2011/03/17

The Domes of Baggins End


I visited an old friend in Davis, California in 1981, but I never heard of this cooperative community on the UC campus there until I read about it in The Chronicle of Higher Education this week.  There is a struggle between the student residents and the school over the future of the domes, which are showing their age.  They were built in 1972.

Yes, a vintage hippie commune, still here in 2011!  It seemed so sweet and pure to me, with it's vegetarian pot-lucks and government by consensus: a rarefied idealism that thrives best among care-free students or the highly committed.

Back in the '70's, when these domes were built, choosing an intentional community was a serious option for people who identified with what Theodore Roszak named the Counterculture.  And I guess it still is.  For myself, when the '70's came to an end and I married R., I no longer cared for such togetherness.

Still, reading about the domes brought back good memories of coming together with others, of sharing all in common, of the magic of a simple life, experiences that left their mark on me to this day.  There are more pictures here.

No comments: