Farm Friends

From the Late Sixties to the West Seventies and Beyond

Tom Fels
Foreward by Carl Oglesby

A memoir of farms, cities, war, peace, and the timeless march of life.

Farm Friends is a memoir and a study of the generation of the 1960s. Beginning on a communal farm in 1969, it continues as a personal chronicle of the author and his extended family up to the present day.

From the greenhouse in the spring to haying in the summer; from cold, wood-heated winters to abundant home-cooked dinners in the fall, back-to-the-land communards of the late '60s and early '70s made their way in a new and unfamiliar world. Later, relocated in cities and towns across the country, they used what they had learned to continue to explore and to influence life as they found it in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

What sort of individuals did the rebellious and anti-establishment youth become? How much of their idealism did they retain in the coming decades, as many of them were pulled into mainstream and urban life? Farm Friends is readable history on the human scale, formed of stories interwoven into an ongoing narrative that suggests the fabric of an entire generation. From cow pasture to San Francisco, Farm Friends spans nearly fifty years and inspires reassessment of a complex generation.

"Farm Friends serves as a valuable contribution to countercultural history, enhanced by profiles of visionaries from that era who have lived their alternative philosophy and values. From rural to urban settings, the common thread in Tom Fels’ book is a sense of evolving community."
—Paul Krassner, founder and editor of The Realist

About the Author

Tom Fels’ four years on a communal farm provide the background for Farm Friends. Following these years (1969–73) he spent five years as a college administrator before becoming a full-time curator and writer. Some of his many exhibitions have been presented at the van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and the J. Paul Getty Museum in California. His most recent book was nominated for the Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Award, the Philip Johnson Award, and the Wittenborn Memorial Award. Named a fellow of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and of the Huntington Library, he lives with his wife in North Bennington, Vermont.