Living The Good Life With Helen And Scott Nearing

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A pacifist, Scott was tried for sedition by the Federal Government for opposing U.S. entry into World War I. Acquitted by a jury, he was then blacklisted by the academic world for-among other things — his stand against child labor. His textbooks were even taken from the schools and he became a prophet without honor in his own country.

Of course, the U.S. Government and this country's academic circles have no monopoly on stupidity. Scott once joined the Communist Party ... only to be expelled for writing a book that took exception to Lenin's theories on imperialism. Nobody loves a freethinker.

Nobody, that is, unless the freethinker lives long enough to see his "wild-eyed, radical" theories become the staid, commonplace, taken-for-granted thoughts of a following generation. And that's exactly what has happened for Scott and Helen Nearing now, many times over. Scott and Helen have simply endured ... and the rest of us have slowly come around.

Still despite the fact that the Nearings were one of the original inspirations for THE MOTHER EARTH NEWS® and despite the fact that we've followed their work (and their lives) "from a distance", so to speak ... no one in MOTHER's home office had ever actually met Helen or Scott. Not that is, until a month or so ago ... when the couple spent a few days here in the mountains of North Carolina serving as judges on this magazine's Self-Sufficient Food Competition.

What a treat that was for us! If "the proof of the pudding is in the eating", then the validity of the Nearings' philosophy of life is just as surely radiated from Helen and Scott themselves. The Nearings, in short, are an incredible living, breathing, double-advertisement for the elegantly simple way of life they've chosen for themselves.

Now we all know a lot of somewhat older people that our society calls "successful". Folks whove spent their more vigorous years laboring in the industrial and business vineyards so that they could retire in their early or mid-60's. And, almost invariably, by the time these men and women have reached their late 60's (if they reach them at all) ... their physical mobility is noticeably restricted, they're on very familiar terms with one or more doctors, they've had operations, they don't steep well, they ache, they moan, they really aren't very happy, they fill their days with the pap on television, and they've largely lost interest in the larger questions of the day.

But not Helen and Scott Nearing! After flying into a local North Carolina airport from their present (hand-built by them!) homestead in Magnesia flight that would have tired most people half their ages-they immediately plunged into the work they had come down to do. And they kept on plunging (for full eight-hour days) during the next three days. And then spent several hours each evening knowledgeably discussing the important affairs of the world And inspecting a small mountain farm. And doing a lot of other things (believe it or not, Helen was even seen skipping down the street one day after buying a newspaper!) that folks their age "simply don't do"... or usually can't do.

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