Vanlife Originals
Ron started this when he first went to Unity College in a van parked at several local Waldo county spots we still visit. When we met in Alaska we found we enjoyed super hard physical labor; commercial tree planting, thinning, and the like. We learned of tree planting and fruit harvesting gigs throughout North America and used them to make money to pay off loans as we went to four different universities on both coasts and the Midwest. At UMO we often parked in the steam plant parking lot where once a nice cop knocked on our door to tell us the river was flooding! Usually cops weren’t so nice, especially to Ron the Yankee longhair as he did the Louisiana to Georgia to Maryland tree planting route from winter through spring. I was a wimp during the coldest months in Maine and rented a room but I was one hell of a blueberry raker and could make my money bWe were the original vanlifers. It’s a long tradition: Irish tinkers, Roma caravans, migrant farm workers in station wagons, generally NOT characterized by sexy beach yoga photos or exotic views and certainly not blog posts- but here is mine. Ron and I got through college by doing migrant labor and living in a van, often down by the river. At one point we had three vehicles: the Santa Maria (our sleeping van), the Nina (our kitchen van), and a Pinto (run about).
y early afternoon and go swim and read books. We did do some yoga, as the photos attest, to counteract the backbreaking work! We met some people, incredible stories of people living on the margins of society if not the underbelly. We even started a class action lawsuit through Pine Tree Legal when one employer tried to stiff our coworkers. We won. It was a better education than our education.
Eventually I began pining (crying, actually)for a stationary reading chair, perhaps by a window, with a fan…dreaming of more, dreaming of artmaking as a possibility. Now when I see the vanlifer craze on Insta? Well, let’s just say it was NOT like that. It was uncomfortable, tough, and I resented snobbish treatment from people who judged others’ intelligence or even morality based on dress. I was proud of the work I was capable of and hanging out with the underclass, cast offs, indigenous, transients, immigrants, gave me solidarity with these truly hard working people. Their survival instincts are what makes America great.
Additional captions under each photo for your amusement.
