Hippie Woman Wild

A Memoir of Life & Love on an Oregon Commune

By: Carol Schlanger

Narrated by: Carol Schlanger

A not-so-nice Jewish girl, expelled from Yale Drama during the Vietnam protests, abandons her acting dream to follow the man she loves to an off-the-grid commune in Oregon.

At 23, Carol Schlanger was an insecure upper middle class radical. Her parents spoiled her, and she expected the universe to follow. It didn't. After being expelled from Yale, losing a coveted Broadway lead, and seeing a suicide splatter at her feet, she left NYC for the Great Northwest, to live in nature with a man "who made everything beautiful with his hands". At that time she chose love and nature over art and career...until she didn't.

Carol Schlanger put "hidden" cash down on an abandoned homestead - 160 acres. The commune followed - all 13 jammed tight into a broken-down cabin with no phone, no electricity, and no running water. They were dependent on each other for every human need and survival. But then freeloading and free love threatened the hard-won utopia. After struggling through infidelity, rape, and childbirth, all except the father of her child left when Carol refused to share land ownership. When, as a lone wilderness "wife", she accidentally set their house on fire, she realized she couldn't survive in isolation.

Strapping her toddler into a battered old Chevy, she headed to Los Angeles to reclaim her life as a mother, her power as an artist, and her responsibility as an adult. This time her Texan followed her. This is both their love story and a love story for an explosive, mind-altering era.

©2019 Carol Schlanger (P)2020 Blackstone Publishing and Skyboat Media, Inc.

Excellent!

What an interesting, well-written book this was! I was so sorry when it ended. I wanted to go on hearing more and more adventures of Carol and Clint. I am so glad their love has lasted throughout the years. I definitely recommend this book. I can't imagine anyone finding it boring.

Back to the 70s

Interesting look at the life in an Oregon commune. Great to have the author do the narration!

honest and historic

A depiction of life,,, not just hippee life, but a young life evolving. a true story of friendships, love and family... and how you control your own narrative. very honest and a real pleasure. wish there were pictures to go along with it. all the characters interesting. 100% recommend.

A memoir of commune life in the 70s

I don’t find myself giving out five star reviews very often but since good memoirs are so hard to write and because this is a period of twentieth century history I find very interesting, Carol Schlanger gets five stars for her writing and her narration of her story in the audio version of Hippie Woman Wild. I missed the 60s while in the Air Force then missed the 70s while in the insurance business. It sounds like it might have been a great experience, greater perhaps than collecting ribbons for service in SEA or learning the secrets of the general liability policy. I constantly encourage a close friend of mine who was a contemporary hippie of Carol’s era to write his memoir of the great commune he was part of. I think this book will have to suffice. Frankly, it would be harder to do it better than Ms Schlanger who spent time on several different communes and a total of four years in Western Oregon during the early part of the 70s decade. This back to the earth movement had many participants and communal situations proliferated in Oregon and throughout the entire country. Perhaps the impact of hippiness accounts for the extremely progressive politics of Western Oregon to this current day. One might think that a group of young people who smoked dope every day for years, dropped acid and ate halucinagenic mushrooms might not have amounted to anything. Might have blown their minds. Certainly, there are cases of that. But for the most part the commune hippies I know have led productive and often very successful lives in a variety of fields. One only has to listen to or read the epilogue of this book to be amazed at the arc the lives of Carol’s group led. This is a very funny book, by the way, and I would recommend the audio version just to hear the author’s impressions of her stereotypical New York Jewish parents who by the time Carol ran off to the commune had retired to life in Florida. Carol, a Yale grad and close friends with luminaries like Henry Winkler and Stockard Channing was beginning a career in show business when she fell instantly in love with a goy Texan named Clint. He wanted to go back to the land and she followed him to Oregon where she ultimately begged her parents to loan her money which she used to buy 160 acres on Floras Creek. The closest town was the tiny berg of Langlois, a village on Hwy 101 of less than 200 people where the sheriff also ran the store where the hippies bought their growing supplies. They had been living on a commune near Eugene and when Carol and Clint (who’s been her husband now for 45 years) got Floras Creek he invited their friends from Eugene to join them. Many did, including a Jakartan prince who had graduated from Harvard and a street kid from Brooklyn. What ensued was not always wonderful but often was. It wasn’t the perfect location with wet, cold winter weather far from supplies and medical attention. A chain saw accident, for example, was a major problem. Carol writes with great self-awareness and constant humor which makes the book laugh out loud funny and endearing. She has gone on to become a successful actress, playwright and story teller. You can go on Youtube and get a sample of her experience by watching a video called: “I’m in love with Chekhov.” It’s a funny story about a well endowed visitor who attempts to seduce Clint in front of Carol. Interestingly, there is also a chapter in the book titled “I’m in love with Chekhov”
which has elements of the same story and same main characters but is completely different. So, I’m not sure which one actually happened but the book version is much more amusing and graphic and involves and evaluation of the boys and girls of Floras Creeks genitals as they sit together in their sweat lodge. This raises the question about other stories in the book but I’m going to assume that all are true and the Youtube story cleaned up a bit for the audience she was trying to entertain. There’s lots of sex but not as much as one would suppose. Other communes were more into sharing but not so much at Floras Creek. People paired up and there was great upset at the thought of cheating which is the essence of the Chekhov story. The problem with communal life is that it involves a lot of cooperation with a variety of personalities that don’t always mesh. Carol’s commune broke down when the other residents demanded she give them equal ownership in her property because of the contributions they had made in improving it. Carol balked discovering she was, at heart, a capitalist. The commune dissolved. Carol and Clint were left alone in the woods with their new baby Huckleberry and the desire to restart her acting career. They still seem to be going strong. Good book. Enjoyed every page.

Enthralling story of a forgotten era

Carol Schlanger succeeds in captivating the listener not only with her story but also her portrayal of the characters.
A good author is not always a good narrator - no doubt because of her talent on stage - she delivers a vibrant image of life on a commune in the early 70s.
As she constantly points out the dates and time periods I compared my life chronologically to hers. It was fascinating to realize that we came from the same backgrounds, and are about the same age. Our paths forked - but our aspirations as women were parallel. In the late 60s and early 70s society did not approve of anyone who did not conform. One had to be brave to reject the norms. This woman may be "wild" but she is definitely heroic.
My only disappointment was the Epilogue - it came suddenly and too soon. The narrative seemed cut at the end - leaving the listener still wanting more....
If you have ever been curious about what it would be like to "fight the system" in America and grow from the experience - this is your book.