A Commune in Takoma Park: The Lincoln Avenue Story
Estelle Carol and me in front of the Lincoln Ave Commune-1974 |
A number of people were associated with the commune as residents and overnight guests. Following the example of poet and sage Bob Dylan, I have (for the most part), rearranged their faces and given them all other names.
Although named after "Honest Abe", the Lincoln Avenue Commune began with a lie — a monstrous fraud perpetrated on the landlady Mrs. Chu. You see, we didn't think that we could find anyone who would rent to a gang of ruffians like Betty, Becky, Joey, Chet, Sarah, Greg and me (Bobbo) .
So in order to sign the lease on the little white clapboard house at 201 Lincoln Ave in Takoma Park, Mrs. Chu was told that Betty and I were married and that young Joey was their son. Becky was supposedly Betty's sister. We figured we'd sneak the rest of the people in after the lease was signed and hope for the best.
Whether Mrs. Chu actually believed that ridiculous story is unclear, but the lease was signed for $250 a month and another experiment in communal living and radical politics began. Whatever Mrs. Chu thought of our charming tale, the FBI swallowed it hook-line-and-sinker.
In my FBI file they dutifully noted that I had moved in with my wife Betty, our young son Joey and my sister-in-law Becky. That I was still legally married (though separated) from someone else seemed to have escaped their notice. It took the Feds years to untangle this seemingly blatant violation of Maryland marriage laws.
From the beginning, the Lincoln Avenue Commune had a political mission. We believed that without some kind of common bond, we would just be another rooming house. We agreed to share food buying, food preparation and household tasks. We talked about the problems of sexual relationships among commune members and agreed that unless people were already couples, pairing off from within the commune was not a great idea. We agreed to be discreet about drugs(consumption of "soft drugs" was permitted---dealing of any type was never allowed). Some of us never used drugs and that was cool too.
We had the nearby United Farm Workers and Piney Branch communes as congenial neighbors and there were a other political friends and associates within easy walking distance.
Greg and Sarah set up a production office for the Spark newspaper in the basement and the Lincoln Ave Commune became a center for all kinds of political activism. We had no clear "political line" but leaned toward a kind of free-wheeling radicalism combined with militant street tactics at demonstrations and lots of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll.
Takoma Park in the 1970's was a good place to be. The town was dominated by the 7th Day Adventists so healthy food was easy to find. Beer was more of a problem, but a quick trip outside the town borders easily solved that. We had a food coop and a recycling center. There was the Flower, Langley and Silver theaters for movies, all within walking distance. For major shopping, Langley Park, Silver Spring and DC were all close by. UM was only a short bike, car or bus trip away. Although the Metro was still under construction, the buses ran reasonably often and it was easy to bike around. Of course a walk through the leafy environs of the community was always pleasant with rocky Sligo Creek running through the center of town.
Takoma Park back then was a somewhat down-at-the-heels suburb with enough working class and low income people to have its own anti-poverty agency-- TESS (Takoma-East Silver Spring). It was racially mixed with a small but steadily growing Hispanic population. Hippies had begun moving in during the late 1960's. It was an open-minded tolerant sort of place where the Lincoln Ave Communards felt comfortable.
Takoma Park also had its own radical-elder-in-residence, Sammie Abdullah Abbott, whose raspy voice dominated public hearings about freeways and other zoning abominations that might wreck his beloved Takoma Park. It was fun to go to local community meetings just to listen as Sammie gave holy hell to the redbaiting rightwingers who dared challenge him. Sammie was later elected Mayor of the town.
Of course it wasn't all bread and roses. We had our intra-commune disagreements and personality clashes. People moved in and out with the usual great irregularity. Sexual relationships began and then fell apart leading to awkwardness and social discomfort.Some people were better motivated about the mundane chores of washing dishes, sweeping up, cleaning the toilets and shopping for food. People just got fed up with close quarters living and moved on to situations more congenial to their need for personal space.
We knew we were under police surveillance. We had at least one visit from the FBI and Commune members were sometimes followed in obvious ways by the police. We were infiltrated briefly by a police spy who tried to enlist us into some hare-brained political violence in addition to trying to deal pot from our house. She was only a visitor though and was soon made unwelcome before moving on to her next set of victims in Columbus, Ohio. We would get strange phone calls offering to sell us weapons and other contraband. None of this helped our general paranoia and certainly contributed to tensions within the house.
Still, for all of the problems we faced trying to live together, we had a lot of good times and a lot of just plain weird times. Surprisingly, we actually accomplished some political work in between the bouts of commune craziness.
The Commune abruptly changed direction in the winter of 1975 after the last of the original members moved out and it became a lesbian feminist commune.
I was the only man in the lesbian-feminist commune for the first month of its new existence until I moved to Chicago in January. Its new lesbian-feminist citizens treated me with a kind of bemused affection and gave me a nice going away ceremony when I departed to Chicago with Estelle Carol. It makes you wonder where the idea that feminists are "man-haters" comes from. The history of its incarnation as a lesbian-feminist commune will have to wait until one of those people tells that tale.
Some random Lincoln Avenue memories:
Penny was probably the best cook of in the house. Then working as an aide in the McKeldin Library, she brought her Chinese mom's culinary ideas to our tiny kitchen. Armed with the most powerful spices and herbs from her Northern Chinese arsenal,
Penny would whip up some scorching 5 Alarm stir-fry concoction that was fantastic if washed down with enough cold beer.
Penny of course would douse hers with Louisiana Hot Sauce, because 5 alarm stir-fry just wasn't spicy enough.
Being of Irish-American and Chinese descent, Penny could be counted on to support Irish freedom and Chinese reunification. She participated in Irish-American protests against British imperialism and was very active in DC's small Chinatown community.
Greg and Sarah were the masterminds of the Spark newspaper which had its crowded layout office in the semi-finished basement of the Commune. Producing an underground newspaper in the early 1970's before Photoshop, QuarkXPress and personal computers was a laborious process involving such antique tools as typewriters, t-squares,& smelly glue to lay out the pages. Spark was a mix of original stories, syndicated news and graphics fromLiberation News Service, stories and graphics shamelessly lifted from other publications, and a steady stream of editorial vitriol on the political issues of the day.
Beginning its life as a student produced paper at Montgomery College in Rockville, it slowly sifted its focus toward more working class issues after it cut its ties with the school. The paper supported women's liberation, worker's rebellions, the American Indian Movement, the Black Liberation Movement, the resistance inside the US military, an immediate end to US imperialism everywhere and pretty much a total revolt against a corrupt exploititive society.
Spark was able to sustain itself for several years on a small advertising budget and the determination of people like Greg and Sarah who put in long hours after working their regular day jobs.
Of course in such a free wheeling rebellious environment populated by some distinctly colorful characters there were internal donnybrooks. Once University of Maryland radicals Walt Penney and Judi Bari had a disagreement over editorial policy and attached a Strike Manifesto to the front door of the Commune ala Martin Luther & his 95 Theses.That act (while intended to be half serious) got more laughs than action.
Disagreements with Judi did not prevent Lincoln Ave Communards from joining her when she was organizing strikers during a supermarket walkout. She came up with an ingenious plan to put Superglue in the store locks to keep them closed until locksmiths could be summoned. It's unclear whether she ever carried out the scheme.
I was a warehouse employee for the University of Maryland during an especially bitter strike of the DC area Sheraton hotels.When I learned that the University of Maryland Athletic Department was planning a testimonial dinner at one of the PG County struck hotels, I went into action with Saul Schniderman, Sue Lesser and other AFSCME members to plan a demonstration the night of the testimonial dinner. The hotel workers were joined that evening by a large assortment of UM AFSCME members, radical students, militant union members and hippie agitators from around the DC area. The United Farmworkers sent a contingent and offered to infiltrate the hotel scab force with the message of union solidarity.It worked wonders on the morale of the striking Sheraton workers.
The Commune hosted quite a number of visitors because of our political connections. VVAW member John Kniffen often stayed with us, sometimes accompanied by fellow VVAW member Scot Camil. We had AIM members from South Dakota crash at our place during the Wounded Knee occupation.Sometimes we had political "heavies" from NYC stay with us. They tended to treat us like ignorant hicks, but Commune members got their revenge for these slights one afternoon with two especially overbearing New Yorkers.
Chet had created a powerful alcoholic beverage made by mixing honey, raisins and raw unpastuerized apple cider and letting it age carefully under the porch. He called it his mead recipe. It tasted quite good actually, but packed a powerful wallop. The two "heavies" from NYC were encouraged to drink as much as they wanted, while we carefully controlled our intake. We enjoyed the sight of them descending rapidly into a hazy dazed stupor.
One night when only two Communards were home, they heard a loud explosion and all of the lights went out. Thinking they were under attack by police or rightwing crazies one of them grabbed a 30.30 deer rifle and covered the upstairs front window while the other covered the door and the 1st floor window with a WWII M-1 carbine. After about 15 minutes of peaceful quiet, they ventured outside as surreptiously as possible. There were no cops or rightwing crazies to be found. They soon figured out that a transformer on the nearby utility pole had exploded and that had caused the loud blast and the power outage. The guns( both legal), went back into their respective hiding places leaving both Communards feeling especially foolish.
We held house meetings on a semi-regular basis. Usually they were mundane affairs where we got to complain about each other's lousy housekeeping or incompetent cooking.But one afternoon Becky and the other Commune women looked a little more serious than usual and aimed their comments directly at the commune men. Two heavy feminists from Chicago were going to be staying at our Lincoln Ave Commune in Takoma Park, Md and we had better be on our best behavior. The implication seemed clear, the reputation of the DC women’s movement was on the line, and the guys had better not screw up.
As it turned out, the two “heavy feminists” from Chicago didn’t stay at Lincoln Ave. They decided to stay downtown someplace. The women from the Lincoln Ave Commune and the neighboring commune on Piney Branch Road met them there. The next day huge colorful feminist posters appeared all over the walls of our house. Women declaring war on rape, women holding hands in front of a love poem, the Statue of Liberty coming out in favor of daycare, a woman bursting out of a constricting medical cadeusus, a blooming sisterhood flower and an ingenious complex diagram that showed how man and woman could become a person. They had been hand silk screened by the Chicago Women’s Graphics Collective.
The two "heavy feminists" from Chicago were actually Estelle Carol and Tibby Lerner and both of them thought it was damned funny that they were considered "heavies" in the women's liberation movement. Ironically, I later hooked up with Estelle Carol on a trip to Cuba and we have been living together for the past 32 years.
The Lincoln Avenue Communards were not 24-7 druggies. In fact, some Communards never used drugs at all. But for some, recreational substances were part of Commune life. When the sounds, "Bong!" "Bong!" "Bong" were heard, it didn't mean that a grandfather clock had just struck 3:00. It meant it was time to bring out the marijuana apparatus.
Getting stoned before one of Richard Nixon's speeches became a Commune tradition. We would watch silently for a couple of minutes and then would begin a competition of who could cut loose with the most creative and/or obscene insults as he announced another war escalation or some other upcoming atrocity. The bong was also useful when we laughed our way through late nite episodes of Flash Gordon or some silly Japanese monster movie.
One night Communards awoke to blood-curdling screams coming from one of the women's bedrooms. It sounded like someone was being raped, stabbed, or something equally awful. The woman's bedroom was right off of the 1st floor living room and that is where we converged expecting the worst.
It turned out that she had gone to an Oby-Gny and the doctor had inserted an IUD (probably a Dalkon Shield) which was causing her excruciating pain. People got her to medical attention and she had the offending device removed. Those were the days when the medical establishment experimented on women's bodies with all manner of doubtful procedures. Wait, we still live in those times don't we? Oh well.......
Lincoln Ave made a name for itself in the textile department as well. Commune members were frequent shoppers at the local fabric store. Many yards of colorful taffeta went into making banners, headbands and flags to raise spirits at rallies, demonstrations, and uh...riots.
Communards also kept the local hardware store cash registers ringing with purchases of spray paint. They cut stencils and used spray paint to quickly decorate shirts, stop signs and public spaces. Sometimes they would just forget the stencils completely and spray paint huge messages denouncing war, racism and Nixon on freeway overpasses and even on cop station walls.
Usually people who moved in were reasonably ok individuals with the usual personal baggage and eccentricities that any 1970's rebel possessed. But in one case, a guy came into our lives who had some serious issues (as they are called these days). He had come from the highly respected RAP drug rehab program. RAP( Regional Addiction Program) turned a lot of people around, but they had their strikeouts as well as their base hits.
At first the guy seemed fine, taking a job as a youth counselor at a local Silver Spring agency. Then he started bringing young underage women home and having sexual relations with them. There was a struggle over that issue and others and he finally left after some bitterness. Later we heard he had gone back on dope. A sad case. Sadder still for the vulnerable young people he exploited....
Note: If you remember the Lincoln Avenue Commune and want to add your anecdote, e-mail me the details with the names suitably altered to protect both the guilty and innocent.
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It's the troubles that cause the rebels.
