New Hope Found

Familiar with which roads were passable and knowing well where the best food sources were and where I could catch a record load of smoked salmon, I moved quickly down through the northwestern states and decided to take a different route to see if I could reach San Francisco.

It was late September just past Petaluma when I stopped for the night at a place called Haystack after struggling with landslides all day and a vehicle jam up blocking my way on US 101 in Petaluma. Exhausted, I crawled off to sleep without taking stock of my location. When I woke in the morning, both Charlie and Rocky were anxious to get outside, so I obliged them. Down below the road was a creek with clean flowing water. I needed a bath, so immediately headed down there to wash off before breakfast.

At times like this, we'd all have fun in the water. I would get a short piece of wood and throw it. Rocky was no retriever, but he did love to chase things, even in the water and would eagerly go after whatever I threw out for him to get and bring it back to me--sometimes. We were having a great time and making a lot of noise. Suddenly, Rocky perked up, barked, and then, jumping up on the bank, let out a low growl. Charlie, at waters edge, started pacing back and forth in excitement.

I heard a voice call out. "Hello down there! How are you doing! I saw your rig parked here and thought I'd investigate!"

I couldn't believe my ears. A human voice after so long! I looked up from where I was standing naked, waist deep in the stream and saw a young man up on the road waving and shouting. A chill ran down my back for a moment because my clothes and 357 Magnum were on the bank. If he meant harm, he had a distinct advantage. I started wading for the shore as fast as I could and called out. "I'm fine. Just let me get my clothes, and I will come on up!" My only thought was on how I would be able to get to my gun in my vulnerable position. I wasn't thinking of making friends.

"That's okay… I'll Wait. Can't believe I found someone out here. We haven't seen anyone in years."

"It's the same for me. I didn't know there was anyone still alive." I yelled back as I struggled with my clothes having not had time to dry off, making it harder to pull on my pants. It seemed too long, but the young man up above remained patient, wasn't threatening, and so far, hadn't fired on me.

Charlie was hopping around excitedly, chattering, and not really helping me get dressed. Rocky was pacing and growling and waiting for me to take the lead as his alpha pack leader.

I tried to calm Rocky down as I dressed by softly calling to him, "Rocky, it's okay. Stay here. Everything's okay. Stay with me." The guy waiting above didn't seem to be concerned. I was glad for that, or Rocky might have taken the initiative and gone after him without me. If he was dangerous, Rocky made it two to one. But I didn't want Rocky to be shot for trying to protect me.

By the time I climbed halfway up the slope, the young man, dressed in jeans and a buckskin shirt with a cowboy hat and no holster or weapon evident, called out, "My name's Keith Cook, what's yours?"

I told him my name and scrambled up the steep, wet, slippery, grassy slope the last few feet to the roadway above where Keith was waiting. When I reached the top, Keith held out his hand and I shook it looking intently into his eyes to check his motivation. They were beaming.

Keith looked to be about 25 and quite healthy. Probably only about five or six when the world came apart. Made me very curious. I had to say something, so I did. "Keith, you're a sight for sore eyes. I've been traveling these roads for many years and have seen hardly anyone. You're going to have to tell me your story."

Charlie crawled up behind my head and peeked out behind it at this other man with curiosity. He remembered another man, too… Oscar. But this one smelled and sounded different.

"I was making a milk run into Petaluma this morning and saw your rig here like I said before. When I looked down and saw you and your dog and your monkey splashing in the water, I was shocked. I can't remember seeing anything like you on the road here since I was a small child and there were so many people running about trying to escape or harm us. My folks and I were running from the danger in Petaluma when Pete and Darla Martin gave us sanctuary. They took us in and we've been with them ever since."

Keith stopped and changed subject. "If you like, you can follow me up the road here about 5 miles and I can take you to New Hope where you can meet everybody. I'm sure that they'd love to see you. Your monkey sure is cute. What's his name? What do you say?"

I wasn't sure whether I was being sucked into something distasteful, but there was something about Keith's demeanor that told me that all was well and that he was meaning well. I wouldn't be captured as some prisoner or slave to a survival cult… or worse… Cannibals. I drove the thought from my mind and accepted his open and sincere invitation. 

"Charlie. His name's Charlie. And the mutt's Rocky, my German Shepherd mix. Sure, I'd love to meet your people. I've got all the time in the world." I stopped short of telling him where I was going for the winter. Would have to see where this was going.

Keith was driving an older model Jeep that was without its canvas top. I cranked up my rig and followed. Before very long, we came to a dirt road leading up onto a mountain on the right above us. He had pulled over, and jumped out, and motioned to me to pull over behind him. And then, Keith waved for us to come to him. We climbed down out of Red One  and on over to the Jeep where he yelled to me to climb aboard. Once I was aboard with Charlie on my shoulder and Rocky in the backseat, he explained.

"Although we have had rigs like yours drive up to New Hope, right now, with all the vehicles we have up there and the amount of space there is to park and turn around, it's probably best if you leave your truck and trailer down here. Is that okay?"

As much as I hated leaving my rifle and everything I owned in the truck, I was sure that no one was going to bother it. I didn't know what I would find up in this place at the end of this dirt road. But I was more curious than fearful, so I went along with the program.

As though he was giving a tour, Keith relaxed and started telling me the rest of his story as we drove up the winding road through tall burnished brown grass and fledgling live oaks and underbrush. Climbing ever higher for about 2 miles until I could see, up ahead, a fenced in compound with a lot of miscellaneous travel trailers, mobile homes and other structures.

Exuberant, Keith relayed his story. "Pete and Darla met in Haight-Ashbury during the Summer of Love. Things got real heavy with drugs and gangsters by the fall of '67, so they split like so many others and started New Hope, a commune up this road where they had found a gold mine during explorations earlier.

"Pete was from a Northern Wisconsin hardscrabble farm and knew how to hunt, fish, build and grow, unlike so many hippies from the City. Darla was the daughter of a Milwaukee brewery executive. She coerced her father into giving them money for essentials like a tractor and other things they needed to get the commune started. She also negotiated arrangements with some businesses in town so they could sell their crafts and produce that they grew.

"By November that first year they tell me they had over 100 interlopers and hangers on that joined them. But by spring, over half had left. Pete was happy because he was really tired of catching a lot of fish out of Adobe Creek to satisfy their hunger for fish and chips that they could get cheaply in the Haight, but couldn't get up in the country without his help and generosity.

"They started growing marijuana as their primary source of income. Through Pete's ingenuity and Darla's business wiles, Pete developed the mine into a full-grown marijuana grow as well as a place of refuge whenever the law came and one of the first self-sustaining shelters in the country. He channeled fresh water from springs on the mountain. And was one of the first to put in water, wind and solar power to various parts of the commune including the mine.

"New Hope became an established drug rehab and survivalist camp by the 1980s and the population stabilized to about 30 with about five residents coming and going each year. Our founders taught hundreds of people skills that they had learned through trial and error."

I was dying to ask Keith some questions, but he was answering them as I listened. So I just nodded my head as he rambled on and once in a while gave him an affirmative grunt.

"9/11 was the turning point. Pete upgraded and enlarged the mine to where he could accommodate up to 100 people for months. He had always thought we would foolishly get in a nuclear war, and that terrorist act in New York City convinced him that we would. Every year, Pete's people stockpiled more supplies in the mine and made it more livable. Whenever a fire came through during those terrible drought years, the mine became a good refuge from the smoke and fire.

"When everything came apart, Pete and Darla invited all their friends and neighbors to join them here on the mountain. I think they told me they had over 200 here in New Hope at that time. And they took my parents, my sister and me in… No questions asked. But they guarded fiercely what they had and I recall many gunfights where the people of our commune held off marauders from the City that tried to come and take what we had.

"When it got so bad that even people in gas masks couldn't go outside very long, we all retreated to the mine and stayed in there for much longer than we wanted. I was lucky. I was just a kid and had fun with all the other kids. We played games, went to school, and slept up in our comfortable beds all together. We would run up and down the mine for exercise along with the adults. And we all prayed that we would be able to go outside long before we could.

"But a lot of people died. We have a huge cemetery that continues to grow. Right now we have 37, including Pete and Darla, who are in their 80s, I'm not sure how old."

We pulled up to a very strong gate with a sturdy metal fireproof fence that ran out of sight on either side and I assumed surrounded the whole community. It looked also to be electrified.

When Keith saw me staring at it, he remarked, "For predators… Keeps them out and away from our livestock."

I nodded in agreement… "Yeah, I see what you mean." I was impressed already.

But the place was a hodgepodge of mobile homes, trailers, and shelters made from concrete blocks that were strewn around the community in a rather haphazard way, probably according to those who brought them or built them. Beyond that, a large garden on the hillside that looked to be already mostly harvested and livestock like horses, cows, pigs and chickens gave the place a friendly farm like appearance and smell. There was also a lot of human activity that barely looked up when we drove through the gate and into New Hope's center.

But Keith got everyone's attention when he called out, "Hey everybody! Look what I found! He has been wandering the country for some time and has found us!"

People began gathering around the Jeep, curious as to who I was. Kids with wide eyes were yelling, "That's a cute monkey! Does he bite? Can we pet him?"

Charlie was trying to hide behind my neck, but there were people all around. He was chattering softly, not quite sure, bewildered with so many people--big versions of capuchins like his leader, me. Rocky was by my side, growling softly. There were dogs among the people.

We stepped down among the crowd and the adults came up to shake my hand while Keith introduced them. With so many, I quickly lost memory of their names. But I did notice and catch the names of some sets of twins and two sets of triplets, boys named Tim, Tom and Terry, and girls named Jan, Jane, and Jen.

I asked Keith, "Why so many multiple births?"

He replied, "I don't know. Maybe because of the radiation. It might be nature's way of responding to our problem of so many people dying. Oh, but our leaders and founders of this place are still healthy—I believe they are both 82. Say hello to Pete and Darla Martin." They had just come out of the crowd and approached us.

I reached out and shook Pete's large, calloused hand. He was tall and strong looking for his age with a long white beard and long white hair, wearing overalls with no shirt and sunglasses, his shoulders and arms tanned and muscled. There was a twinkle in his eye when he gripped my hand strongly and offered a welcome like he had done so many times before.

Darla was wearing a one-piece shift dress made of handwoven material with beautiful embroidery of flowers and butterflies. Her blonde hair had gray streaks and her tanned face had smile lines that still showed that she had been a beauty in her day. She didn't stand on ceremony and gave me a great big hug while whispering in my ear, "Welcome to New Hope, we are so glad that you are here."

They all wanted to know my story. I said, "Oh, but it's a long one…"

Keith interrupted. "I have a feeling that it is. Everyone, why don't we let him tell it tonight with a bonfire. For now, let me show him a place he can stay tonight and then show him around. There's a lot he needs to see about us."

While all this was going on, Rocky was tentatively making friends with some of the dogs, touching noses and wagging tails in recognition. He was fitting right in. The kids were so curious about Charlie that he clung to me for a while fearful. But when I held him out so that some of the children could rub his head he started to warm up to them and begin to enjoy their attention and slake his own curiosity.

Everybody drifted back to their various duties and Keith motioned for me to follow. We walked through the hodgepodge collection of living quarters until we came to one, a small travel trailer. Keith opened the door. It was a bit musty inside, so he cranked open the jalousie windows to let the hot, stale air out.

"The couple that lived here passed away a couple of years ago. It's a bit dusty so I'll have Caroline come by and clean it and bring new clean sheets and blankets for tonight. I think you'll find it quite comfortable."

All I could say was, "Thank you, it does look  accommodating." It was a bit strange to be using something from dead people. But then, everything I had and used came from dead people. I was grateful for it.