LJay Wrote:Good for you, [MENTION=20947]MikeW[/MENTION]! I am always grateful for those who educate others.
Maybe we should try to talk you into describing your commune days. Even seen from afar as I did, those were astounding days.
"Astounding" is definitely one word for it. I was actually living in a communal house-hold which isn't *exactly* a commune but close enough. The house was owned by a young man and his wife, both of whom were rather 'famous' (or infamous) in the Berkeley counter-culture scene. You'll note I'm deliberately not naming names.
The house was quite large, complete with a full basement with sauna. The large red front door was never locked and there were always people who did NOT live there coming and going or eating meals. Approximately every two weeks it was YOUR turn to prepare the evening meal. That meant you had to buy ALL the food to feed everyone, including whatever 'guests' showed up that night; prepare the food and THEN clean up afterwards. How things got set up that way is another mystery I didn't understand. Doing it was a huge pain in the ass but, on the other hand, one only had to go through that hell about once ever two weeks. The rest of the time it was someone else's problem. LOL!
Once every month or so there was a get-to-getter in the large living room THEY called a "Teton Tea" (which had some significance I could never fully grasp). It was some sort of hootenanny reunion of dissidents from the previous decade, people who'd been active in the
FSM. I moved to Berkeley in 1973 so that meant most of the action these people had been through had occurred five or more years in the past.
But that was nothing compared to the WEEKLY "massage classes" (a-hem) taught by the home owner and his wife. These were naked events that usually turned into something more like a scene out of ...
... it wasn't unusual to wake up the next morning to naked bodies strew throughout the house.
House meetings were tedious and seemingly endless. I'm fortunately unable to recall ANYTHING that was ever discussed.
One member of the house-hold was a graduate student in chemistry at UC Berkeley. He used his lab skills to manufacture the entactogenic, psychedelic, psychostimulant
MDA, measured out in custom doses specifically to our body weight. Talk about *astounding*. One of the most orgasmic experiences of my life was sitting on the floor of the living room cross-legged with another house-mate (female), pressing our fists against the other's while simultaneously rubbing our thumbs together.
BTW, this same chemist went on to be one of the lead chemists for
Chiron Corporation, his name showing up on many of the chemical patents.
I stayed with the group for two years but at a certain point just, IDK, didn't want to be BOTHERED with SO MANY people around all the fucking time. I am basically a shy introvert so communal living, though interesting, wan't really my "thing."
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