What's a Modern Peasant to Do?

Squat? Be an urban dweller?

I never got a clear answer about what made my parents flee St. Louis in the early 1970s to try building a rural life on 84 acres of undeveloped wilderness in Northwest Arkansas – with four young children.

My father left behind his entire family on both sides. His parents, brother, endless aunts, uncles and cousins that he grew up with. The city of his bi…