“Every time there was a gathering, everyone was playing live music, old-time mountain music, and it was charming.”

“I have a sense of home and place and community that I didn’t expect to have before this. In a city, I just didn’t have the sense we have here. It’s really special.”

“The things we learned in order to survive moved forward with us. We made ourselves survive, so we can make a community survive.”

“We had long hair, and pierced noses, and tattoos. The local people couldn’t even talk to me, plus they couldn’t stop staring at my nose ring.” 

“We had a woodstove, and we didn’t know how to build a fire or do anything.”

“The idea of raising children in the city didn’t make sense anymore.”

“You couldn’t live the way we were living and not have a little bit of moxie. You were living a very different way. You couldn’t turn on a light switch. Food didn’t come from the store.”

“The first thing the Lewisburg bluebloods and the straight people and hippies all agreed on was we didn’t want Walmart. Nobody wanted Walmart.”

“A lot of them moved in with the idea they could have an acre of land and make a living off it. As A farmer, I knew better,”