Lucy Beck		Debbie Ramsdell
	Tanya and Matthew		Marjan van den Belt and Robert Costanza
	Marlee, Rick & Nina		The Devine Family
	Per, Jenny, Solvei & Aren Eisenman		Cara Taussig and Marty Gawron
	Dennis and Trisa Gay		Marc Greenblatt
	Shelia Kerr		Carina Cartelli and Joe Lasek
	Melissa Mcginty		Sarah Sinnott
	Elizabeth Storey		Larilee Suiter
	Peter van Schaick		Mary Van Vleck
	Clark and Suzanne Hinsdale		Jonathan, Lorelei and Finn Atwood
	Gordon Gieg and Amy Snyder

I’m like a healthy plant looking for good soil to sink my roots into, and I’ve found that soil at Common Pastures. Here’s what I’m bringing from my life:

My livelihood: A college project showed me the way. I got a water polluter convicted, and after the judge ordered me paid a reward from the fine, I decided law school was for me. Irate, however, that the US Attorney refused to prosecute the other polluters, I first went to graduate school where I studied prosecutorial discretion and corporate crime. For thirty-five years since then, I’ve been working on holding corporations accountable. I have a law practice in NJ where I mostly represent whistleblowers; every month I ride the train south for a week’s work. I’m also reading and writing about the rights of citizens to take legal action to hold corporations accountable.

My family life: While an undergraduate, I married a woman with whom I enjoyed 30 years of family life. Seven years ago, we split up. After my son graduated from high school, I took him on three summer tours. First, we traveled with a cultural anthropologist in Papua New Guinea. Next we lived separately with Italian families in Todi, a medieval walled town atop an Umbrian hill. Then we traveled in Mongolia, where Alex and his girlfriend interviewed ten nomad families about the impact of privatization on their lives, before touring Uyghur China along the Silk Road. He’s now graduated, is on his way to becoming a world citizen, and is in Bolivia learning Spanish. Meanwhile, I’m an empty-nested bachelor.

My folks are alive and well in Schenectady, NY. Thanksgivings are family gathering times, and last year they entertained four-dozen descendents and close friends. My train to NYC goes through Schenectady; once a month, I stop in. In between, we chat on our "family plan" cell phones. Now in their mid-80s, they’re reaping the satisfactions of their rich community life. Among other things, last year, 5,000 school kids got a day off from school to tour Johnny’s Maybee Farm, which sports an authentic 17^th century Dutch barn. Sally’s just finished an index to a substantial of body of local historical documents and is basking in thanks from grateful historians. They’re continually visiting with friends and family.

My community projects: Until I started closely mentoring my son six years ago, my community work revolved around my legal work. Instead of earning money, I took novel cases. In 1987, I tried the first race-discrimination jury trial in NJ, which led to my interest in jury trials, and three years later, a jury trial bill that I lobbied into law. As a result, juries hear whistleblower and discrimination cases, and award punitive damages, when deserved. Finding that NJ trial lawyers deserved training in these laws, over a five-year period, I ran a series of seminars in which I trained 350 trial lawyers. I legally overturned an unfair ethics rule that barred lawyers from interviewing corporate employees. I founded a trade group of employment lawyers. I won a couple of small class actions and shared my papers and experience with my colleagues. Recently, I took a real flyer—I started drafting whistleblower and anti-corruption laws for a Chinese colleague who I met in Shanghai. Luckily, he’s pretty fluent in English. I’ve just finished the 90^th CD in the Pimsleur series, and I’m scouting for a Mandarin tutor. For the immediate future, however, my community work will be much more local. I’m helping to grow Common Pastures into a convivial community.

Answers to CVC’s questionaire: What I like about where I live is the excellent vegetarian cafeteria across the street, where I eat ten meals a week; the owner’s okayed my apprenticing to learn their recipes for dinners in our common house. I said that I’d like to live in Common Pastures because I’m looking for a more authentic community—for better or worse till property sale do us part. I’m also pleased at the prospect of living in a bucolic setting—I’ve already discovered how much forest "busy beavers" can decimate in one season! And I smile at the prospect of becoming "Uncle Peter" to neighborhood kids. I’m a good pick for cohousing because I’m agreeable, and yet when there’s a real difference of views (reasonable and unreasonable people can differ), I’m doggedly determined to work things out in a spirit of good faith. I’m a problem-solver who’s open to new ideas and ventures. I’m realistic, yet optimistic in my approach to situations (instead of sadder, but wiser!). I wrote that my concern about cohousing is that as a people, we have little experience forming intentional communities; as a result, I decided to focus initially on seeing that we follow the guidelines spelled out in Christian’s Creating a Life Together. When asked about my personality, I said I’m somewhere between extroverted and introverted; I’m impulsive and intellectually intuitive; I’m a mix of tender-hearted and tough-minded; I’m flexible, often late, having invariably left a messy desk behind; and I’m pretty resilient to emotional stresses. When asked what’s important to my happiness, I said meaningful relationships, meaningful work, worlds and communities to explore, books and broadband—none of which I can live without.