Jacksonville, OR

Quite surprisingly, no less than seven other schmucks decided it would be a great idea to throw down $2300 to spend six weeks in the Southern Oregon boondocks busting their asses to build a house for someone else. James Thomson, the mastermind behind this enterprise, should be given some recognition from the business world; a clear candidate for this years' "How to separate hippie do-gooders from their precious cash reserves without really trying" (previous winners include Greenpeace and the guy who runs the expat newspaper in Bombay with an army of paying volunteers to proofread for him). In addition to the ubiquitous Unemployed Homeless Veteran, we have the Sarcastic Computer Programmer Looking for Something Real; the Reformed Ski Bum; the Chick Who Is Really Into Herbal Remedies; the Blue Collar Guy/Closet Deadhead Looking To Do Something Beautiful and Practical; the Hippie Chick Who Plays Bluegrass Guitar; the Idealistic and Gregarious College Kid, Yet To Be Disillusioned By Life; and Guy Who Kinda Just Wanders Around and Hikes A Lot.

Financial absurdities aside, it is oddly satisfying about hauling wheelbarrow loads of gravel to fill a rubble trench, on top of which a heart-shaped cob kitchen will sit for perhaps the next 500 years or so, give or take a few earthquakes/landslides/volcanic eruptions/missile attacks. Something primal in man's nature compels him to create works of permanence and beauty that are "greater" than himself. The same cannot be said for pushing papers in a wobbly cubicle in the midst of a ginormous strip mall, stretching for as far as the eye can see, full of Radio Shacks, Game Stops, and Hollywood Video.

If Southwestern Ohio suddenly grew mountainous overnight, it would be rechristened Southern Oregon, where you are free to form an alternative community, bake bread, make goat cheese to sell to the local markets, eat your own chickens, and host 10 wandering vagabonds to build you a house (and the odd fund raising hoedown in the back forty), but pumping your own gas is simply out of the question. No sales tax and the rain is free and abundant.