photo credit: Ruth Dussault
82-year-olds Jane Lapiner (left) and David Simpson,
formerly known as the Diggers.

In the early 1970s, tens of thousands of American youth left the cities in search of a new social order based on small, rural, egalitarian communities. Most of the back-to-the-land communes did not last, but in Humboldt County several thrived for decades. Today, those original communalists are now in their 70s and 80s. 

Ruth Dusseault traveled to Humboldt County to talk with some of them about the challenges of aging in place.

CLICK ON ABOVE AUDIO CLIP TO HEAR STORY

Reporter Ruth Dusseault is with the Investigative Reporting Program at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She covered this story through a grant from The SCAN Foundation.