What Woods?

Okay so some of you have asked what "in the woods" refers to. Well, briefly things did not go so well during High School. It was "the sixties" and well, things went from bad to worse.  College was not ready for me or my band of friends. Meanwhile I had always been attracted to the outdoors and was lucky enough to live near the Shawangunk mountains. I spent a summer at camp Awosting around age 12 and fell in love with those "woods". When life on the streets got out of control we headed up to the woods.

Some of us never left. Mentally.

There were many trips to the woods and long spells around the falls, camping out. But this was sixties camping. Wild, disorderly, altered and spiritual. It never felt like camping. It felt like something BIG. There was no money, but somehow there was food. There was community. There were assorted people from everywhere who just fell into living together.  Skinny dipping all day and profound nights around the campfire. It was heaven. By the summers of 1970 and 1971 word got out that there was this little piece of paradise and our log-cabin-home-in-the-sky got pretty crowded. More on the summers of love later, but picture some of the most beautiful streams, woods and waterfalls filled with charged up, long-haired Tie-died naked hippies hanging out all day and dancing all night to the music of the ARMS BROTHERS up at Smitty's.   

Once the cold weather set in "normal" people left to do "normal" things. I built a dome and stayed with Bernie, my dog who was the son of Nate and Big-Huge and was, as some of you know, part deer. 

I've made a few bad choices in my life. One of the biggest was finally leaving the woods physically around 1974... I did get back to see Smitty before he died in 1985. He said, "Jim, you're a mountain man. Where the hell you been? You'll never leave the woods. It's in you." He was right. I'm still... in the woods.