Punk Rock Farmers- My Story

 

What does explosive 3-chord punk rock music have to do with agriculture? At first glance the chaos, spiky hair and dingy night club basements commonly associated with punk rock and the rural orderly and uniform rows of crops, orchards and pastures seem like two completely different worlds.

Over the past couple of years, I have witnessed several instances of these two worlds colliding. And, well, frankly, my life is an example of those collisions.

It was the summer of 1979 , and I was at a critical  crossroads of my life. I wasn’t even a teenager yet. I was 12 years old and going from the 6^th grade in elementary school to the 7^th grade at a Junior High School. I was a little lost and maybe a bit scared. No I was definitely scared. I had spent the last seven years attending a school across the street from my home in suburban Garden Grove, and in a month or two I was going to a school miles from my home and with kids from all over. We had heard rumors about gangs, jocks and all kinds of violence. Not to mention the increased academic load where instead of one class we now would have 5 or 6 and each with their own teacher and homework.  

But for now it was still Summer vacation and I was making the most of it. I filled my time with riding skate boards. We built a quarter pipe out of old lumber and we would drag out to the sidewalk. Then we discovered Big O skate park in Orange. It was probably 7 or 8 miles from my house and we would take a bus or skate the whole way there.

Big O had a different feel. The park was more technical than the older Concrete Wave, but the people were more complex as well. There was something going on there but I couldn’t put my finger on it. But I wanted to. I desperately wanted to. It was my ears that made the connection first.

One day, as we were wrapping up a skate session, some older kids were setting up instruments in the warm up area of the park. At the time I was listening to Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, and 70’s rock garbage. Kiss was the heaviest thing I had heard and it seemed to connect with me more than the rest of the music I was hearing but it was just a placeholder for what I had not yet encountered. All of that was about to change. 

Steve Olson was a local pro skater I had seen at the park and it was his band setting up. I don’t know what the name of the band was or what songs they played, but I knew I was hooked. It was hard, it was fast and it introduced me to something I wanted to be a part of. It gave me strength to face the changes I was encountering as a soon to be teenager. All of a sudden I didn’t give a shit any more. I was ready to face head on, dodge or plow thru whatever society threw at me. I found punk rock and I found my people.   

Punk rock was DIY before there was such a thing. Well, now that I think about it, there was DIY on the farm before there was DIY on the streets. In any case, as a teenager, I made my own clothes, put on shows where my friends bands could play. For years I even put out a fanzine with a couple friends. We interviewed bands, reviewed performances and provided political and social commentary.

Punk was community. Anyone was welcome and all kinds of people, regardless of race, economic status or place of residence found a sense of home in our crazy community. It sounds all warm and fuzzy as I write it down here, but it wasn’t always. I would have bottles thrown at me by passing cars. I was chased by 2X4 wielding thugs and, that change of schools… The stories of violence were true. I was beat up several times in junior high and again a couple times in High School. Those experiences just solidified my resolve as a punk and prepared me for the trials and tribulations of being a small farmer, though I did not know that at the time.

Punk Rock eventually lead me to activism. First it was anti-racism, and anti-nuke and eventually animal rights and social justice efforts. All fueled by music. Finally I discovered ecology and the radical environmental movement.

Environmental Activism led me to Ecological Restoration and that of course led me to horticulture.

Previous to discovering punk rock, I had spent several summers on my grandparents farm in southwestern Iowa. My grandfather imparted soil wisdom, conservation and place-based philosophy to me though it would be years before I understood any of it. And again, although I didn’t know it at the time, my experience on that remote farm introduced me to community.

Sometime around 2009, the two life experiences ran into each other and I became an ecology-based punk rock farmer!