Capitalist pain hits a village commune

CNN ^

[The Lion Roars]

Oaks is experiencing a midlife crisis. The Virginia commune supported its throwback hippie lifestyle for more than 38 years by selling hammocks and tofu. But in 2004, Twin Oaks lost one of its biggest hammock customers, Pier 1 Imports (Research).

Last year revenues slipped to $1.1 million from a 2000 peak of more than $2 million. And expenses such as gas and health care for the commune's aging population are climbing fast. "I hoped we would be financially secure by now," says founder Kat Kinkade, 75. "We're not."

Kinkade and seven other dreamers launched Twin Oaks on 69 acres of rolling Virginia farmland that they bought for $26,500 in 1967. (Today the commune owns 450 acres.) Like many other idealistic, left-leaning young Americans in those days, they hoped to escape the political and social tumult of the 1960s by forming a self-sustaining rural community. Since then hundreds of dropouts, drifters, and seekers have passed through Twin Oaks.

"A lot of people come here searching for something," says Kinkade, who worked as a secretary before she left the outside world behind

[Albion Wilde]

Here's their "Family-Sized Rainbow Hammock." It's for Mom, Mom, and the kids, Turkey Baster and Gay Donorson.

[Thunder90]

I laughed thinking of what would happen if Anne Coulter along with a few dozen protest warriors and freepers moved in. Would it change their society? Their section under "conflict" states all must be treated equally and their views respected...

It would drive the hippies insane.