The Last American Man by Elizabeth Gilbert 2003,288pg to reedit

 The  story of Eustace Conway and about rural America   6/5/24

1961 Born in South Carolina his house was next to an original old world forest that had not yet been developed.  His mother taught him to camp, fish build a fire handle wildlife and weave grasses into rope. He read books on Davy Crocket and Wild world Wisdom how to sew buckskin. American History goes - there was a frontier and then there was not. Nostalgia for Buffalo Bill Wild West show and Frederick Remington's art. Reading Jack London can give you the itch to travel.

1818 a British observer noted that every American considers that its impossible for a foreigner to teach him anything. Challenged of a new worlds virgin wilderness was unhindered by class or urban squalor.

1824 German born Gottfried Duden travelled to the West to find suitable homestead places for German families interested in immigrating. This was a time when Ohio farmers were constructing a 230 mile canal without a licensed engineer.

1850 The English travel writer described the rugged men she encountered. American bough the hype of what was an American Man, and by 1890 the American frontier suddenly closed. We were taught that resourcefulness  is next to godliness. Much inspired by the poems of Walt Whitman.

1883 Teddy Roosevelt boasted his rugged experiences in a buckskin shirt and horsehide chaparajos.

 

Things like fast food are  bringing poorer health, we seem to have the same disregard for our bodies as we have for natural resources .There is not difference between winter and summer if you can eat strawberries every day. People have fallen out of step with natural cycles. In nature everything is connected, circular. The planet is circular and so is the passage of the sun as well as life cycles of plants and animals. The civilized world is scarier than the woods.

1804Thomas Jefferson knew Meriwether Lewis well, he commissioned the Lewis and Clark expedition to investigate the Louisiana purchase lands.

Eustace liked reading about the Indian wars, he didn't  have friends and had not time for kids who spent time watching TV. The children were more like his apprentices. He showed them how to catch snakes and find food for his turtles. Eustace's father was a mountain man who knew everything about hunting riding. He was and engineer and academic.

He got to know the Indian tribes and Eustace's picture appeared in the press with his successes in completions and Indian dances .He was presented with the National Youth Award from the Smithsonian.

His parents never got on and family advised his mother  to leave the marriage but she never found the courage. Divorces was a mortal sin. Despite what his father would do or say about him, he would be a Man of destiny. His mother would go to the library and bring him piles of biographies of Washington , Daniel Boone , Davy Crocket, Lincoln, Kit Carlson, John Fremont, Andrew Jackson , Geronimo , Red Cloud and Sitting Bull.

Wagon trails going west were filled with young boys who had left home for a number of reasons. They were drawn to the frontier due to bad relationships or tough fathers.

When he finished high school he took some books, his hand made teepee and split. He lived around Gastonia N. Carolina. for a while in Tennessee he worked as a nature educator for disabled kids.

 Eustace Conway who at 18 walked the Appalachian Trail from Maine to Georgia surviving on what he hunted and gathered with a friend. They caught crawfish and trout, killed rattlesnakes. They came to a small town where there was a family who keep the common hog and they took charge of it but ate all the food over meant for it, perfectly good food.

Eustace refused to go to church and studied every religion he could get books for of and found that god is only available in nature. In James Ferrimore Coopers Dear Slayer Natty never marries as he would have to give up his world of solitude.

He met Donna on the trail and he slipped into her tent He taught her about every plant or rock that passed .Frank bowed out of the challenge but Donna joined him. He finished hiking the trail in Sept 1981 it took him 4 and a half months. He found that if he went to the garbage outside a supermarket  could find wrapped whole steaks and plenty of food just passed the sell by date that was perfectly wholesome to eat.

He met Alan York later who said lets hike across Alaska but the kayaked instead. After that he went to rural Mexico to study pottery and weaving and flew to Guatemala to see the most privative people.

He later went back to collage as he had good grades. He went to Gaston Community  College and then to Appalachian State University in Boone , North Carolina. 1984 Graduated with honors He majored in English and Archaeology and started teaching all  over the south in public schools. When he travelled on the road and found a roadkill animal if fleas were still jumping on it it was fresh enough to cook and eat.

People went hunting and didn't even want the meat. Every place he set up camp got sold out and developed into neighborhoods .Bulldozers will keep coming till every tree is gone and there is no safe place.

America has always lent herself to visions of Utopian plans . Sir Thomas More, Tommaso Campanella , Francis Beacon, Rabelais , Montaigne , Hobbes, but these men never turned dreams into reality

The Amanist came in 1842 to the US . The Shakers also flourished. New Harmony was founded in Indiana in 1925, but by 1900 most of Americas idealistic communities had vanished 

1960s the communes that were set up folded because of drug abuse, disorganization apathy resentment and bankruptcy. Eustace hated drug use. Hog Farm thrived for 25 years because of its visionary leader Hugh Romney.

There are second growth forests forest that have taken over after being cleared more than a century ago.

Eustace bought 1000 acres in woods by an unspoiled basin and created Turtle Island, he was not merely a hermit or a hippie but a survivalist. The basic needs of humanity food clothing shelter transportations sexual pleasure are all available for cash. 

 He gave summer camps there to teach kids how to be a man. He felt he knew a better way of life for all Americans. The neighbours were hog farmers and it was ideal but he needed $80,000. He had to renew his relationship to his father got the loan and paid it back in a year. He went on punishing speaking tours. His first camp was 1989. He gave lessons on survival to even adults and kindergarten kids .Later he bough the peaks of each hill that surrounded the valley.to guard his watershed. Eustace got his brothers to work for him as councilors in the camps, he taught you can do anything you believe you can do. This is a last parcel of the American frontier .He was overbooked by clients and had more work than he needed. He couldn't hold on to his staff. He helped children become fit or even roll hoops or use the simplest tools. A young women Segal had served in the Israeli military and thrived in his system.

Most American don't want to live off the land but get a thrill from Eustaces assurance that you can.

Davy Crocket knew how to use the back woods charisma to become a Congressman. He released his heroic memoirs to coincide with the 1833 elections. Daniel Boone late became a real estate speculator and developer. Kit Karson had dozens of adventure novels written about him. 

Eustace was less convinced that his talks were having any effect. His girlfriend for 15 years Valerie said she loved him but I lost my identity in his. We should have concentrated on our relationship and less on our goals.  He had accomplished much but was not able to keep a wife and have children.   Eustace wanted absolute love and absolute control

He owned 10 horses and said it is easier to feed yourself than a horse.. in 1995 he got the notion to ride a horse across America and did this in 103 days. He went with his brother Judson. They called themselves the Long Riders. They rode from Alabama to California. The mass media had done away with local dialects Appalachian children spoke different to their grandparents. The ride became a parade and people from miles came to see them. People warned them not to go through the Apache Reservation but they did and were welcomed. They were met by mayors and minister and people all wanted to do what they were doing. They read Cormack McCarthy Books along the way.

Mules used as packhorses are brainy and can be malicious.`

Today in the US, some wives earn more than husbands and women are increasingly in control of their biological and economic destinies thus the mans role has changed.

eustasy is a geological world meaning a world wide change in sea level.

Many of the tribes today have massive windfall profit from the casinos on their reserves.

In 2013 the North Carolina passed a law allowing special building codes for privative structures for his Turtle Island.

John Muir the naturalist was also a man about the frontier and there is a blog entry  about him also