Bill Ostrum and I were on the last leg of a great road trip.  It was November 1970.  I was 20 years old.  We were in San Francisco to visit my childhood friend and 1010 band mate, Scot Robinson.  Scot moved there a year earlier.  He lived in a rented house in the mountains near Berkley.

The hippie revolution, fueled by the adolescent angst of the "coming of age" baby boom generation fanned to flame just a couple of years earlier here.  The air was still charged with the radical individualism that defined the 60’s.  Hippie culture dominated the entire place evidenced by young people dressed in classic hippie garb and the colorful hand painted signs on storefronts and murals on walls.  On the Berkley campus I saw crowds gather around religious and political zealots proclaiming odd foreign doctrines. 

I stood at the corner of Haight and Asbury in San Francisco considered to be the central point from which the California hippie revolution radiated.   There weren’t too many people around there then and nothing much seemed to be happening.  Part of me wished I could have been there in the great Summer of Love but another part of me was relieved that I wasn’t.  After all, I came there to see Scot.

Fall in San Francisco wasn’t as pronounced as it is in Chicago.  It seemed to me there was more to Fall here this year than just the changing weather. The proverbial rose was off the hippie bloom.  Dozens and sometimes hundreds of hitch hikers congregated at major intersections hoping for rides, many, to far away cities and states.

Scot was living a healthy life after a couple of not so healthy years.  He had adopted a raw foods vegetarian diet, drank fresh carrot juice, and was about to open his own vegetarian restaurant. 

Coincidently I had recently become vegetarian perhaps to restore a couple of my not so healthy years.  As each other’s closest friend during adolescence, our relationship was one of equals experiencing life together.  As our teenage years molded us into young men, Scot was always an influence for good in my life.  While visiting with him in California, he taught me about nutrition, fasting, natural foods, and organic farming.

Scot took me to a popular natural foods store in Berkley called Wholy Foods where all the hippies shopped.  I was unprepared for what awaited me.  Wholy Foods was a large store that sold all manner of organic produce, whole grains, juices, naturally produced dairy products, nuts, cold pressed oils, and other healthy foods. 

I had been in health food stores before but this place was a lot different.  It had a high ceiling with tie dyed parachutes billowing from above.  Large open earthenware crocks and wooden barrels served up an intriguing array of grains, seeds, and nuts.  A large old oak wall sized cooler displayed a large variety of juices and dairy products.  Numerous hanging scales were available for weighing purchases of the many bulk items available.  Women shopped with their babies in back pack carriers.

I was enchanted with this place.  The child in me was in a world of delight surrounded with nature’s bounty.  Time seemed to stand still as my senses were overloaded with the sights, smells, and even the sounds of Jimi Hendrix playing on the sound system. 

This place seemed idyllic. I loved knowing that a place like this was so popular.  I bought coconut and pineapple juice and some raw cashew nuts and probably other stuff and it was soon time to go.  My car was parked on the street a couple of blocks away.  As Bill, Scot, and I walked back to my car something remarkable happened to me.

It was a clear sunny afternoon. I enjoyed the warm California sun rays in November knowing that at home in Illinois it was chilly and overcast. Without warning, without breaking stride, something spectacular happened to me as I lifted my left foot from the sidewalk.

My conscious thought was abruptly interrupted by a brilliant light in the sky above my left shoulder. I saw a sparkling indistinct image growing in size approaching me from the heavens. As it got closer I began to see detail. It looked to me like a floating city composed of a cluster of glass geodesic domes. Oddly familiar I recognized this city.

A voice spoke audibly to me alone telling me about this city. I was told that this was a vision of my future. That all the inhabitants of this city lived together in a supportive community where each one’s gifts and talents were fully expressed. Products and services were exchanged in commerce without need of money.  The city was self sufficient requiring no connection to any other city on earth. All people there wanted to be there and enjoyed a thriving economy independent of the rest of the world. The voice I can only attribute to that of God, told me that my destiny was to build a city "For My gospel”.

It was breathtaking. I was thrilled beyond words. The voice went on to explain that every person I had ever met or ever would meet was for this very purpose and that there were no mistakes nor accidents. It was all part of a plan greater than me. The vision and accompanying explanation rang true and I eagerly embraced it but for one aspect. The reference the voice made to building a city for “My gospel” troubled me. The gospel bore reference to Jesus and the bible. Something I had not yet reconciled.

Was I being called by God? I shrank back that the notion of being associated with God. At that time of life I hadn’t made a decision one way or the other about religion. Jesus and God were far too weighty a subject for me then.

Nonetheless, I was overcome by this vision. Time seemed to stand perfectly still as I experienced this. Coming now back to my senses I placed my left foot back to the pavement and realized that all this had taken place in less time than it took to make one step forward.

Bill and Scot walked along side me having no idea that something life changing had just happened to me. Still rather dizzy from this experience we got into my car and as I closed the door I wondered how and if I should tell anyone what I had just experienced.

Overcome with awe, I began to stumble through an explanation of what I had just seen and heard. I’m sure that if asked about it, Bill and Scot would say that I was rambling incomprehensibly about something crazy which was not exactly unlike me anyway.

All I knew was that I had a new and quickly growing conviction within me. The idea of a self-sufficient community using barter for commerce was fiercely intriguing.   I clearly saw that I wanted to open a store like Wholly Foods in my hometown to be the first business in what I assumed would be the first of many to thrive in the community I was shown that day.

With childhood friend and 1010 band mate Scot Robinson, I opened Moss Hill Natural Foods & Provisions Company in 1971. 

32 years later I was hired to create the marketing plan for Art of Barter and a few years later was able to acquire the company along with my business partner Ron Szekeres.  We now serve 1,400 plus small business trading partners in NE Illinois and have been responsible for in excess of $150,000,000.00 of barter transactions as of 2010. 

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