Failure in Humboldt County

Letter to the Editor,    
     published by Garberville newspaper, July 2001
     under Editor’s headline:
          I’M LUCKY TO BE HOMELESS IN PARADISE
To the Editor,
     I came here three winters ago to retire my “Creampuff” v-dub to an old-hipi-bus-village/community…put her out to pasture, so to speak, and get a bigger bus with more room for a swap meet inventory, so that I could indulge my arthritic tendencies with dry desert winters, and medicine mountain summers in Humboldt Nation.
     The life of a hipi snowbird, in a bus with a woodstove, seemed to me to be a perfectly reasonable retirement plan at the age of 50.  That was my ‘personal agenda’ upon arrival on May 5, 1998, a flaming redhead.
     My long-term political agenda was inspired by the accomplishments of this community…at Mateel(community center), at KMUD, at the Stafford tree-sit, and with the Vets for Peace at the Veteran’s Hall.  But then, I became informed of the prevailing winds of high-holy-status quo, and my sails were shredded by disgust, shipwrecked and homeless in a hostile harbor.  
     I had never been homeless before I came here.  I was raised to be a homemaker, and have never been denied. This homelessness has been imposed upon me, against my will, and just because I do it well, the best I can, some folks like to think I like being homeless, that I’ve chosen to be homeless, that I’m lucky to be homeless in paradise, and that I should be grateful, dying.
     They’ve called me a ‘loose cannon’ and don’t realize that I’m the biggest bore feminist available from the Mothership, Revolution, so I think that I should be tied down before I crash overboard.
     This might be a functional community for some people, but when someone of my caliber isn’t allowed a meaningful place here, the stench of necrotic hypocrisy arises.
     Thank you for your time.

Morgana Sage, Mayor, pro-tem
Sovereignty Township Steering Committee
Queen of Hipi Road, Woodstock Nation