See You in a Hundred Years

See You in a Hundred Years: Four Seasons in Forgotten America
By Logan Ward
BenBella Books, Inc. 2007
ISBN: 978-1-933771-15-1

Tired of their stressed-out 21st century city life, Heather and Logan Ward and their young son, Luther, sell their fashionable New York City apartment and buy a farm from another century in search of “the good old days.” They settle in the farming community of Swoope in Virginia’s Shendoah Valley, determined to live a “nothing modern” life out of 1900, for one full year.

Sounds romantic, maybe even idyllic, huh? But reality soon roosts with the chickens, forcing the Wards to face 1900 – and themselves –sans starry-eyed blinders: “Not only are we stressing ourselves out in order to de-stress, we’re rushing to slow down, recreating the past with the period-appropriate stuff (so much for Thoreauvian asceticism)” p. 27.

Divided into two parts, Green and Seasoned, part one rims with idealism, frustration, tension, angst, fear and exhaustion. Chapters include Goodbye, New York, Old Year’s Eve, Expedition to Nowhere, How I Learn to Drive, and Waiting for Rain. Part 2, Seasoned, turns a corner into guarded optimism, with chapters like Picking, Cleaning, Shelling Shucking, News from the Future, Under Fire, Home for the Holidays, and Back to the Future.

“Recreating the past” has its share of bumps, bruises, and adventure. Just making coffee and oatmeal before noon is a major accomplishment in their new century. Others include learning to drive a “bombproof” draft horse, Belle, and a wagon, battling drought, snakes, garden pests, rodents, exhaustion, a cantankerous wood store, and incredulous (at first) neighbors. The Wards must also learn how to milk twin Nubian goats, maker their own cheese and butter, do without a car, electricity, a phone, TV, computers, email, and running water. Not to mention doing laundry with a hand-wring “washing machine” and figuring out how to survive a Virginia winter with nothing but a wood stove for heat.

The early weeks of this “idyllic” project to return to “a simpler life” are “… marked by frustration and a growing bitterness toward one another. I was convinced that our animosity during the preparation period would melt away as soon as the project started,” Logan writes, “but things have only gotten worse.” (p. 91)

Obviously, “simple life” in a century past proves more complicated than either Logan anticipated. But there are other surprises: the art of the Drop-In. These unannounced, extemporaneous visits from neighbors initially irritate but later invigorate. Unexpected kindness. Generosity with skin on. Handmade birthday and Christmas gifts. A good sleep after a job well-done.

The Wards also discover the dawn-to-dusk, back-breaking world of a dirt farmer trying to eke out a subsistence from drought-thirsty land, a failing garden, unruly livestock, a horse with a mind of her own, and a Twilight Zone sense of disorientation that makes a pineapple cake look right side-up. They also discover cool water from their hand-pumped well. Homemade soap and outdoor baths with water heated on the stove. Fresh goat’s milk, eggs, and just-picked vegetables. Unhurried sunsets. Friends who invite them to parties, escort their headlight-less, horse-drawn wagon home after dark, and a seemingly surly neighbor whose gruff exterior belies a heart of gold. The satisfaction of eating what they’ve planted, tended and harvested on their own land, with their own hands.

This occasionally uneven, sometimes coarse and often hilarious chronicle takes us back one hundred years while wondering, “How did they do it?” Ward’s pithy commentary and observations include, “By respecting the past, we can live a more meaningful present – and future. All my doubts about why we left New York? The fear that I was fleeing adult responsibility, putting my family at risk because I could not cope with reality? Those worries were unfounded. This project isn’t about escape. It’s about exploring those inalienable realities facing humanity since the dawn of time – food, water, nature, community. It’s about finding our place in the continuum of history” (p. 227).

As their year in 1900 winds down, the little family forges tighter bonds. connections. Deeper roots. New skills. Old-fashioned ingenuity. A network of support not bound by time or technology. New friends. Neighbors. Community.

Written with a nimble touch and brisk panache, See You in a Hundred Years is persuasive without being patronizing, honest without being acerbic. It almost makes you want to chuck your stressed-out 21st century life for “the good old days,” too. Almost.