The Road to Fair Play: A Pioneer’s Tale

Befitting to start here not only because we plan to launch Brian’s first book by month’s end. It was 49 years ago in June 1975 that the four young new age pioneers landed here in Fair Play after driving all through the night – Brian and Diana in his 1955 GMC ¾ ton pickup full of stuff including their 3 goats while pulling a trailer behind with three hives of bees, Larry and Janice driving our 1958 Chevy 1 ½ ton flatbed stake-side truck called Big Bertha heavily loaded with precious Back-to-the Land cargo. Shortly thereafter the big semi-truck arrived with its lowboy precariously full of our newly acquired 1952 Mac Army 4000-gallon water truck, our John Deere tractor with all its implements, a dozen creosoted 32 foot-long wharf poles, another free-standing 4000-gallon water tank and last but not least a large wooden cage with all our clutch of egg-laying chickens. A rough long night for all.

By that long memorable first day’s end, we all crashed anywhere we could find amongst the forest’s trees under an unbelievably starlit sky. We were home. Fair Play to us! (An Irish expression proclaiming ‘Good Job, Well Done!’).

Pick up a copy of Brian’s book and enjoy his story spanning four decades in Fair Play, California.