By Barry Simpson
Vermont is observing two anniversaries bearing considerable historic significance this month. The Vermont Historical Society will host an exhibition and convocation documenting the 50th anniversary of the so-called "hippie invasion" of the state in the late 1960s into the 1970s that changed its social, political, agricultural, educational, artistic and building and product design and production cultures for good.
The thrust of the movement was not an invasion but rather a revulsion against the prevailing national and world events taking place and a desire to retreat from them for a simpler and more personally fulfilling life. The events included the endlessly prolonged war in Vietnam, the vicious suppression of civil and voting rights and other black and brown yearnings, the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King, the anti-draft and urban race riots, Kent State massacre and more.
The migration brought with it a profusion of communal lifestyles with a "back to the land" focus, experiments in organic and animal-raising agriculture, cooperative food and implement purchasing, dramatic curriculum changes in small colleges and a whole variety of collective entrepreneurial initiatives. In Warren, it created an explosion of architectural innovation from the first entry in the "tiny house" movement to a plethora of startlingly innovative vacation houses and residences to a solar-heated condominium and a radically futuristic multi-story residential concept based on space frame construction, all at Prickly Mountain. From there the fervor moved to the Bobbin Mill outside the village, where a remarkable battery of product ideas, many with an energy conversion or conservation focus, emerged from shifting associations of individuals.
These product launches included extraction, reconditioning and reselling vintage wind generators and then designing and building new high-reliability wind machines; design and manufacture of one and design and pattern work for another superb airtight wood-burning stove; manufacture and distribution of a Swedish composting toilet system; use of sprayed urethane foam as a structural, insulative and decorative medium; first-time import and distribution of an on-demand hot water heating appliance; establishment of a full-service printing press using vintage letterpress printing machines; creation and sale of a line of corporate boardroom tables and credenzas; development and distribution of a highly effective movable window insulation product; construction of a heavy timber frame super-insulated housing system; design and marketing of a line of folding and ready-to-assemble furniture including two patented models; design and development of numerous canoe-related accessories, including two patented ones; design and production of an extensive line of heirloom wooden rocking toys and commercial display furniture. All of this, plus several architectural design firms, sprang from a single drafty, old, former wood-turning mill that had spanned the water, steam and electric power eras at the junction of the Lincoln Brook and Mad River.
Most of the businesses that started production at the Bobbin Mill have moved on to quarters more suitable to today's manufacturing processes and better availability of transportation and a skilled labor force. But many of the original entrepreneurs remain and have assumed active roles in the civic and business life in The Valley, as many of the 1960s counterculture migrants have in regions all around the state.
Ironically, Vermont is now experiencing a net in-migration of young people, according to statistics released by entities as diverse as the Internal Revenue Service and United Van Lines. They are now called "millennials" rather than hippies and they are coming for many of the same reasons: disgust about permanent push-button warfare and endemic voter suppression and brutality in the treatment of minorities, to name a few.
Positive incentives for migration to Vermont include its well-intentioned if deeply flawed move toward universal health care and its recognition of the underlying basis for, and leadership in addressing, global climate change. The actual impact of climate and geophysical disturbances in our state has thus far been relatively benign in comparison with many other regions in the country that people are moving from.
Yes, we have floods and ice storms, but they are paltry in comparison with those occurring on a regular basis throughout the Deep South and mid-South. What used to be called the Bible Belt is now more appropriately termed the denial belt, with torrential rains and epic floods, unprecedented snow and ice storms, coastal inundation, devastating hurricanes and tornadoes and deadly heat waves. The whole Southwest has its prolonged drought interspersed with El Nino downpours that have been systematically channeled to run off into the Pacific Ocean. The entire West Coast is decades beyond seismologists' predictions of the next cataclysmic earthquakes and tidal waves. Parts of Oklahoma and Kansas have more regularly occurring earthquakes and toxic drinking water induced by the after-effects of oil and gas drilling than any other place in the country.
Then there is another reason that Vermont is attracting the interest of millennials as a place to occupy. It's the Bernie Sanders effect. Say what you will about Bernie's steadfast political leanings or his chances of winning the Democratic nomination or even the presidency. He is the ultimate phenomenon of the "hippie invasion," 50 years into the mission. He arrived from Brooklyn when George Aiken was the exemplification of contemporary Vermont values in the U.S. Senate and now Bernie wears that mantle himself. It's just possible that Vermont's long tradition of respectful civil discourse, which has propelled the same maverick into the U.S. Congress for 25 years as an Independent, will overcome other perceived disadvantages the state may have as a place in which to live and thrive.
Simpson lives in Warren.
