality.
He questioned authority,
00:37:17.280 --> 00:37:21.450
but most of the time appeared to be
totally confident about what he was doing.
00:37:22.380 --> 00:37:25.170
The most profound experience
that I had at the farm,
00:37:25.170 --> 00:37:27.390
it was when Granger washed Don's feet.
00:37:28.050 --> 00:37:32.280
It was so profoundly sensual and
00:37:32.280 --> 00:37:33.270
sensory,
00:37:33.900 --> 00:37:38.790
and it was touching somebody
in a way that I'd never
00:37:38.790 --> 00:37:43.110
seen done before, and I didn't
know what to do with it.
00:37:44.340 --> 00:37:46.290
I have no cerebral
00:37:48.780 --> 00:37:50.400
gloss on that at all,
00:37:50.460 --> 00:37:53.550
but I just know that it was a
profoundly moving experience,
00:37:53.580 --> 00:37:58.560
and in some ways it was a metaphor
for the whole farm because it was
00:37:58.570 --> 00:38:02.250
all profoundly moving, right?
It was the good and the bad.
00:38:04.770 --> 00:38:09.750
I think your father had the
clearest vision of where he
00:38:09.750 --> 00:38:13.590
wanted to go with the farm.
He kind of became parental,
00:38:13.800 --> 00:38:18.120
and then there was resistance or
resentment, just like in a family.
00:38:18.630 --> 00:38:22.890
Well, we did call it family, and it
certainly had an intimacy about it.
00:38:23.040 --> 00:38:25.380
Absolutely. And deep sharing.
00:38:25.380 --> 00:38:28.680
Often it also had all of the things of
00:38:29.250 --> 00:38:32.550
competitiveness and jealousy and.
00:38:32.550 --> 00:38:33.720
Judgment, bandwagons.
00:38:33.720 --> 00:38:34.300
Guilt,
00:38:34.300 --> 00:38:38.890
and feeling like you weren't
living up to expectations
00:38:38.890 --> 00:38:42.610
necessarily. Maybe for
all of us, I don't know.
00:38:42.640 --> 00:38:46.600
But it had all of those
dynamics that a family has.
00:38:47.410 --> 00:38:52.150
So it was challenging and
caused us to, I think,
00:38:52.150 --> 00:38:56.860
explore inwardly and to
grow because of that.
00:38:57.730 --> 00:39:01.870
Difficult at times, because
so unsure of ourselves,
00:39:01.930 --> 00:39:05.260
so personally, so unsure
of myself at times.
00:39:17.380 --> 00:39:19.480
For a newly married
couple, like you and John,
00:39:19.480 --> 00:39:23.170
did you feel that you had enough personal
time just alone, the two of you? No.
00:39:24.160 --> 00:39:26.740
It was really hard. I
mean, we were never alone.
00:39:27.610 --> 00:39:30.940
There was tons of tension happening,
and I think some things came out.
00:39:31.030 --> 00:39:31.863
Judgments,
00:39:31.930 --> 00:39:36.670
frustrations and impatience started to
enter into the picture because people
00:39:36.670 --> 00:39:37.503
were struggling.
00:39:37.840 --> 00:39:42.340
The vision became so important
and it started to demand
00:39:42.340 --> 00:39:46.800
sacrifice. I do remember feeling
00:39:48.460 --> 00:39:52.990
a bit on the outside in some ways
because there were people who were
00:39:52.990 --> 00:39:55.300
very connected in that group.
00:39:55.690 --> 00:40:00.130
I was quite shy and I was, well,
00:40:00.130 --> 00:40:04.630
I'm not sure I want to give up
everything for this community.
00:40:05.200 --> 00:40:07.930
It started to feel culty to me.
00:40:08.320 --> 00:40:12.550
Unless you give up everything and be part
of this, you're not really part of it.
00:40:14.020 --> 00:40:17.470
Your dad ended up being the
leader. Leader would be kind.
00:40:19.270 --> 00:40:22.030
Dictator might be another word. Maybe.
00:40:22.040 --> 00:40:25.900
We were thinking we were going to get
away from the reality of people and
00:40:25.960 --> 00:40:30.790
society and governments and everything
else and how things are ruled or how
00:40:30.820 --> 00:40:34.390
decisions are made and all that.
But isn't there the expression,
00:40:34.400 --> 00:40:37.150
no matter where you go,
there you are. In hindsight,
00:40:37.150 --> 00:40:39.160
we probably should have had
a talking stick or something.
00:40:41.470 --> 00:40:44.500
I don't want to group 'em into a
cult leader or anything like that.
00:40:44.590 --> 00:40:48.790
But Granger had this dynamic.
We never looked at him that way,
00:40:49.180 --> 00:40:51.400
but he attracted a lot of people.
00:40:53.050 --> 00:40:57.610
I didn't feel I was their leader.
I just felt I was one of them.
00:40:57.610 --> 00:40:59.230
But I know they felt maybe.
00:40:59.710 --> 00:41:01.090
Is teacher a better word?
00:41:01.450 --> 00:41:05.530
Did you No, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no. I never was a teacher.
00:41:05.830 --> 00:41:08.860
Even when I taught high school, I
wasn't a teacher. I was an inspirer.
00:41:09.310 --> 00:41:11.710
I was a believer in the person.
00:41:12.790 --> 00:41:17.140
Just believer I believe in them. That's
all I did. I'm not a good teacher.
00:41:17.800 --> 00:41:18.910
No way. No.
00:41:22.480 --> 00:41:26.860
You and my dad were
definitely mentors, leaders.
00:41:27.940 --> 00:41:32.050
So did you see your role like
that? How did you see yourself?
00:41:34.970 --> 00:41:37.940
I didn't see myself as a leader.
00:41:37.940 --> 00:41:40.730
Your dad was more of a
charismatic kind of leader,
00:41:41.660 --> 00:41:44.720
but the kind of community
we had, you don't just have,
00:41:44.870 --> 00:41:48.380
it won't survive with just a
charismatic form of leadership.
00:41:48.380 --> 00:41:52.850
It has to empower everybody
to have for their gifts to be
00:41:52.850 --> 00:41:56.300
expressed. There was Dawn,
00:41:56.330 --> 00:42:01.010
this is before he married Michelle. There
was Jack, and then eventually Nancy.
00:42:01.010 --> 00:42:05.540
When he married Nancy, there was John
Denim who then married my sister Nancy.
00:42:05.750 --> 00:42:08.540
There was Bill who married Melanie.
00:42:08.690 --> 00:42:10.730
And Debbie and Jim got married.
00:42:11.450 --> 00:42:16.310
Pat, Scott, Bruno and Judy, people
who were part of the early owners.
00:42:16.580 --> 00:42:18.500
I sort of thought we were all leaders.
00:42:20.840 --> 00:42:25.700
I am de-tangling family
history and in it are the
00:42:25.710 --> 00:42:29.960
collective and individual
stories of dozens of people,
00:42:31.010 --> 00:42:35.600
people that I love.
Yet there are questions
00:42:37.160 --> 00:42:39.800
and multiple perspectives.
00:42:40.010 --> 00:42:44.720
Acquired wisdom fading memories shows me
00:42:44.720 --> 00:42:46.910
that there's not one answer.
00:43:04.940 --> 00:43:08.720
Ranger and Diane were intelligent,
asked interesting questions.
00:43:08.720 --> 00:43:12.650
They were interested in
who I was as a person,
00:43:13.280 --> 00:43:17.930
and I think that's kind of key really to
00:43:17.930 --> 00:43:22.880
understanding some of how the
community came together because
00:43:23.090 --> 00:43:25.160
they had this ability
to sort of draw people.
00:43:31.880 --> 00:43:34.940
I always felt so supported by Granger.
00:43:35.420 --> 00:43:40.370
I learned in this very kind
of spontaneous way to express
00:43:40.370 --> 00:43:42.320
spirituality and song
00:43:44.090 --> 00:43:48.860
in a way that served a community
in a way that allowed the spirit to
00:43:48.860 --> 00:43:53.690
move through me through a group
to me and back out to the group.
00:43:54.200 --> 00:43:59.030
And that's really been profound in my
00:43:59.030 --> 00:44:01.040
whole life and in the work that I've done,
00:44:01.040 --> 00:44:05.030
and particularly for the last 25 years.
00:44:18.560 --> 00:44:22.730
Now, we as an needed time.
00:44:23.120 --> 00:44:27.320
Oh, now needed time,
00:44:29.010 --> 00:44:31.880
now needed,
00:44:38.020 --> 00:44:38.853
oh,
00:44:40.420 --> 00:44:45.240
is a needed time now is
00:44:45.400 --> 00:44:50.120
a needed time now is a.
00:44:54.540 --> 00:44:54.810
I mean,
00:44:54.810 --> 00:44:59.640
I think I started out feeling excited
and happy about the vision and
00:44:59.650 --> 00:45:03.840
what we were doing. But the reality is
when you're dealing day in and day out,
00:45:03.840 --> 00:45:05.190
and we didn't have enough money.
00:45:05.670 --> 00:45:10.110
So everything that we did do was
through physical hard labor. I mean,
00:45:10.110 --> 00:45:13.680
if we'd had more money, things maybe
would've been a bit easier in some ways,
00:45:13.680 --> 00:45:14.513
but we didn't.
00:45:16.170 --> 00:45:20.700
It seemed to me a very complicated
way of building a house.
00:45:20.760 --> 00:45:23.520
It seems simpler just to build a square.
00:45:23.790 --> 00:45:28.170
All other houses are and make a structure
that's easily livable in that sense.
00:45:29.070 --> 00:45:30.630
But everything else,
00:45:31.440 --> 00:45:34.590
we did things a little differently
and it made things more difficult.
00:45:35.010 --> 00:45:39.810
No one really knew how to fit
square materials into round holes,
00:45:40.290 --> 00:45:43.260
and it was just every step was a burden.
00:45:45.270 --> 00:45:48.120
The small dome was
complete but leaked badly.
00:45:48.330 --> 00:45:53.100
The big dome that we'd always envisioned
to be an education center and a group
00:45:53.110 --> 00:45:54.840
meeting place never was finished.
00:45:54.900 --> 00:45:58.680
We only framed it with the
two by fours rent of money,
00:45:58.770 --> 00:45:59.940
rent of resources.
00:46:01.440 --> 00:46:06.000
The goal of that was to have extra
housing for people that needed family or
00:46:06.300 --> 00:46:09.450
more isolation than from
the big house. For instance.
00:46:09.870 --> 00:46:11.490
Said, Lord, won't you come by here?
00:46:12.540 --> 00:46:15.150
Lord, won't you come.
00:46:15.370 --> 00:46:16.203
By.
00:46:20.130 --> 00:46:23.930
By you?
00:46:49.350 --> 00:46:50.890
So God sent an angel down.
00:46:51.810 --> 00:46:56.790
I do know that I was always wanting
to have more time with just your
00:46:56.790 --> 00:47:00.780
dad and me and you three
kids. That was a huge part,
00:47:00.840 --> 00:47:02.010
but that was me,
00:47:02.010 --> 00:47:06.630
I guess because I was feeling in
that nesting mode with you kids,
00:47:06.660 --> 00:47:09.660
and I just wanted to
have that cohesiveness.
00:47:10.080 --> 00:47:14.410
I think we took on too much and we grew
too fast, too rapidly in too many areas,
00:47:15.360 --> 00:47:18.660
and for myself, I got
incredibly exhausted.
00:47:18.840 --> 00:47:22.350
Your dad and I would be expected to
be in meetings around this and that,
00:47:22.380 --> 00:47:25.140
and then I was trying to read and keep up,
00:47:25.150 --> 00:47:27.120
and then I was trying to help you kids.
00:47:27.120 --> 00:47:27.360
The.
00:47:27.360 --> 00:47:28.980
Angel locked the lion's.
00:47:29.020 --> 00:47:33.580
Jaw. We had a shared vision, but we
didn't take care of each other very well.
00:47:33.580 --> 00:47:35.290
And emotionally,
00:47:37.570 --> 00:47:40.780
we were just content on helping
00:47:43.930 --> 00:47:46.090
and probably more my fault than hers.
00:47:47.740 --> 00:47:51.730
It was too much work and a disconnection
that kept happening with your dad and
00:47:51.730 --> 00:47:56.260
me, and unable to work out our marriage.
00:48:01.540 --> 00:48:04.690
If I kept going the way I was. I mean,
00:48:04.870 --> 00:48:09.490
my God had a heart attack or I
mean it stressed out from all that
00:48:09.490 --> 00:48:12.250
responsibility and just doing that
00:48:15.190 --> 00:48:19.660
when dying got sick. Right near the
end when I was burned out and stuff,
00:48:19.720 --> 00:48:22.270
I remember Omar saying, you know, guys,
00:48:22.330 --> 00:48:25.150
you don't have the most imm maturity
to handle this. It's not going to work.
00:48:25.360 --> 00:48:28.450
We don't have it. But
he was completely right,
00:48:29.230 --> 00:48:30.880
just like somebody threw a bomb in there.
00:48:46.030 --> 00:48:50.240
Well, I had a complete breakdown
that winter because I didn't have,
00:48:51.920 --> 00:48:53.880
I lost a sense of hope.
00:49:09.720 --> 00:49:12.970
I honestly thought when
I left with you children,
00:49:13.240 --> 00:49:17.020
I would be going away to get better
and stronger and would be returning
00:49:18.040 --> 00:49:21.100
several months later. And of
course I didn't and we didn't.
00:49:23.260 --> 00:49:26.290
I have learned over time.
00:49:26.470 --> 00:49:31.180
Something that I didn't know
then is that the seeds of joy are
00:49:31.190 --> 00:49:33.730
also the chrysalis of pain.
00:49:34.690 --> 00:49:38.020
The steps of that dance
are so intertwined.
00:49:49.300 --> 00:49:52.870
I was impacted by what
felt like total collapse.
00:49:59.080 --> 00:50:01.920
And then after we left the farm,
00:50:03.040 --> 00:50:04.840
we learned that it all fell apart.
00:50:11.890 --> 00:50:16.150
The first major trauma that
we had was a hailstorm.
00:50:17.560 --> 00:50:20.260
These huge chunks of hail
00:50:21.760 --> 00:50:23.620
just about everything was lost.
00:50:26.410 --> 00:50:30.530
The hail, all the windows, it
completely destroyed the garden.
00:50:31.460 --> 00:50:34.880
It was just like one of those
things that you'll never forget.
00:50:42.500 --> 00:50:46.970
And then the lightning storm
splitting the tree, split it in half.
00:50:49.070 --> 00:50:52.970
It was our gathering place. It was where
we would sing. We would meet there.
00:50:52.970 --> 00:50:55.220
It was kind of like the heart of the farm.
00:50:58.520 --> 00:51:03.350
And then we had a very bad flood.
00:51:08.540 --> 00:51:11.210
And then finally, of
course, we had the fire.
00:51:26.400 --> 00:51:28.940
The house burned down in spring of 1977.
00:51:29.720 --> 00:51:34.160
There was chimney fire. I was away.
00:51:34.160 --> 00:51:38.570
The day the fire happened. Dick and
Mary went out, went out in the field,
00:51:38.600 --> 00:51:41.630
went out to work, and about 10 30,
00:51:41.630 --> 00:51:45.830
all of a sudden they see that the
house is starting to burn. And
00:51:47.810 --> 00:51:50.570
they ran in and saved my piano.
00:52:08.000 --> 00:52:08.833
And
00:52:10.220 --> 00:52:14.810
it seemed as if we couldn't understand
00:52:15.200 --> 00:52:17.480
why things were happening
the way they were happening.
00:52:24.170 --> 00:52:27.710
I have very little memory of the end,
00:52:28.370 --> 00:52:29.450
and when it was sold,
00:52:35.750 --> 00:52:40.160
it was a time when people were
looking in different directions.
00:53:06.860 --> 00:53:11.210
The fall of the farm left only
questions through the years.
00:53:12.440 --> 00:53:15.590
Some people stayed connected
and others lost touch.
00:53:16.940 --> 00:53:18.200
And for me,
00:53:18.200 --> 00:53:23.150
the farm was really just a
hodgepodge of fading images
00:53:23.150 --> 00:53:24.200
and photo albums.
00:53:27.000 --> 00:53:28.170
In making this film,
00:53:29.550 --> 00:53:32.040
I was connecting those dots,
00:53:34.650 --> 00:53:36.780
and I wanted to know my father better.
00:53:53.820 --> 00:53:56.970
Dad, I knew that was you.
00:53:58.850 --> 00:54:00.930
I knew you only have one eye.
00:54:26.080 --> 00:54:28.490
Yeah. A good picture for you. Okay.
00:54:30.450 --> 00:54:32.310
This is what you used to tell
everybody when you went home.
00:54:32.670 --> 00:54:35.610
I don't wear clothes as if
I wouldn't wear clothes.
00:54:38.400 --> 00:54:39.233
Great.
00:54:41.070 --> 00:54:44.970
Philippines is Mike's
horse, the killer horse.
00:54:45.930 --> 00:54:49.920
And that's a beautiful picture of
Mike sitting in the stump at the farm.
00:54:52.710 --> 00:54:55.680
And then that one dad, that's farmhouse.
00:54:58.670 --> 00:55:02.760
I remember Omar said to me, he said,
the thing about you is he says,
00:55:02.760 --> 00:55:06.120
everybody has heroes.
Everybody has symbols,
00:55:06.810 --> 00:55:07.830
but they know their symbols.
00:55:08.250 --> 00:55:11.970
The thing about you is you think you're
sha of bear. You think you're Jesus.
00:55:11.980 --> 00:55:14.550
You think that you have to
do the same as those guys.
00:55:14.580 --> 00:55:17.730
You don't have a distance between
them. And I listened to 'em. I thought,
00:55:17.730 --> 00:55:19.200
holy shit, what's he talking about?
00:55:21.300 --> 00:55:24.030
But I guess I was a bit crazy, right?
00:55:25.860 --> 00:55:26.820
A bit of a fanatic.
00:55:28.290 --> 00:55:30.630
Oh, Liz, sorry I didn't
prepare for you better.
00:55:30.630 --> 00:55:34.950
I just didn't think every time you
told me how you had so many things.
00:55:34.950 --> 00:55:36.300
I just said, oh, you got everything.
00:55:37.980 --> 00:55:41.580
I had this portrait taken in Scotland.
It was a really nice portrait.
00:55:41.910 --> 00:55:46.020
I've never had a portrait taken
before. How do you like it?
00:55:46.500 --> 00:55:49.670
Isn't that a great picture? That's a
great picture. You isn't that f? Yeah.
00:55:49.890 --> 00:55:52.710
Yeah. It's a great picture of me.
I don't have those horns anymore.
00:55:56.760 --> 00:55:58.410
No, I don't have any more of those.
00:56:00.720 --> 00:56:05.310
I have an email from you saying
I've got tons. Yeah, yeah.
00:56:05.320 --> 00:56:08.070
Somewhere. I do. I don't
know where they are.
00:56:42.440 --> 00:56:47.350
I found a paper that I wrote
as part of my master's degree
00:56:47.350 --> 00:56:51.550
on alternative communities,
and I interviewed Dylan now,
00:56:51.730 --> 00:56:56.350
and Dawn and Michelle and Jim and Deb,
who were all young parents on that.
00:56:57.340 --> 00:57:01.300
So it was really kind of fun. And then
it ended up being a version of it.
00:57:01.750 --> 00:57:03.010
Their names weren't used,
00:57:03.940 --> 00:57:08.470
but the version of it was used on communal
00:57:08.480 --> 00:57:12.490
living was published in the
Journal by my professor,
00:57:13.390 --> 00:57:15.400
19 77, 78.
00:57:16.060 --> 00:57:19.150
I was finishing my master's
degree in counseling psychology.
00:57:23.050 --> 00:57:25.600
This was up at the cottage that summer.
00:57:25.930 --> 00:57:30.910
And your dad and I and you kids had the
chance to have some time together just
00:57:30.910 --> 00:57:34.780
as a family. And that
was the summer of 1973.
00:57:36.640 --> 00:57:40.870
That was the only time that we
had just our family. Just about.
00:57:41.560 --> 00:57:45.490
It was kind of fun though. Paul
would've been two and a half.
00:57:45.550 --> 00:57:50.230
He'd have been just four. Mike
would've been turning six.
00:58:01.180 --> 00:58:04.000
Can of beer while you're driving
with no cops on the island.
00:58:08.170 --> 00:58:10.640
You didn't have that on? Did?
Yeah. Oh, you did? Oh, geez.
00:58:17.070 --> 00:58:21.940
This is beer with Do you want a picture of
00:58:21.940 --> 00:58:25.040
it? No. Sure. It's got
a marijuana leaf on it.
00:58:27.850 --> 00:58:28.800
You better edit this.
00:58:33.870 --> 00:58:34.703
Okay,
00:58:38.500 --> 00:58:43.030
so are you going to follow me?
Yeah. Okay. Is that okay? Yeah.
00:58:43.440 --> 00:58:47.200
You can do whatever you want.
I trust you're editing. Thanks.
00:58:49.150 --> 00:58:53.470
That's pretty neat. Hey, the trust we
have now. Yeah. Don't you think? Totally.
00:58:57.220 --> 00:58:58.480
Take a picture of this truck, man.
00:59:08.780 --> 00:59:10.080
Wow. That's pretty good. A, this
00:59:18.220 --> 00:59:20.440
is it. Kind of misty, eh?
00:59:20.550 --> 00:59:21.383
Yeah. Yeah.
00:59:35.840 --> 00:59:40.310
The breakup was so painful for so
many people, breakup, admitting,
00:59:40.370 --> 00:59:43.970
and it scares me a bit
to come back to all that,
00:59:47.030 --> 00:59:50.900
but because Diane and I are friends,
00:59:51.770 --> 00:59:55.970
and she and I actually were together on
talking to you about certain things in
00:59:55.980 --> 00:59:58.820
this thing, and I felt
really heartened by that,
00:59:59.510 --> 01:00:03.650
that she and I were partners
in this and our consent.
01:00:06.980 --> 01:00:11.480
And so my negotiation with
you is around, can we meet?
01:00:12.890 --> 01:00:17.720
Can you lead me into this please?
And that's what I think you've done.
01:00:26.690 --> 01:00:31.310
Feels complete for me.
I like a new beginning.
01:00:33.760 --> 01:00:34.593
I.
01:00:40.370 --> 01:00:42.230
Am eternally grateful for this. Thank you.
01:00:43.520 --> 01:00:44.570
They're bloody heavy.
01:00:50.180 --> 01:00:52.620
Perfect. Beautiful.
01:00:55.070 --> 01:01:00.020
I just can't believe how optimistic
we were that we can actually change
01:01:00.020 --> 01:01:02.570
the world. Oh my God.
01:01:03.230 --> 01:01:06.590
Actually doing it today. Can you do this?
01:01:39.020 --> 01:01:43.490
When you first talked about making
the film, I thought to myself, wow.
01:01:46.910 --> 01:01:51.560
And I decided that it
would be an opportunity
01:01:51.560 --> 01:01:56.510
for deepening an understanding
of reconciliation with
01:01:56.520 --> 01:02:00.950
oneself. One's history
between your dad and I
01:02:01.640 --> 01:02:05.660
and with people I haven't
seen for a long time.
01:02:18.950 --> 01:02:21.160
The day for it. Yeah. Yeah.
01:02:33.810 --> 01:02:37.710
Ken needs to help with the fertilizer
for the market garden, the horse,
01:02:37.720 --> 01:02:42.240
and I don't think, and we had, I
plowed this all by hand. Wow. Yeah.
01:02:42.240 --> 01:02:47.010
With the horse in my bare
feet. I love that horse.
01:02:47.970 --> 01:02:49.230
But really, Liz,
01:02:49.230 --> 01:02:53.670
I was 19 and for sure it
had an impact on my life.
01:02:53.760 --> 01:02:54.593
In what way?
01:02:54.870 --> 01:02:58.800
Knowing that was the path I wanted to
be about finding a different way to live
01:02:59.010 --> 01:03:03.540
and not giving up on that I see
01:03:03.540 --> 01:03:07.380
change differently than I did. Then
it was more about changing the world.
01:03:07.380 --> 01:03:09.300
Now it's more about changing myself.
01:03:19.350 --> 01:03:23.520
This is great. How are
they doing? How are you?
01:03:24.570 --> 01:03:29.400
Wow. Terry, can I hug
you? Yeah. I love you.
01:03:29.720 --> 01:03:33.300
I love you. Oh, thank you.
Thanks for being here. Yeah.
01:03:34.200 --> 01:03:37.800
Wow. It looks fabulous
01:03:39.300 --> 01:03:43.720
and different. Melanie,
01:03:46.100 --> 01:03:51.060
you guys. Oh, see you. Oh God.
01:03:51.540 --> 01:03:54.880
See you having some trouble.
Oh, I'm fine. I'm just fine.
01:03:58.540 --> 01:04:03.000
Oh my God. Hi. Happy to see you.
01:04:04.410 --> 01:04:07.830
I last now. I was hoping you'd come in.
01:04:07.830 --> 01:04:10.640
So good to see you
finally made. Yeah. Yay.
01:04:26.960 --> 01:04:27.793
I
01:04:32.140 --> 01:04:34.400
How are you? Give me a How are you?
01:04:55.020 --> 01:04:56.520
Oh my. Oh my right.
01:05:04.020 --> 01:05:07.260
I think I've missed, I think
I've put all this siding on.
01:05:11.820 --> 01:05:16.590
When Jack and Nancy left, we lived
in the whole dome, didn't we? Yep.
01:05:16.990 --> 01:05:19.030
And Carrie's bedroom
was out here somewhere.
01:05:19.030 --> 01:05:22.690
Do you remember when the wind was hauled
over the dome and pulled the door?
01:05:22.780 --> 01:05:24.970
Oh yeah. And then they
tied it shut to the couch.
01:05:26.770 --> 01:05:31.090
I think it moved the couch. What a mess.
01:05:32.560 --> 01:05:36.640
Yeah. When we in the whole
dome, your bedroom was there.
01:05:38.350 --> 01:05:40.840
That was room. Initially in room.
01:05:51.100 --> 01:05:54.520
These things all came with a
bolt out of the end of them,
01:05:55.420 --> 01:06:00.070
and then we just had to put the
boots on form the triangles. Yeah.
01:06:00.460 --> 01:06:04.360
Seems smaller than I remember. I
remember. This has being a big room.
01:06:04.630 --> 01:06:08.770
Oh, I remember there were little buckets
everywhere because there were leaks,
01:06:08.780 --> 01:06:09.613
right?
01:06:10.150 --> 01:06:11.140
Every time it rained.
01:06:11.830 --> 01:06:12.220
My big.
01:06:12.220 --> 01:06:16.780
Memory of this place was how often we
had to cu the windows because this thing
01:06:17.440 --> 01:06:18.580
never stopped leaking.
01:06:18.850 --> 01:06:19.900
The devastation is.
01:06:20.170 --> 01:06:21.003
Incredible.
01:06:22.670 --> 01:06:27.440
This is the door that when
the wind, yeah, it would open.
01:06:27.900 --> 01:06:31.280
It was right to shut a couch. Yep.
01:06:32.140 --> 01:06:32.973
Mill.
01:06:34.990 --> 01:06:37.870
Nobody's maintained this at all. This was.
01:06:37.870 --> 01:06:38.560
Open.
01:06:38.560 --> 01:06:39.670
What do you think, Michelle? Story?
01:06:39.730 --> 01:06:42.820
Oh, it's sad. Sad. Yeah. It is sad.
01:06:42.830 --> 01:06:45.430
We put a lot of work
into making that a home.
01:06:46.630 --> 01:06:49.870
But it's okay. It's not very pretty
01:06:51.760 --> 01:06:55.150
anymore. I thought we built it to last.
01:06:56.380 --> 01:06:57.920
That was a long time ago.
01:07:09.700 --> 01:07:14.110
The only people I think that didn't
make it is Joanie, Jack and my dad.
01:07:14.290 --> 01:07:15.220
Everyone else is here.
01:07:16.600 --> 01:07:21.280
He wrote back and said, no, but
he was glad I was representing us.
01:07:27.250 --> 01:07:28.083
Whatever.
01:07:43.290 --> 01:07:47.200
I really believe faith is a really
important thing for human beings.
01:07:47.440 --> 01:07:50.620
Really important. I have
faith in a lot of things,
01:07:50.890 --> 01:07:55.390
but I don't believe that
there's this kind of person,
01:07:55.400 --> 01:07:57.940
this intelligence that
created the world. I don't,
01:07:58.270 --> 01:08:03.190
my sense of life is that life does
not have meaning other than what
01:08:03.190 --> 01:08:04.023
we give it.
01:08:05.520 --> 01:08:06.353
That.
01:08:07.720 --> 01:08:10.090
There've been times where I've
really questioned what I'm doing,
01:08:11.110 --> 01:08:14.860
asking people to crack
open this part of our.
01:08:14.870 --> 01:08:19.280
Shared histories. And it feels
like a cracking open. It does.
01:08:19.280 --> 01:08:23.900
That's a really good description. It
feels like this was something that, yes,
01:08:23.900 --> 01:08:27.680
it was part of my past, but
I had just put it to bed.
01:08:29.930 --> 01:08:33.120
Where do you live? I live in Victoria.
Oh yes, you said that. Yeah. Early.
01:08:33.830 --> 01:08:38.510
I think another reason why I decided
to participate was because I really
01:08:38.540 --> 01:08:42.260
had the strong sense that this
was a journey you needed to do.
01:08:43.160 --> 01:08:48.140
And I just think that as young as we were
really formative people in your life,
01:08:48.530 --> 01:08:53.330
and I think I felt responsible to do this
01:08:53.330 --> 01:08:54.163
journey with you.
01:08:54.520 --> 01:08:56.120
I saw Jerry Rubin over in the woods,
01:09:06.230 --> 01:09:07.063
my second mother.
01:09:12.800 --> 01:09:14.210
I feel like this is the Olympic.
01:09:17.960 --> 01:09:21.500
We all had struggles and I've had my,
01:09:21.680 --> 01:09:26.030
what I call my dark periods. I
was able to claw myself back up.
01:09:27.020 --> 01:09:29.360
Many in farm carry me all through my life.
01:09:30.710 --> 01:09:34.580
They gave me some good stuff for my
basis of the rest of my life that helped
01:09:34.580 --> 01:09:35.413
carry me through.
01:09:43.560 --> 01:09:44.393
I
01:10:01.100 --> 01:10:02.000
and I saw,
01:10:50.060 --> 01:10:52.970
always thought this song needed some
new verses. So I wrote this verse.
01:10:53.540 --> 01:10:57.880
I'm singing in the circle.
01:11:01.700 --> 01:11:02.760
I'm singing
01:11:35.190 --> 01:11:37.000
Abide by.
01:12:10.470 --> 01:12:12.840
Actually four weeks from today.
01:12:13.950 --> 01:12:18.930
It will be 45 years ago that
Nancy and I were married
01:12:18.930 --> 01:12:20.970
under that tree that's
not there anymore. Yeah.
01:12:22.210 --> 01:12:23.170
I remember that tree.
01:12:26.570 --> 01:12:27.870
A lot of you were there.
01:12:31.440 --> 01:12:33.270
So happy anniversary. I.
01:12:33.690 --> 01:12:34.523
Love you.
01:12:40.500 --> 01:12:43.410
Thank you all for being
here to celebrate. It's.
01:12:43.410 --> 01:12:48.330
Been a little emotional for me this
whole year in preparing to come and
01:12:48.330 --> 01:12:51.540
going through, as Liz
puts in our archives,
01:12:51.780 --> 01:12:54.510
our family photo albums,
of which I have many.
01:12:55.620 --> 01:13:00.540
Some of you may know that the
children and I left here in kind of
01:13:00.550 --> 01:13:03.120
tragic circumstances from my perspective,
01:13:04.170 --> 01:13:08.040
so I never got to really say goodbye
to this community as a community.
01:13:10.710 --> 01:13:15.690
Thank you all for helping my
heart to understand what is
01:13:15.690 --> 01:13:16.523
essential,
01:13:17.790 --> 01:13:22.740
and thank you for the time that we
did spend looking outward together in
01:13:22.740 --> 01:13:23.573
the same direction.
01:14:04.600 --> 01:14:06.290
Well, I think it's fine
01:14:08.650 --> 01:14:10.250
building jumbo plays.
01:14:12.640 --> 01:14:13.900
Are taking a ride
01:14:16.150 --> 01:14:18.070
on a cosmic train
01:14:20.230 --> 01:14:25.000
switch on summer from a slot machine
01:14:27.730 --> 01:14:32.620
is get what you want if you want,
because you can get anything.
01:14:36.130 --> 01:14:38.410
I know we've come a long way.
01:14:39.770 --> 01:14:44.260
We'll change a day to day, but tell me,
01:14:44.500 --> 01:14:46.570
where do the children play?
01:15:01.090 --> 01:15:02.390
You roll on roads
01:15:04.930 --> 01:15:09.520
over fresh green grass for your lorry
01:15:10.450 --> 01:15:14.200
loads pumping petrol gas,
01:15:16.060 --> 01:15:18.220
and you make them long
01:15:19.930 --> 01:15:21.880
and you make them tough,
01:15:23.680 --> 01:15:28.420
but they just go on and on
and it seems that you can't
01:15:28.420 --> 01:15:29.253
get on.
01:15:32.560 --> 01:15:35.200
I know we've come a long way,
01:15:36.100 --> 01:15:40.630
but change of day to day. But tell me,
01:15:40.810 --> 01:15:42.390
where do the children play?
01:16:19.390 --> 01:16:23.650
The sky scrapers fill the air,
01:16:25.630 --> 01:16:30.220
but will you keep on building
higher and higher till there's no
01:16:30.220 --> 01:16:34.840
more room up there? Or
will you make us laugh?
01:16:37.000 --> 01:16:38.210
Will you make us cry?
01:16:40.680 --> 01:16:45.610
Will you to live? Will
you tell us when to die?
01:16:49.690 --> 01:16:50.390
We've come a.
01:16:50.390 --> 01:16:51.250
Long way.
01:16:53.270 --> 01:16:54.103
Day.
01:16:56.080 --> 01:16:59.020
Tell the children play.