Audio Interview, Patty, November 28, 1973
- PATTY: Live with a lot of people.
- And I did want to have a different lifestyle.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Patty, how did you go
- about finding some like minded people
- for your communal experiment?
- PATTY: Well, I didn't really find them.
- They were all together.
- They had been friends for six or seven years.
- And I knew one of them, this man named Larry.
- BRUCE JEWELL: They-- this is a group of people already living
- in the country?
- PATTY: They-- well, no.
- They were living-- yeah.
- They were living in the country.
- They had rented a house for a year
- and were looking for some land.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Mhm.
- PATTY: I had met all of them.
- And I knew that they would be moving to Kelly Road
- to build a house--
- BRUCE JEWELL: Mhm.
- PATTY: --and have a garden.
- And I decided that I wanted to help build a house
- and have a garden with them.
- And this would be my first ever living communally
- with a group of people.
- BRUCE JEWELL: How did they get together in terms of money?
- It costs money to rent a house.
- It costs money to buy some land.
- PATTY: One of their fathers have a big business in New Jersey.
- So they all work for him.
- And they made a lot of money.
- BRUCE JEWELL: I see.
- So there was help on the thing from families involved.
- PATTY: Yeah, yeah.
- BRUCE JEWELL: And yourself, did you also
- work for this manufacturer?
- PATTY: I had no money.
- BRUCE JEWELL: You had no money?
- PATTY: No.
- BRUCE JEWELL: They just let you come in and--
- PATTY: Well, every so often--
- my parents are very much into supporting me.
- So they would send me money.
- But I would contribute to the rest of the funds,
- because I didn't want it for myself.
- I had no use for it.
- BRUCE JEWELL: I see.
- So you moved.
- You just mentioned Kelly Road.
- Where is Kelly Road?
- PATTY: It's about an hour south of Potsdam.
- BRUCE JEWELL: That's in upstate New York.
- PATTY: Yes.
- BRUCE JEWELL: And you moved up there.
- By the time you moved up, had they found land?
- Had you found a place with land?
- PATTY: Yes, there was--
- they found land in Rensselaer Falls.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Mhm.
- PATTY: Which is up north, I guess, past Watertown.
- And there was a foundation on it and a well.
- And that was all that remained from the past landowner.
- We were going to build a log cabin.
- BRUCE JEWELL: So you set out to build a log cabin.
- PATTY: Mhm.
- BRUCE JEWELL: By hand?
- PATTY: By hand.
- BRUCE JEWELL: It sounds--
- people had skills to do that.
- PATTY: We had no skills.
- BRUCE JEWELL: You had no skills?
- PATTY: We had the Foxfire Book and a lot of other books.
- BRUCE JEWELL: What's the Foxfire Book?
- PATTY: It's a book gathered by some people
- from I don't know where.
- And they went to some rural areas
- down south for people that had skills of building log cabins
- and making quilts, just all these skills
- that people used in 1800s and are still going on now.
- BRUCE JEWELL: And in the 18-- the book is from the 1800s?
- PATTY: Well, the book isn't from the 1800s, no.
- But these are people that carried
- on things that went on in the 1800s they're still doing.
- BRUCE JEWELL: I see.
- And you eventually did get a cabin built?
- PATTY: Well, not-- this started last--
- summer of '72.
- And the cabin didn't get built til the summer of '73.
- BRUCE JEWELL: How did you survive for the winter?
- PATTY: No one was there.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Oh, I see.
- PATTY: Everybody left.
- BRUCE JEWELL: They left.
- PATTY: Because the cabin was-- never got built.
- BRUCE JEWELL: But by the summer of '73,
- you had built, by hand, a cabin.
- PATTY: Not exactly.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Not exactly.
- OK.
- PATTY: We lived in a tent for the month of June.
- Oh, people left Kelly Road in December of '72
- and came back in April of '73, living in a big army tent,
- until about June when the cabin was seriously
- started to be built. The foundation was cemented
- and the first logs started going up.
- And the cabin was finished in about, about July, '73.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Mhm.
- So then you all had to-- how many of them,
- of you, were there?
- PATTY: There was usually between six and ten.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Between six and ten people.
- And you all had living space there.
- PATTY: We all had-- yeah.
- BRUCE JEWELL: One big room, it sounds like.
- PATTY: Well, there was a big tent, which
- was a living space for about six people--
- included the kitchen, the dining room, the general area
- for everything.
- And then there was a dome, a polyethylene dome
- and another little shelter--
- BRUCE JEWELL: Mhm.
- PATTY: --that other people lived in.
- BRUCE JEWELL: This was before the cabin was built?
- PATTY: Yes.
- BRUCE JEWELL: After the cabin was built, you had a--
- and then you had one big room in the cabin with the kitchen,
- living room--
- PATTY: Well--
- BRUCE JEWELL: --bedroom, facilities?
- PATTY: --people just moved into the cabin a month ago.
- A month ago--a week ago.
- BRUCE JEWELL: A week ago!
- PATTY: When people moved in, they had to get--
- they had to get it chinked, which is putting insulation
- in between the logs.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Yeah.
- PATTY: And making it weatherproof, because it's
- pretty cold up there.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Mhm.
- PATTY: So people just--
- now there are only five people there, five or four.
- BRUCE JEWELL: What kind of problems did you have?
- It took a long time for the group of you
- to build that log cabin.
- What kind of problems did you face getting things together,
- training people in skills?
- If you've never used an axe before,
- it's difficult to build a log cabin.
- If you have all these problems--
- hauling goods and taking care of things,
- how did you manage this?
- PATTY: Well, the work union was good.
- Like people-- what had to be done was done.
- It was just that, who knew what to do first.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Mhm.
- PATTY: And the power structure got very out of hand.
- No one knew where to begin with what.
- And no one had enough initiative to do something
- without someone looking over their shoulder
- and saying, "Oh, you're doing that,
- so maybe I should do this."
- BRUCE JEWELL: There was no leadership.
- PATTY: There-- not that you needed any leadership.
- There just with no initiative on anybody's
- part whether if I did this, would I be doing it right?
- Or would someone get down on me for doing it at all?
- BRUCE JEWELL: Mhm.
- Well, that seems to me to be a kind of lack of leadership--
- PATTY: Yeah.
- BRUCE JEWELL: --that is there's no one
- to coordinate the tasks that need to be done.
- And they get it done.
- This must have led to some hassles between people.
- Living close together, there's a phrase--
- cabin fever.
- I've sometimes suffered from that
- with having a lot of roommates.
- And then having to work together,
- and then what perhaps was a frustrating situation
- sometimes.
- PATTY: It got to the point where there were so
- many hassles that no one was talking to each other.
- There were cliques of people.
- There were two or three people who got along.
- And maybe one person got along with another group of people.
- And they would talk to each other.
- But things were just done in cliques.
- This was the summer of '72.
- In the summer of '73, everybody basically got along.
- The cabin got built. And people that could do things better
- than others would do it.
- Like I could can food better than I could cut a log.
- So I was canning food.
- But I think people got along as far as work.
- As far as personalities, we didn't get along so well.
- BRUCE JEWELL: What happened between '72 and '73
- that allowed the work situation to improve?
- PATTY: Different people.
- (Laughs)
- BRUCE JEWELL: Different people.
- I see.
- PATTY: Yeah.
- BRUCE JEWELL: So there really was a change there.
- Living this close together, there
- were men and women, mostly men?
- What was the--
- PATTY: There were two women.
- BRUCE JEWELL: There were two women.
- PATTY: Yes.
- BRUCE JEWELL: And this must have caused some rather
- severe interpersonal problems.
- PATTY: Well, there wasn't really any conflicts between--
- the other woman and I got along very well,
- because we were fighting against eight men, practically.
- We weren't expected to do mainly womanly chores,
- but it ended up-- because I didn't
- feel I carried logs or doing any of those heavy work,
- that I just stayed in the kitchen
- most of the time because I wanted to.
- BRUCE JEWELL: So you weren't--
- you didn't feel too upset about division, role division
- and so on?
- And so as far as the men were better able to do heavy tasks,
- you were happy that they did them.
- PATTY: Yeah, well, there were only,
- like, there were only about three men
- usually working in the house.
- And the rest of them were in the garden or in the kitchen, too.
- So it wasn't basically like all the women were doing the women
- work, and all the men were doing the men's work, because it
- wasn't really like that.
- We really didn't have much choice.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Patty, you indicated
- that there wasn't really much problem with the relationship
- between the sexes because there wasn't much going on with--
- there wasn't much sexual activity at all.
- What I'd like to know is what did happen?
- And what-- how did people relate?
- Where were the areas of warmth or a relationship and so on?
- PATTY: I guess the only really expressions of warmth
- was when people were working together.
- And they talked.
- I was basically working with this other woman, Joanie.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Mhm.
- PATTY: And we would talk and talk.
- And she was, she was sleeping with one of the men there,
- Larry.
- They didn't have very much sex.
- They just would-- they just had been sleeping together.
- They had been friends for seven years or so.
- And she-- they were just past the point of having sex,
- I guess.
- And I just, I was, I was sleeping with this man, Martin,
- sleeping besides him.
- We didn't have any sex, because I just
- didn't have any desire to have sex with him
- or he with me or with anybody else there.
- BRUCE JEWELL: You-- it sounds like you developed
- a kind of incest taboo.
- I've read about this occurring on communes, where people just
- do not see one another as sexual partners.
- It's more of a working relationship
- than anything else.
- PATTY: I think if there was a lot of sex,
- there might have been a lot more conflicts like who
- was going to sleep with who.
- And, like, since there were only-- were only-- two women,
- I think it would have created a lot of, maybe,
- competing between the men.
- But I don't know, you know, because it didn't happen.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Mhm.
- PATTY: So I really can't say.
- BRUCE JEWELL: How did you get along with the other woman?
- PATTY: Oh, I got along--
- I didn't know-- I knew her, but I had never
- really talked with her before.
- And I get along great.
- We got along very well, a lot better than I thought we would.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Mhm.
- PATTY: And I really loved being with her.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Mhm.
- Do you think this might have turned
- into something else in time?
- PATTY: Not with her.
- BRUCE JEWELL: No?
- PATTY: No.
- BRUCE JEWELL: It sounds, again, you've
- indicated to me that you sometimes outside of the work
- situation, you didn't talk to one another at all.
- This doesn't sound like something
- you'd go looking for in your--
- in a commune.
- That is, one would hope there would
- be friendly relationships, understanding relationships,
- compassionate relationships.
- And yet those don't seem to have occurred
- in this communal situation that you're describing.
- PATTY: Well, if it was up to me, a lot of people that were
- there wouldn't have been there.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Uh-huh.
- PATTY: I just--
- I just couldn't get along with them,
- and therefore I had no desire to talk with them.
- And it was-- it got to the point where things got so out of hand
- that we just couldn't talk.
- Because had we talked, we would have never been friends again.
- It would've-- everybody just would have left.
- It just got past the point of talking.
- BRUCE JEWELL: But what was there that would've-- you would have
- said to one another that would have been so destructive?
- PATTY: Well, there was one man there that I just couldn't--
- he just was annoying me so that had I said anything to him,
- it would have hurt him to the point of--
- he needed us.
- And anything that was said against him
- would not have proved constructive, but destructive.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Mhm.
- PATTY: And it just--
- and I wouldn't have been there to pick up his pieces.
- BRUCE JEWELL: You didn't talk to one another.
- Well, what was happening here that anything
- that you would have said might have proved
- destructive to one another?
- PATTY: What was--
- BRUCE JEWELL: If all you did was work together,
- I don't understand where the conflicts were coming--
- PATTY: Because it was getting to the point
- where people expected so much from one another
- that when they didn't get it, they
- didn't know how to face the other person.
- BRUCE JEWELL: What were they expecting?
- PATTY: They're expecting them to--
- it got to the point where I was being drained,
- because I knew that people really
- didn't care about one another.
- So anything I would do was, like--
- anything I would say to somebody, I would give--
- all my energy would be taken from it.
- They would-- I would get attacked for saying it
- or for doing something.
- And I just-- I just didn't need it.
- I just didn't need to be attacked for what I was doing.
- BRUCE JEWELL: What kind of attacks?
- Can you give me an example?
- PATTY: I was canning some string beans one day.
- And seven of the quarts--
- five out seven of the quarts broke.
- So only-- we only had two quarts of string beans.
- And I just--
- I just tried to explain that I didn't
- know what I had done wrong.
- And I just got attacked for say-- for it happening.
- Like, there wasn't-- they wouldn't have any string beans
- for the winter.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Did anyone make any suggestions about how
- you could better do the job?
- PATTY: No.
- No one else knew even how to can.
- BRUCE JEWELL: I see.
- They were just afraid that they wouldn't have
- string beans for the winter.
- And that caused a sufficient anxiety
- that you were attacked without really any help being offered.
- PATTY: Right.
- BRUCE JEWELL: And did a lot of that occur, no help offered,
- just criticism?
- PATTY: Uh, yeah.
- I've-- yeah, a lot of it. (Chuckles) Enough to make me
- nuts.
- BRUCE JEWELL: When you say nuts, you just didn't feel like--
- PATTY: I just--
- I needed to explode.
- And I had no place to explode, because I
- was too afraid of being rejected by everybody.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Uh-huh Is there a lot of this going on
- in the commune?
- PATTY: I don't know, because we didn't talk.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Well, it sounds like there
- was a lot of it going on with no one talking.
- PATTY: There was a lot of it from me.
- And there's a lot of it from the other woman, Joanie.
- And there was a lot of it from this man, Steve.
- But I don't think, I don't know if anybody really was up with--
- I don't know if anybody else wanted
- to deal with their emotions.
- But I was dealing with my emotions
- in the way where I was suppressing them.
- And I don't know if anybody even had these emotions, you know,
- if anybody else felt these things.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Hm.
- Well, were there any periods where
- you got together and discussed the day's work
- and the problems you were having with them?
- PATTY: Oh, yeah.
- We could discuss things on the physical plane.
- But when it came to feelings and emotions,
- we couldn't discuss anything, not a thing.
- It just got-- people would just start defending themselves
- and attacking one another.
- And I just couldn't live in a situation like that.
- I wouldn't want to.
- I knew that this place was not going to be my--
- it was my home for the summer.
- But it was not my permanent home.
- These people were not my permanent resident in my home.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Mhm.
- PATTY: They were just friends.
- And I was just helping them out because I
- wanted the experience of living on a commune, having a garden,
- and building a house.
- BRUCE JEWELL: I see.
- So that your commitment was, perhaps,
- not the same commitment that the others had.
- PATTY: I don't think any of them were fully committed
- to this place.
- That's what I think one of the basic problems
- were, that no one was committed to each other or to the place
- itself.
- BRUCE JEWELL: How do you think, well,
- what do you think this lack of commitment meant
- in terms of what was happening?
- PATTY: Well, if there really wasn't
- any commitment to what we were doing,
- then there wasn't any reason for us being there, I don't think.
- Or if no one really cared fully, then what
- was the purpose of doing it?
- If no one cared about the house being built
- or us living together as a group of people,
- then there was no reason to be there.
- And there was no--
- there was no, really, no effort into making
- it a good commune or a good place to live or a happy home.
- BRUCE JEWELL: You were just putting up a place
- where you could--
- what?
- How can I put it?
- Stow your bods.
- There was no attempt to improve, create a better kind of climate
- of relationships that one might find at a university
- or at work or something like that.
- PATTY: Well, some of the people there just
- wanted to be there just because.
- They didn't care about the communal aspect of it.
- They just cared about the physical aspect
- of building the house, of having the garden,
- and having this as their home.
- They didn't care how people got along,
- because they were doing what they wanted to do.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Mhm.
- PATTY: And that was all the physical things.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Hm.
- The-- you told me that things reached
- a crisis point when the roof of the dome flew off or something.
- I don't-- and I don't quite have that straight.
- Perhaps you could tell me that story again.
- PATTY: Well, I wasn't there.
- This happened about a month ago.
- We had built a dome on top of the log cabin, which
- was to be, I guess, extra living space as well as the roof.
- And when that happened, people started
- realizing that their karma was no good
- and that they had to do some talking about how,
- what was going on there.
- And they had to get their feelings together
- and their emotions together.
- And people just blew up.
- And they realized that they couldn't live this way.
- And they had to care about one another to live there.
- BRUCE JEWELL: And what happened?
- What was the--
- PATTY: What happened?
- Well, I wasn't there.
- But from what I gathered, people started
- telling people where they were at
- and what they felt about each other.
- And a lot of people left.
- BRUCE JEWELL: You mean cooperation even
- failed, and failed even further under those circumstances.
- PATTY: Well, they knew that since this happened,
- that since the dome blew off, they just couldn't--
- well, one of the men that--
- he really wanted the dome to be there for the winter.
- And he really wanted to live in it that way.
- And when that happened, it was like all his dreams just
- went down the drain.
- And he had nothing there further.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Well, how did it happen
- that this really calamitous thing occurred
- with the dome blowing away?
- Why didn't people take steps to secure the dome?
- PATTY: I don't know.
- BRUCE JEWELL: It just didn't happen.
- It wasn't done.
- PATTY: From what I have heard, it was because people just--
- I don't know.
- I don't know why they didn't secure the dome down.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Hm.
- So after this, after the dome came off
- and the cabin itself was not livable at this time,
- it wasn't winterized--
- everybody decided to move away for the winter?
- PATTY: No.
- Some people-- there were, at the time the dome blew off,
- I think there were seven people there.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Mhm.
- PATTY: And after it blew off, people
- left, one by one, until there were three people there.
- And they got it together to winterize the cabin,
- to put the potbellies in, the wood stoves
- and to make it livable, because they knew they would be there
- for the winter.
- And then some of the people came back.
- And they just--
- I guess this made them realize that they
- had to face one another and live realities instead of living
- for the house, but realize that they were living with people.
- And a calamity just made them see what they were doing.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Hm.
- So going back over this experience that you've had,
- you're now taking a class in communal living,
- discussing communal living with other people who
- are also into it.
- Apparently the experience did interest you.
- You saw possibilities for a satisfying kind of life
- in a commune.
- What would you do differently?
- What would you like to see happen?
- PATTY: Hm, what to say?
- Um, I guess I would like it to be people
- that know each other a little better than we knew each other,
- or just had a certain commitment not only to the land,
- but to the people.
- And I guess before you go into those things,
- you have to talk about a few things, talk a lot,
- about what you want from the commune.
- What you want from the land, what you want from your home,
- what you want from each other, what you want from yourself.
- And none of this was done from anybody.
- I don't think anybody even knew that
- what they wanted themselves before they did this.
- This class, I'm not in this class for that reason.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Why are you taking the class?
- PATTY: Because Paul's my roommate, and I'll get an A.
- (Laughs)
- BRUCE JEWELL: Well, (Chuckles) that bit
- of candor I wasn't ready for.
- But--
- PATTY: I know.
- (Both laugh)
- BRUCE JEWELL: Anyhow, do you think
- you'll be trying communal living again, whether you
- get an A for it or not?
- PATTY: Oh, definitely.
- I do want to live communally.
- This was, this experience, was not a bad experience at all.
- I learned.
- I learned a lot more than I would have had I not done it.
- And I definitely want to live communally in the country,
- not in the city.
- BRUCE JEWELL: In the country.
- PATTY: Yeah.
- BRUCE JEWELL: You like the, the slower pace of it and the--
- PATTY: Yeah.
- BRUCE JEWELL: --cleaner air or whatever in the country.
- PATTY: I think it's hard for people
- to live communally in a city, because there are so
- many other forces that create so much static up
- that you just can't really relax with each other.
- But in the country, you're just in tune with nature.
- And you just flow along with the way it is.
- And not having all these other rushes.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Well, if I can say so,
- it doesn't sound like people who were flowing along the way--
- PATTY: No they weren't.
- BRUCE JEWELL: --with things too well on that commune,
- country or otherwise.
- PATTY: No.
- I don't think everybody, including myself,
- was really ready to live communally.
- I mean, some of us were, and some of them
- still are. 'Cause they're still doing it.
- And they're getting along a lot better,
- maybe because there's only four people there now.
- BRUCE JEWELL: It sounds to me like there's a possibility
- that, among the group of you you were making,
- you had too few skills and too many demands upon one another.
- That is there was a tight living situation here
- which demanded a great deal of cooperation
- and a great deal of mutual support.
- And people literally didn't know how
- to do that or give that support, and there was a need for it.
- And out of that grew a great deal of conflict.
- PATTY: The skills--
- I don't know if people, it's hard to say if people really
- cared about one another.
- And if they did care, they didn't show it.
- Care in the sense of, well, are you happy or are you sad.
- Or what are you thinking and how are you feeling?
- BRUCE JEWELL: Of course, most people
- who would be going into a communal group today
- come out of nuclear families and colleges and so on
- and where they're used to being highly self-sufficient
- or dealing with a very small group of people.
- You can live utterly alone and live fairly well today.
- And so it seems to me that living together demands
- a new set of skills again.
- PATTY: Yes.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Which people just don't
- seem to be well equipped with.
- We've forgotten how to live with one another.
- PATTY: Yes.
- You got to try.
- You've got to, you've got to understand-- you've
- got to accept yourself first.
- And understand not be afraid to feel
- that you're feeling angry at yourself or angry with others.
- And people were just too afraid to say
- that they were angry with each other or angry with themselves.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Mhm.
- PATTY: And if people really love each other,
- or say that they love each other,
- then you really shouldn't be--
- It's really hard for me to say this,
- but you really shouldn't be afraid of each other.
- BRUCE JEWELL: Were you able to talk to one another
- in terms of your hopes or your dreams for the thing?
- PATTY: Yeah.
- BRUCE JEWELL: You were able to do that.
- PATTY: Because it was basically on a physical plane
- of what we wanted out of it, out of the land itself,
- rather the house itself, and how we wanted the house set up,
- not what we really felt about who should live here
- and who should live there.
- There was a certain set up where we didn't want a lot of--
- at the beginning of the summer, there were thirteen people
- there.
- And I think seven of them were asked to leave,
- because thirteen people just couldn't get along.
- We didn't want it to be a commune.
- We wanted to be a family.
- BRUCE JEWELL: A family.
- PATTY: Which-- and it really is different,
- even though we didn't function as a family.
- It didn't work at all.
- But I was able to talk to the woman, Joanie.
- And I-- a lot of my outlets were through her.
- Without her, I would've--
- I would've really been up a tree or something.
- BRUCE JEWELL: So do you plan sometime in the near future
- to try communal living again?
- PATTY: Oh, yes.
- BRUCE JEWELL: You do.
- PATTY: Oh, I'm going back there in a couple
- of weeks for Thanksgiving.
- That's just for a visit.
- But I'm leaving school in January.
- So I might be going there to live.
- (Unintelligible)
- BRUCE JEWELL: Well, I wish you every good luck, Patty.
- Thank you very much.