September 23, 2013

Cheesecake, an experiment in communal living, ongoing after 20 years.

"Of the original 11 members, seven are still here... The community has taken on new members, so there are now 13 altogether. No one seems lonely..."
In matters involving the environment, Ms. Otis said, the community is divided into two camps: “Some are Druids, those who don’t want to change anything, and some are foresters, who can cut the brush back. Jill and Gaile are the Druids.”

Gaile Wakeman, a retired pediatric physical therapist who is 76, concurred. “I don’t want a single tree to be cut.... I don’t give on this. You cannot replace a tree that’s been here 300 years.”...

The other thing residents tend to disagree about is money. And as is true elsewhere in the country, Ms. Otis said, “conservatives are those who do not want to spend money, and liberals do.”

But while these distinctions may resemble those between Republicans and Democrats, Ms. Wakeman noted, Cheesecake members lean to the left politically. “We’re all pretty liberal,” she said. “A Tea Party person would never live here.”

17 comments:

Pettifogger said...

"A Tea Party person would never live here."

One of the few lefty characterizations of Tea Partiers that is probably pretty accurate.

Moose said...

"Tends to lean Left". Now if that doesn't sum up the NY Times...

oldirishpig said...

“We’re all pretty liberal,” she said. “A Tea Party person would never live here.”

The way the Left blithely display their bigotry never ceases to amaze me.

madAsHell said...

People without family realizing they should have had children.

TosaGuy said...

"You cannot replace a tree that’s been here 300 years."

How to replace a 300-year-old tree.

Step 1: Plant Tree
Step 2: Get over yourself

Darrell said...

“A Tea Party person would never live here.”

No shit.

Btw, Ann, today's suspicious content is whatever ad was running when I opened your page. My virus software selectively blocked it, while showing the rest of your content.

George M. Spencer said...

"The Farm" in Summertown, Tennessee, is the granddaddy/grandma of all such communes.

Lots of rules to join. And many lovely private residences. It's not all tofu and tempeh there.

RecChief said...

a couple of things strike me about this story:

1. How does she know that a person who considers themselves a Tea Party type wouldn't want to live there? The Tea Partiers I know are pretty libertarian, and also belive in helping out friends and neighbors ( 4 of us from the neighborhood just spent a week helping a couple gut, move walls, re-plumb, re-wire, and drywall their 'new' old house). Looks to me like it is she who wouldn't want a Tea Partier to move in.

2. It strikes me that if the left hadn't done such a good job of tearing down the institutions of marriage and the nuclear family, there wouldn't be a need for "community living" arrangements, since the parents would live with the children when they become too infirm. Which would make a better community, and better neighborhoods. Didn't these aging hippies ever read "It takes a village,"?

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

“We’re all pretty liberal,” she said.

Ummmm. I think she means "socialist"; perhaps "communist".

Many definitions of "liberalism" include support of private property rights - something for which these folks seem to have scant understanding or respect.

Insufficiently Sensitive said...

But at Cheescake, to the liberal members ascribe the conservative behavior of their campmates to a corrupted set of morals?

And do the conservatives ascribe the liberal failings to insufficient education?

SGT Ted said...

The idea that a 300 year old tree cannot be "replaced" is quite idiotic and reveals a basic ignorance of the natural world. It also reveals the basic selfishness and anthropomorphism of preservationists.

traditionalguy said...

As soon as Christianity was abandoned, the Animist nature worshippers came back in. Druids is an are honest name.

Tree worship makes one into a wooden personality that cannot think. I would follow a wise latino before I became a wooden tree worshipping dullard.

Can the sun, moon and stars be far behind in their own Priests demanding sacrifices from dumb men, like the anti-CO2 Cult demands they made to Gaia.

tim maguire said...

A Druid would have no problem cutting some trees. Who do these people think the Druids were?

"But while these distinctions may resemble those between Republicans and Democrats"

Maybe so, but to tell who was on which side, I'd have to know whose money is being spent.

heyboom said...

@TosaGuy

Touche...brilliant post.

Anonymous said...

Mad as Hell, it appears they had plenty of children and grandchildren.

I'm afraid they'd kick me out, I don't love trees enough and love my creature comforts too much.

Bryan C said...

"“I don’t want a single tree to be cut.... I don’t give on this."

Ah, so by "pretty liberal" she means "inflexibly and dogmatically conservative".

Anonymous said...

The competition was in honor of the community’s name, which is derived from a loose translation of Casada, the surname of the family who owned the 20-acre property

It'd be interesting to learn whether they were deliberately avoiding the non-loose translation, which is "married".