Hippie Jack and Friends

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Well, I'm thinking that it's really, really something to come back here and see this cabin where it all started for us when we first moved up on the plateau. In 1970, I guess, Eric, who first bought this property and started this up here, bought this little house with this property and restored it, made it livable again. And it was a time when moving to the country and living off the land and pursuing an alternative lifestyle was a reality. It wasn't something that people just dreamed about or thought about doing when they retired. Fine Art

photographer Jack Stoddard and his wife Lynn moved from Miami to a rural area of the Upper Cumberland region of Tennessee. They were very young and it was the early 70s. They were part of the Counter -Culture Revolution that found the people and the hills of Tennessee endearing. Many of that generation of transplants left, but not the Stoddards. If we were in town on the square walking around, they would just stop the cars and stare at us. And I don't think it was because we were that much different. We weren't that, that, you know, we didn't look that much different, but we were just not from here and everybody knew that, you know. We said, well, when will we be locals? And they said, when everybody that's here now is gone. Jack and Lynn made Overton County their home, living in a variety of small communities like Highland Mountain and Copeland's Cove, and captured the people and places permanently on film as a part of their life's work.

It's been over 30 years since Jack and Lynn came to Tennessee. They've raised four children, a host of pets, and are now experiencing the joy of their first grandchild. This is home. A lot of people

that moved out, moved out into groups. They were sort of like counter -culture -gated communities, you know, but we did not. We moved into a situation where all our neighbors were, you know, just old rural people, really wonderful old -time people, and that was our peer group. That was my peer group. so it didn't take, it wasn't overnight, but they certainly accepted us over a period of time. I'll take your picture. Oh my goodness. Doesn't seem right, though. No. I I think you take a All you got to do is point at that man and push that button. That right there. Yep. How far do I get away? No, you're perfect. You're perfect. Oh, look at that. Now you're a professional. Aha. You want to join the union? No. No unions. Oh, aren't you sweet? Yeah. This is what I do for a living. It's tough. Oh, you want to hold the

baby? Oh, come here. Oh, it doesn't like you. Yes, it does. Yes, it does like me. Isn't it, Jack? Oh, it wants Do I do like you? That's probably because you smell like a person. That is probably it. I do it. I Jack had many fine neighbors on Highland Mountain, people who loved him then, and love him now, people like Betty Oakley and the late Ray Brown, Dallas Smith and Jerry Hammock, friends who love to see Jack stop by and reminisce about life on the mountain. Get a four -day light. Get your horses and mules out, hook them to the wagon, take them to town, take a load of chickens and eggs. Get our old eggs and come back after dark with a load of on them to the store. And every week, you know, that's what you're doing. And then when the crops was ready to plant together and all that, we had to stay out of school because there was nine kids. So

we had to help in the fields. Everybody helps plant and everybody helps gather because everybody had to eat. Most of time, Mama cooked three meals a day just like everybody else. And of the night, lots of times we did our homework. The old calendars used to come out was blank on the back and there wasn't enough money for all the school papers. So we did our homework with all that on the back of whatever we could get because there was nine kids and I was right in the middle. So everybody had to work. Of course, we raised everything we, but you had to make it. Dallas Smith is a friend of Jack's and loves to swap stories about life on Highland Mountain. I want you to tell us a little bit about what it was like when you were a girl living here. When you were younger, what it was like living on Highland. Because you grew up right here, didn't you? Yeah.

I grew up right out here at this first house. You asked me because I don't know what to say. Tell us what everybody did for a living. Tell us what it was like day to day. Did you go to school back then? Did you have a school house? We had a school, an old, big old one -room school of one teacher. And I didn't go to school very much because they was just my mom and my daddy and me and our older sister. And it took us all working on the farm what we could do. And me and her would go to school back in father -pulling time. Me and my mom would pull father to the youth ride. Then

I'd go to school and stay till about three o 'clock. Then I'd come home and go help take the father into the farm. What we ate at home was just about what we would raise on the farm. We would raise sweet taters and earth taters, canned green beans, pickle beads, cucumbers, and dead yet killed four fat hogs. And we'd have meat and lard and canned sausage. They was just four of us and family. And we got by real good. There was

other families, big families, and they would run that food you know. In the summertime we'd make them run a whiskey of that every week. We got to have corn and sprouted and have lard grinded. But in the wintertime you don't make them run every week. It takes a long to work out. You always work kind of an outlaw, weren't you? She even has trouble like I do. She's got trouble with the helicopters. They still think you're bad, don't they? Yes. You believe that? Were they here last year? Were they the helicopter come last year? Yeah. They went right up that road

up there. And I don't have any books or documents out there. Somebody held it in on Sunday night. And they got it on Monday evening. Then they come up here. Of course I sit on the porch and say, and the helicopter kept flying around and around. And I sat down up there in the yard. I had oodles of flowers. And he got down so low he waved at me. course I waved back. Well, he left in another helicopter kind. And he kept circling out there. So there's three trucks of the guys at turns that went in. And then they'd come back here and stop. They all three got out and come out

there in the yard. And he told me, he said, we're with whatever color it is. TBI. And he said, God, he had all of them clothes and guns. And of course I thought it was funny. I sure I am. Can't hardly get off the porch. here you are dressed to kill me. But he said, we followed the helicopter and destroyed Raymond Walnut. And he said, we just destroyed some out there. And he said it was in white buckets just like them sitting at their new yard. Of course I really liked them. And they finally, two of them ever did

say a thing. But the other guy talked to me, I was smart to him. He did? Yeah. But when he left, he said, we won't be back to bodying anymore. And I said, well, if you're up here, trying to destroy and pop stuff, mind and see me. This is Jerry. Jerry was living over in that house when I first moved here with Irene. That's right. I said her name. Clarence and Lois, his mom and daddy, and Alec was still living. Here. They lived over here. And they were my first friends in Tennessee. And I knew quickly that I was going to stay. I didn't know what everybody else was going do. I was going to stay. And Jerry, he's lived a cleaner life than I have, so he can remember. He can remember what it was like when everybody moved up here against me.

Oh, Lord. What was it like when all the hippies started moving in? It was a mess. Was it a mess? Yeah. They was in here from daylight to dark, people was. Over at the house? Yeah. Yeah, we were. And out the road here, they'd drive new cars back in there. No. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They come in here from Florida and Lincoln, Earth people there that drove back there. And it wasn't a four -wheel drive going in and out. If that, back then, what did everybody think? What did everybody think about us when we moved in? Well, everybody was scared of you. I'd say now, because everybody, they tried to get rid of you. They just, when they first come in, I come in. was Eric and three or four more here on the porch with Daddy and they had suits on. And when I come in, they said, we ain't gonna have nobody on us, hunting or nothing else. Well, I just went

on the house. A few days later, I come back in, they were sitting there on the porch. He said the same thing. And I said to him, I look buddy, I was raised back here. I'm going to hunt back there. Well, we didn't mean you. So now I've got those seers right. You know, one of my favorite memories, and I'm losing my memories quickly, is you and Johnny and Larry J. and David and Johnny's brother, Bill and Billy, and one dog going out coon hunting. And we were camping at the bend of the road there and had cigars. And it was just a crowd of boys. I mean, we were boys. We was all a little young then. And they'd go out and maybe drive, would strike and run a little bit. Maybe they'd just go out and smoke their cigars and come back in. And it looked like you were hunting me. Yeah, we done a lot of hunting back in. It

was mostly coon hunting. Little squirrel hunting. Clarence took us to the flea markets when we first moved here. Clarence liked to get up and go out. And he took me to Miss Copen store and he'd take us, load us up and take us to the flea market in all good. Yeah, but he knowed everybody. Yeah, everybody there was to know. you know, a big part of the reason that we stayed here was because the people were so good to us back here. Because Ray, Ray who where we turned off and stuff like that. It was like, it was like it was your family the minute you moved in in a lot of ways, wasn't it? Yeah, but I always liked Jack and Munch. Munch was, of course we made fun of Munch because she was so little, you know. Yeah, and we were sweet. We were just, we really didn't want to do anything just to get by. But it was just different. It was a different time and it was, and it was still, you know, there was just very few jobs and very few little

work. And people stayed home and scratched out a little garden. Well, everybody was simple. You know, now everybody's in a hurry. We didn't need so much money then. You ain't got time to go no more no more. You ain't got time to stop and see a neighbor. Everything's in a hurry. Well, we're going to go out and see the cabin and see those old Volkswagen's out there and go out where I got married and walk out that way. Well, I'm thinking that it's really, really something to come back here and see this cabin where it all started for us when we first moved up on the plateau. In 1970, I guess, Eric,

who first bought this property and started this up here, bought this little house with this property and restored it, made it livable again. And it was, you know, it was a time when moving to the country and living off the land and pursuing an alternative lifestyle was a reality. It wasn't something that people just dreamed about or, you know, thought about doing when they retired. And I see this and it just brings back the community that we had. Even the short period, we were really only up here for six or seven months and we were in and out, but there were six of us living here. There was Eric and Mary and Peter and Carol and me and Munch. Later on, there was another couple. And we were young, we were children, you know? I didn't feel like a child,

but we were children and we were attempting to do something that is very difficult by any standards. And we were doing it from a point of view of having nothing to start with and just scratching it out. And I think about, you know, the work we put in and the time we... just having meals and playing music and actually getting it done, just actually living that dream that Albus had of living a counter -cultural lifestyle and creating a new environment maybe for our children. And honestly, we had egos. We felt like we were setting a pace for the rest of society in a way. You know, you've got to remember, this was when the Civil Rights Movement was happening. It's only 30 years ago, I mean, politically,

was unreal, the changes. And our tribe, counter -culture people, the hippie people were on the forefront and we were strong and we were united in trying to do something new. And it's just thrilling in a way to come back up here and see this and see that it's still standing and it's pretty much how it was. it's a little disheartening to realize that this particular experiment here has not worked out. But, you know, it's our history. I came to Tennessee and it became my mission to photograph the old cultures and to try to preserve the old ways and the people. And then when I come back here, I realize that now I've come full circle and I'm photographing my own personal old culture. And that in itself is hard.

That this is a museum. But I look at this stuff right here and I think, my God, I remember being right here, right here at this table. And having meals. I remember, you know, Peter playing music at night and we'd have the gas lips on and we'd have the fire in the old barrel stove over here. And it hasn't changed a bit. The books are the same. They're on the shelves. It's unbelievable. Look at this. The same vessels. The same... Maybe a few of them have changed. The old bedrooms, the beaded curtains, you know?

I mean, we were children, but we were on our way. Look at this sign. It's a sin to build a nuclear weapon. I mean, that was there. That was here then. Look at this right here. Look at this stuff on the table. That's the oil lamp right there that we used. I mean, let's see. Here's some poem written by Kristen Paul. I wonder who Kristen Paul is. Somebody that's passed through here at some point. Here's a note somebody left. And here's the instructions for the water system or somewhere else. Here's the leaving checklist. Turn off outside tank valve. Stuff rug under back door.

This has been here for 30 years. I just feel like it could have worked. That's what I feel like. feel like everybody feels like if they knew then what they know now, well, we could have been so much smarter. We could have made it work. But I did make it work, you know? I hung on and I stayed. And ultimately, we somewhat prospered. And this is how it started. we were happy to live like this. We were delighted. We had it all in a way. Because we had our time. We had our freedom. We had our freedom of movement. We had our wonderful neighbors. This is a nice old stuff. I had a I cooked on one just like this forever. What kind of stuff did you cook? Man, was beans and cornbread. You know, hardly any meat. Nobody really ate much meat. We ate a lot of brown rice. We made sprouts back then. Everybody was making alfalfa sprouts, mung bean sprouts. We made homemade bread all the time. We made ours over the cook stove or the cook fire. made ours outdoors.

We had wonderful meals, you know? We used powdered milk. We didn't have any refrigeration. Well, you know, you talk about what you came here. The dream you had. Clean water. Right. Simple. Simple. Well, you've done that for your kids. Yeah, I think we have. I don't think it's impossible. But we wanted it more than just for ourselves. You know, of course, everything's a trade -off. But it just seemed a logical way to go as a society at the time. And it seemed like we had the mindset as a group to push it through. we were having political clout. And we were having mainstream people felt the same way. And now it's like we've become sort of a joke, you know? You talk to people about it now and they look back and what do they think? I saw some TV show the other day. were saying

the big thing about the counterculture people was they never bathed. That was the only thing that seemed to come across. Of course, we bathed. We bathed down here and Jerry can tell you. And, you know, we were good people. We doing the right thing. And we weren't trying to spoil anything. And I think that if it had caught on and really been a successful movement, I think that we'd be better off. You know what? There was not so much greed involved. People didn't want $200 million severance pay. People didn't want to make enough money to have two BMWs and a 17 ,000 -square -foot house. Nobody wanted that. We wanted our time. We wanted to be able to be creative. We wanted to make our own way. We didn't want to have regular jobs and work nine to five. And, you know, that's not a bad thing. But as with every good plan, there's always a problem. And the

problem was that egos get involved and we were hard to lead. I'm just going to close this up maybe for another 30 years. We could probably get a grant, couldn't we? Study this. It'll be a dig one day. There'll be people out here digging up old kite tobacco. Too much. Don't forget. Never forget. No honey. Never forget.

Never Never Never forget.

forget.