In the late 70s I lived on East First Street in Manhattan, on the border of the East Village and the Lower East Side. It was a gritty, scrappy neighborhood. Young artists and musicians flocked there for the low rents. CBGB’s (the foremost venue for punk bands) might have been around the corner, but the Catholic Worker St. Joseph House was across the street. I didn’t know much about it, but every time I walked by, I was reminded that Catholics sometimes choose to be on the side of the poor and oppressed.
Flash forward four decades to the pandemic. One morning in early June, quarantined at home in the Bronx at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests, I was watching the news and saw a Buffalo police officer shove an older man to the ground. When the man’s identity was released, I was curious to know more about him, so I did a little research. His name is Martin Gugino, and he is a longtime peace activist who is associated with the Catholic Workers.
A week or so later, I came to stay at the home of a close relative here in the Tug Hill region of New York State. Having volunteered as a WWOOFer on a farm in Italy half a dozen summers, and unable to plan a trip there this year, I wanted to find a farm where I could volunteer, if such a place existed. Remembering the St. Joseph House, and Martin Gugino, it occurred to me that maybe there were Catholic Worker farms. Voilà! St. Francis Farm popped up. Miraculously, amazingly, it is in Lacona, only half an hour’s drive away. After some emailing back and forth, my family member and I went to visit one Saturday. Joanna, on her afternoon off, generously showed us around the huge garden, the henhouse, the mushroom log inoculation operation, the pond and stream, the hayfield, the pig, the wood workshop, and the trails. We met Lorraine and Zach. Lorraine gave us lavender to take home.
We made a date for me to come back. That was about four visits ago. There may be other tasks needing doing, but I love to weed, so Joanna humors me, and we weed. When we are within at least shouting distance of each other on a row of kale or carrots, we have wide-ranging conversations: about homeschooling, Black Lives Matter, fiction and nonfiction books, our respective religions (was I surprised to find out they are Quakers!) and growing up rural (her) and urban (me).
Joanna, Lorraine, and Zach have showed themselves to be just as generous and openhearted as they were that first day. The family invites me to stay for lunch (as we observe social distancing), and I happily accept. A couple of days after lunch I picked berries in the quiet hayfield, with just the birds for company, before I drove off. Lorraine gives me fresh produce, so at home we are dining on wonderful salads and greens. Bags of kale and jars of pesto wait in the freezer for fall eating.
As long as I’m here in Tug Hill, I hope to keep going back to work and to spend time with these exceptional people who model a simple, non-consumerist way of living that seems, during this pandemic, more essential than ever.