Great time at the Seven Springs, PA MEN Fair!

Reader Contribution by David Boyt
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I was not sure what to expect at the Mother Earth News  fair at Seven Springs, PA. this year.  Even though it was at a “resort”, my mind wandered back to old articles about living in yurts, and I was curious whether there would be electricity or running water available.  Not that it was all that important–I’d lived without those luxuries before and may do so again.  That’s me with the guitar in the photo, taken at a “Fall Festival” in my home town of Neosho, MO probably some time in the early 1980s.

People exhibiting and attending, I figured, would mostly be aging hippies, much like myself.  That was fine, we’d have plenty to talk about.  Some had stayed close to their roots, but most, like me, have moved on to a more complicated and conventional lifestyle.  I was also impressed by the number of “younger” (under 50 yrs old) attendees.  The interest in homesteading and simpler lifestyles is still alive!  I still have issue #1 of MEN, probably a collector’s item, by now.  I was still in high school when it came out (1970).   Not long before receiving that issue, we had gone to a neighbor’s house to watch the first lunar landing on a color television.  I was proud of my mastery over the slide rule, and nearly a decade would elapse before I would actually own a calculator.  Eight-track tapes were at the height of their brief popularity, and the remains of snarled tapes littered the roadside.  I made extra money that summer by working in local hayfields for farmers who managed to pack eighty pounds of hay into square bales that should have weighed sixty.  CDs, personal computers, mp3 players, and cell phones were too far-fetched, even for science fiction.  The only video game was bouncing a beam of light, known as “pong”.  It was an exciting time, and I remember reading about articles written by Amory Lovins, and debating about opportunities to follow a sustainable path for future generations.


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