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Mr. and Mrs. Thoreau

Near Arcadia, nestled by a river, is a homemade house in the woods, where a husband and wife find their joy in living simply.

By JEFF KLINKENBERG
Published September 21, 2006

[Times photos: Skip O'Rourke]

The Smokes built their home by the Peace River in the 1980s, ferrying supplies by canoe at first. The solar-powered house, built on stilts, has two levels and 1,200 square feet. It survived the 2004 hurricane season with nary a broken window.

	The Smokes cook with propane in their kitchen, which is open to the rest of the living space. The only enclosed room is the bathroom, allowing cool breezes to move freely.
	Al and Karen Smoke are handy sorts.
	The Smokes used chain saws to carve a road through the pines to their property. The nearest paved road is more than a mile away. Still, the outside world manages to intrude via canoe, in the form of campers.

In an iPod world, Karen and Al Smoke are as old-fashioned as a windup Victrola.

Every morning, before Al makes the bed, he cranks up the Hi-Tech Victrola Player Tone, as it is known, and listens to one of his scratchy 78 rpm long-playing discs. Lately he has made the bed while serenaded by Irving Kaufman warbling I'm All Bound 'Round With the Mason-Dixon Line, recorded during the silent film era.

After supper, as the chuck-will's-widows begin their nightly symphony out in the woods, Karen weaves a rug in the living room. She talks to Al. Al listens. Al listens because he knows what is good for him.

When they married two decades ago, the first thing she did was ferry him to the urologist. "He had six kids by his first wife," she says. "Enough damage. I had him fixed."

Al is 76, and Karen is 51. They live in a little house on the Peace River, more than a mile from the nearest paved road. Their idea of happiness isn't owning a lot of new stuff. It's living as comfortably and simply as possible.

They have no telephone.

No air conditioning.

No utility bill. They get their power from solar panels, so they never write a check to the electric company.

Thoreau would understand.

"Our life is frittered away by detail," he wrote in Walden. "An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers."

When the Peace River floods, the Smokes get around by canoe.

"Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity," Thoreau wrote.

In 1854.

* * *

Can you imagine Thoreau in the 21st century, fidgeting behind the wheel of his Prius while creeping through Tampa on 1-275 at rush hour?

Talk about the mass of men -- and women - living lives of quiet desperation. Honk, honk, honk! Modern desperation is seldom quiet.

As our lives become more complicated, most of us yearn for simplicity. We think of buying a little place in the country, a weekend place at first, somewhere we can retire. We'll give away our useless possessions. We'll grow tomatoes, tackle Ulysses, turn off the phone. Especially turn off the phone. Turn off the television, too. Breathe deeply, watch the birds, talk to our spouse. Maybe play Parcheesi.

That's the dream anyhow. But the fact is, most of us probably would lose our sanity without modernity, without air conditioning, without American Idol on the big-screen plasma, without the canary yellow SUV to tote the kids to soccer practice. Speaking of kids, yours just came into the house to show off the new tattoo and ask for a hot pink cell phone for her birthday.

A kindly neighbor once offered Thoreau a doormat.

"It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil," he said.

* * *

The Smokes met in rural New Jersey, where Karen ran a printing press and Al repaired machinery. They got married and moved to Miami when their company did.

Miami has many charms, but the Smokes found the exotic city too busy and crowded. Al had grown up on a dairy farm, and Karen had been one of those girls who never played with dolls. "I liked frogs and snakes."

They began saving money for retirement and a move elsewhere. One day, Al witnessed a triple shooting. He told Karen, "Let's get out of here."

They had discovered the Peace River on a camping trip. They bought a couple of acres near a bend in the river outside Arcadia in 1985.

They pitched a tent and began their labor.

Here is something you need to know about the Smokes. They can do practically anything with their hands. When Al was in the Navy, he was considered the sailor with the highest mechanical aptitude aboard his aircraft carrier. Karen was an able plumber, seamstress, quilter, mechanic. She wasn't afraid of electrical work. A chain saw became an extension of her arms.

There were no roads into their property, so they carried supplies in by canoe. They opened a road between pines with chain saws. Al rented a bulldozer and cleared land for the house.

They built it on stilts. It has two levels. The only room with walls is the bathroom. Otherwise, there are no partitions to block breezes. The house has about 1,200 square feet of space, a 22-foot ceiling and 26 windows. Sunlight never falls upon the windows because of the eaves, verandas and screened porch.

They cook with propane. They have a wood-burning stove in the living room.

They have their own well and pump. They have a composting toilet. They were among Florida's solar-energy pioneers. Al bought 22 used solar panels and a dozen used batteries. They crank out 13.2 volts for their house.

At night, Al strums a battered Martin guitar - acoustic, of course - by the glow of an electric lamp. Karen reads her beloved books. She gets most of them from the library in Arcadia, though she owns several copies of her favorite book, Cross Creek. She identifies with author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, an independent, tough-talkin', solidly built gal who gave up city life to live in the Florida backwoods with few luxuries.

Mail is virtually the only way the Smokes communicate with the outside world.

They do own a television, a 13-inch, 12-volt Sansui purchased at a truck stop. It has a color picture. "Look at this," Al says. "I can tune in about six stations." He watches the weather report and Antiques Roadshow.

On weekends, the Smokes listen to Prairie Home Companion while Karen works on a quilt.

"When they made a movie about Prairie Home Companion a few months back, we thought about driving to Sarasota and seeing it," Al says.

They never got around to it. Last movie they saw, in an actual theater, was Close Encounters of the Third Kind when they lived in Miami.

In 1977.

* * *

People are always asking the Smokes what they miss about city life.

They become quiet, look at each other, work hard at giving a good answer. The real answer is: nothing. When something important happens, they find out about it eventually.

They didn't know about Sept. 11, 2001, until Sept. 13.

They didn't hear about the space shuttle disaster until the next day, when Karen's dad drove out to tell them.

During another visit, her dad suffered a massive heart attack. The Smokes had no way of dialing 911, so they put the frail old man in their 1983 VW bus and sped toward Arcadia.

He died on the way.

They miss him, but they console themselves with the thought that he died in their company and never had to be connected to tubes or wires at the hospital.

The Smokes still don't have a phone. "We know some people who have gone mainstream," Karen says. "They've bought a cell phone."

Not the Smokes.

* * *

They skinny-dip in an old cattle trough to cool off. They bathe in an outdoor shower.

They grow collards, kale, broccoli, green beans and okra. They have given up on tomatoes, squash and melons because of the mildew.

They grow grapes, bananas, grapefruit, oranges and tangerines. They grow persimmons. Al likes to eat peanut butter-and-persimmon sandwiches.

Sometimes they entertain a guest for lunch. Karen expects her guests to clean their plates. "If I take the trouble to prepare the food, that's what I expect." She'll ask, "Don't you like my food?"

They seldom eat meat. Karen says, "We can't afford it."

They live below the poverty line. Al receives a $900 Social Security check every month. They have a little money in the bank. He devoted 35 years to his company before retiring, but it declared bankruptcy and he lost his pension.

The Smokes started a business to tide them over.

They call it the Non-Electric Toy Co. They make toys out of wood. Al does most of the work by hand, though a generator powers a few tools. The minute he fires up the generator, Karen tosses clothes in the washing machine. They use God's own air to dry their tattered clothing.

Al played marbles as a kid. Why can't modern children? One of his toys, Marble Race, boasts a series of ramps that transport marbles from start to finish line. Another Rube Goldberg device features a series of levers and doohickeys and thingamajigs. It moves marbles down a ramp to a box at the bottom. Their most expensive toy, which you won't find at Wal-Mart, goes for $29.

They sell virtually all their toys by mail. They drive to Arcadia in their 1949 Hudson and scavenge cardboard boxes from the supermarket. They pack their toys in those boxes and ship them away.

Every once in a while, they sell their wares at craft shows, just enough to attract some mail orders. Not long ago, somebody wanted 100 marble machines. Al had to explain that he doesn't have an assembly line. He and Karen make toys one at a time. So far, they have finished 23 marble machines.

In their most profitable year, the Smokes made $5,000.

* * *

Hurricane Charley barreled through Central Florida in 2004. The Smokes watched the storm coming up the river toward them on their television.

They didn't have to watch television to know it had arrived. The house shook, but no windows broke.

Through the windows they saw huge oaks going down, saw branches flying.

It took them a long time to clean up. Three other tropical storms followed in the next few weeks.

Their house became an ark. Alligators snoozed below their deck. Armadillos looked at their porch with envy.

For a while, a trip to town involved paddling a canoe more than a mile through the woods to where they had parked their car on the pavement.

"Of course, we never lost electricity," Al says, playing with his mustache. "The solar panels gave us what we needed. And we cook by gas. Getting by day to day was no problem."

The Smokes like to think they live in paradise. But in the 21st century, living simply is getting complicated.

The Smokes invested more sweat than money when they built their house. They figure it's worth at least $35,000.

These days they are spending a third of their income on home insurance.

The Smokes have been discussing the possibility of one of them getting a job in Arcadia, about 10 miles away. Karen says she might enjoy working in the library. Then she changes her mind and says, "I would rather stay in the woods."

They watch red-shouldered hawks and otters. Every once in a while their chickens start squawking, and they check the coop for bobcats, foxes and rat snakes. Rat snakes like to eat chicken eggs.

Pig frogs grunt like wild hogs.

At night, barred owls go "Hoo-hoo a-hoo. Hoo-hoo a-hoo aw."

As the years go, modern Florida more and more is intruding on their simplicity.

On weekends, campers often canoe to the bank on the other side of their river. The Smokes hear them, the shouts, the music - what do you call it? Rap, maybe, industrial music. Anyway, there's lots of deep bass pounding across the river, pounding through the woods to their house.

"Drunken orgies," Al says of the campers. "I've seen people having sex on the riverbank."

Karen has yet to be so lucky.

"But I saw these guys standing on the riverbank, seeing who could pee the farthest," she says.

Those guys should count their blessings. Karen must have been in a good mood when she was watching them.

She didn't burst out of the woods brandishing her chain saw.

Jeff Klinkenberg can be reached at 727 893-8727 or klink@sptimes.com

*   *   *

For information about the Non-Electric Toy Co., write P.O. Box 2461, Arcadia, FL 34265-2461.

[Last modified September 20, 2006, 09:46:34]