Our own vintage town

[jamespowers]

Yes, but those that could (the ante-bellum Southern Aristocracy, for example) went North in the heat of the summer whenever they could. Industrial and commercial development also lagged greatly in the torrid regions. On the other hand, the change of seasons is rather deeply ingrained in the general American culture of the Era, save for the special and rather peculiar (but nonetheless distinctly American) culture of the West Coast.

I've restored quite a number of antique structures which have been unoccupied for a decade or more. It is not the big deal that you seem to fear.

Changing of season sucks. Let’s just face it. lol lol If people could choose they definitely would not be going through the crap that they have back there this winter---either that or they are definitely too stoned to care. lol lol I would be somewhere in the tropics if finances and job opportunities allowed it. If it never got below would be fine with me.
As for aristocracy moving in changing weather---you mean like how New Yorkers and such go to Florida for the winter now?
A decade is one thing but being abandoned for 30-50 years is unrecoverable.

Even for a dollar you aren't going to tackle something like this:

or even this:

 

[vitanola]

Even for a dollar you aren't going to tackle something like this...

Certainly not! Those homes, and I fear those neighborhods (and perhaps cities) are beyond reasonable restoration.
On the other hand, there are modestly priced places which date to the Era, which sit in nice neighborhoods with decent schools, and which do not look like they survived wither the Coventry bombing or Coxey's Army. Here are a few recent sales from suburban Cleveland. All stand in Parma Heights, a pleasant community with modest taxes and yet reasonably good services:
$22,000

$40,000

$50,000

$41,000

$25,000

$24,000

 

[Stearmen]

If that first house was in our old part of town, it would fetch at least $299,000, in that condition! Location, Location, Location.

 

[Stearmen]

Changing of season sucks. Let’s just face it. lol lol If people could choose they definitely would not be going through the crap that they have back there this winter---either that or they are definitely too stoned to care. lol lol I would be somewhere in the tropics if finances and job opportunities allowed it. If it never got below would be fine with me.
As for aristocracy moving in changing weather---you mean like how New Yorkers and such go to Florida for the winter now?
A decade is one thing but being abandoned for 30-50 years is unrecoverable.

Even for a dollar you aren't going to tackle something like this:

or even this:

 

[Shangas]

I think it was the Mythbusters who proved that duct-tape, used correctly, could fix almost anything.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I spent one winter in California, and found it a very unsettling experience. I hate snow, and find myself counting the days until spring in November, but a winter where I didn't experience winter at all felt -- morally wrong, like lying, cheating, stealing or moving a baseball team to Los Angeles.

Summer is a treat, something which must be *earned* every year by suffering, and the whole snowbird thing is a sign of a people of a sadly weakened moral fibre. There's a reason why all the hippies ended up in California -- they didn't have the strong moral core necessary to endure a Northeastern winter. So there.

 

[Fibber Mcgee]

Is the dislike of hippies unanimous on here ? I thought I was alone on that one also.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Is the dislike of hippies unanimous on here ? I thought I was alone on that one also.

On this side of the forum, yes. On the fashion side, as long as you're not naked, you're golden.

 

[Nobert]

Depends. Many of the adults around me when I was growing up were hippies, but they were middle-aged, civil-rights-movement, back-to-the-land, Michael-Row-The-Boat-Ashore, type hippies. As I got older, some of them began to seem a little more pathetic to me, but by that time I was a hippie teenager myself (hey, I was young and it was the late 80s, cut me a break). As for modern, young, tie-dye wearing, stoner, Phish-following, Ultimate Frisbee players who reek of patchouli, I don't have any particular use for that subculture.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Depends. Many of the adults around me when I was growing up were hippies, but they were middle-aged, civil-rights-movement, back-to-the-land, Michael-Row-The-Boat-Ashore, type hippies. As I got older, some of them began to seem a little more pathetic to me, but by that time I was a hippie teenager myself (hey, I was young and it was the late 80s, cut me a break). As for modern, young, tie-dye wearing, stoner, Phish-following, Ultimate Frisbee players who reek of patchouli, I don't have any particular use for that subculture.

There is a difference between the cause-conscious free thinkers of the early 60's and the slacker stoners of today. Irrespective of how you feel about their cause, at least the former had a sense of duty and a direction to take it ("I mean...say what you will about the tenets of national socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos"). The latter are just lazy and will grasp onto anything that gives them an extra day without contributing to society.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Hippies who came up here to live in the woods in houses they built with their own hands ceased to be hippies the first winter they survived here. The ones who couldn't cut it were the ones who fled screaming back to Berkeley or wherever it was they came from when the temperature dipped below forty.

I have no use *at all* for the sex-drugs-rock-and-roll hippie ethos of the sixties. They were parasites on the back of the civil rights movement, not its originators or its motivators, and they are entitled to no credit at all for its accomplishments. I'll put the street activism of the thirties up against that of the sixties any day in terms of what it actually accomplished for the working people of America.

But I have no problem with the homesteading, cabin-dwelling, back-to-the-landers -- we need more people in the world who say "kish mir en toches" to modern consumerism, and if it means putting up with the sight of filthy, grizzled old-man feet poking out of Birkenstocks, well, I'd rather see that any day than another pair of new-out-of-the-box Bass boat shoes on the feet of another smarmy middle-class gentrifier.

 

[winterland1]

The stereotypes are still around. I know many of so-called hippies of nowadays who spend much of their time helping others. They travel to impoverished nations helping build houses, providing clean water and food.
They also promote activism of eating healthy, being spiritually healthy, keeping our water and air clean, being kind to others etc.
They are some of the smartest and hard working people I know. Yes some do wear tie dye, have dreads and are into music, some being musicians. Some do smoke marijuana and choose that over alcohol. I say I wish there were more people like this around.
Just my experience.

 

[HudsonHawk]

The stereotypes are still around. I know many of so-called hippies of nowadays who spend much of their time helping others. They travel to impoverished nations helping build houses, providing clean water and food.
They also promote activism of eating healthy, being spiritually healthy, keeping our water and air clean, being kind to others etc.
They are some of the smartest and hard working people I know. Yes some do wear tie dye, have dreads and are into music, some being musicians. Some do smoke marijuana and choose that over alcohol. I say I wish there were more people like this around.
Just my experience.

There are variations in every form. For every one of the hippies you describe, there's another who spends his time playing hacky sack and helping himself. Just like there's also the suit wearing consumerist square who does just as much as the hippies you describe, just doesn't wear it on his sleeve. You don't have to wear tie-dyed nor an 8-panel flat cap and sing Woody Guthrie songs to be a good person who contributes.

 

[Nobert]

There are variations in every form. For every one of the hippies you describe, there's another who spends his time playing hacky sack and helping himself. Just like there's also the suit wearing consumerist square who does just as much as the hippies you describe, just doesn't wear it on his sleeve. You don't have to wear tie-dyed nor an 8-panel flat cap and sing Woody Guthrie songs to be a good person who contributes.

Hear, hear.

 

[jamespowers]

:rofl:

 

[jamespowers]

If that first house was in our old part of town, it would fetch at least $299,000, in that condition! Location, Location, Location.

Yep snow decreases the value by 75%.

 

[jamespowers]

There are variations in every form. For every one of the hippies you describe, there's another who spends his time playing hacky sack and helping himself. Just like there's also the suit wearing consumerist square who does just as much as the hippies you describe, just doesn't wear it on his sleeve. You don't have to wear tie-dyed nor an 8-panel flat cap and sing Woody Guthrie songs to be a good person who contributes.

Definitely variations and the hippies here don't do one damned good thing.

 

[Stearmen]

I spent one winter in California, and found it a very unsettling experience. I hate snow, and find myself counting the days until spring in November, but a winter where I didn't experience winter at all felt -- morally wrong, like lying, cheating, stealing or moving a baseball team to Los Angeles.

Summer is a treat, something which must be *earned* every year by suffering, and the whole snowbird thing is a sign of a people of a sadly weakened moral fibre. There's a reason why all the hippies ended up in California -- they didn't have the strong moral core necessary to endure a Northeastern winter. So there.

On any other day, I would agree with you whole hardily Lizzie! But as I type this, I am in massive pain, radiating from my back, down both legs, excruciating, every time I move. I was shovelling snow this morning, not heavy wet stuff, light powder, so I must have pinched a nerve. If this keeps up, I may have to move neer James. Can you clear some of those Hippies out, and fumigate for me?

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I think it was the Mythbusters who proved that duct-tape, used correctly, could fix almost anything.

 

[HudsonHawk]