As mentioned earlier in “The Morass, Part II”,  I abandoned Auburn, Alabama in June, 1974, driving a newly purchased Volkswagen beetle to Cottage Grove, Oregon. My wife Barbara had made it clear that our relationship was finished and I saw no point in remaining at Auburn where my teaching career was also on the rocks. The VW cost $250 as I remember, but seemed in good condition and drove adequately. I had a tent and camped along the way. My route went NE through Alabama to Tennessee, then across the Mississippi into Missouri. I remember a miserable camp in that state with humid heat and insects which drove me into my sweltering tent. In western Nebraska I rejoiced at seeing the first sage brush. It felt good amidst the travail of my feelings to be back in the West.

Cottage Grove was home to the Cerro Gordo project, whose idea was to plan and build a community embodying many of the counter-cultural ideas of the time. The hope was to demonstrate a synergy among a new infrastructure, new educational ideas, and a new way of life. The new settlement was not to be a commune, but a live, diverse village. I won’t here go into details of how the village idea failed. However, fail it did, and around 1977 I moved on to try make a new life.

I was, of course, devastated at the time because I was still deeply in love with Barbara, but after seven years or so that love faded and I, indeed, settled into a new life, my sanity having been saved by cross-country skiing and the many new friends from the Cerro Gordo project. For many years my financial situation was shaky and I was occasionally close to becoming homeless. Four or five of us lived in a communal house on Washington Street in Cottage Grove sharing the rent and phone bill. One of these housemates, mentioned earlier, was Fred Ure, a talented sculptor and owner of the book about Wittgenstein’s philosophy.  Later, in the eighties, with the help of a friend I became a computer programmer and software designer and my finances improved. I learned about accounting and business and gradually became a successful stock market investor. I moved from Cottage Grove to Eugene, Oregon around 1990.

Still, my life felt basically empty because the lack of a close romantic relationship left a void. Then, much later, around the late 1990’s I met Susan S and was immediately enthralled by her. I knew she was a climber and skier and we saw each other on occasion cross country skiing and  in the rock gym. I climbed with my friend, David, and whenever she and her friends walked into the gym, I felt an electric shock. The breakthrough came one day when I rode with her and our bicycles to a bike trip near Cottage Grove. On a later hike I fought my shyness aside and told her I loved her. She seemed somewhat interested, and curious when I mentioned our age difference. (I look younger than my age). I felt that that difference would immediately kill the possibility of an intimate relationship since she was 24 years younger than me. She was indeed taken aback, but we continued to see each other and relate. Susan too had recently been divorced and missed a close relationship. I learned that she was an avid mountain climber like I was and that she was the training director of Eugene Mountain Rescue. Gradually we become closer and it was to her that I wrote the letter, quoted in an earlier version of this blog.   

“Our relationship will never go to that completion I desire unless you are
as crazy as I am. Our human condition is to be trapped in an animal body
aspiring for the stars. Our consciousness non-existent for an eternity of
the past and to be non-existent for an eternity to come. Meanwhile, for a
brief instant we are here. If one truly realizes our condition, one must
be crazy, at least by conventional standards. This is not a sick,
destructive craziness, but a creative, tragic, open and aware craziness.
This kind of craziness I’m talking about is the only sanity. Are you that
crazy? A humorous saying is, “Never sleep with anyone crazier than
yourself.” I would turn that around and say, “Never sleep with anyone who
isn’t as crazy as you are.” If one is in touch with another at that level,
nothing else matters; not differences of age, of personality, of
temperament, of wealth, of fame, or of position in society. If one
doesn’t have a deep bond at that level, the relationship may be nice but
will never be complete. And can never bear the name of true love.”

We lived together for a while, then married in 2003. Later we moved from Eugene to Bend, Oregon where I started this blog in 2016. The letter was originally posted on April 23, 2016. Today, September 21, 2023, is our 20th anniversary. “Still crazy after all these years.” Back to Top