Takilma Tales
The Hippie History of Takilma, Oregon
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
The hippies of the Illinois Valley came to Takilma, and to a lesser extent other small towns like Selma and O’Brien, during the “back to the land movement” which started during the late 60’s and early 70’s, yet still continued to grow well into the 80’s. The hippie movement got started with the anti-war and anti-nuclear protests, and was fueled by young people of the baby-boomer generation who were fed-up with the corporate-controlled society and the strict morals and rules of their parents. They did not want to conform to society’s pressure to fit-in, cut their hair and get a job. Many were affluent, college-educated, middle-class kids, just searching for a deeper spiritual meaning in life.
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
“Takilma Tales: The Hippie History of Takilma, Oregon”, explores the evolution of a small village near the former town of Waldo; a Gold Rush ghost town, in remote Southwest Oregon. In the 60’s and 70’s, young hippies flocked to the run-down mining and logging town of Takilma on the edge of the Siskiyou Mountains, which straddle the border between California and Oregon. In that wilderness, the hippies transformed the small town, and with hard work and dedication, they created an intentional community, with its own medical clinic, community building, alternative school and food co-operative. This is a collection of stories from Takilma residents and a loose compilation of the history of the place, from ‘Natives to Nowadays’; in the words of many of its founding members. The author, herself a resident of Takilma for over 33 years, takes the reader on a fascinating account woven of the memories of numerous free-thinking, New-Age, back-to-the-land people who still reside there. If you’ve ever wanted to know what the hippie movement was all about; read this book.
About the Author
Susanne Kindi Fahrnkopf (far-en-kof) was born in Germany and grew up in Southern California, where she studied English Literature at Santa Monica City College. A poet and flower child of the 60’s; Kindi moved to Cave Junction in 1979 with her husband and two little children to open the Cave’s Cobbler shoe repair and Birkenstock shop. Since then she has raised four children in Takilma and works as a Bookkeeper. Here is her off-beat account of the history of Takilma. She explores the people, places and stories which have made her small counter-culture community a unique and exceptional place to live. Kindi has been published in seven Poetry anthologies: The Leaves of Autumn 1983, Spring Symphonies 1985, Day’s of Future’s Past 1989 by the National Library of Poetry, Poetic Voices of America 1998 by Sparrowgrass, Twilight Musings by The International Library of Poetry in 2005, “Sights Unseen: A Door to Enter” by Eber and Wein Publishing in 2010 and again in Best Poets of 2011. Her first self-published book; Siskiyou River Reflections is a collection of her favorite poems inspired by her life in the community of Takilma in the heart of the Siskiyou Mountains. Other accomplishments include writing a piece on the Siskiyou Project for the Oregon Encyclopedia website and re-writing a family memoir. Kindi compiled, edited and printed her father's autobiography, called "Wanderer Between Two Worlds", by Henry G. Rittenhouse in 2002.