Stomping Grounds: A Pilgrim's Progress Through Eight American Subcultures

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Burping plastic bowls... aluminum travel trailers... Harley-Davidson motorcycles... the large-mouth bass... Name anything you could ever think of doing or owning or collecting, any "Way of life" you might vaguely aspire to, any obscure hobby you might like to adopt, and chances are if you look hard enough you will find a society of souls somewhere in America who have already built an entire world on it. Modern America is an archipelago of subcultures, a land where, to a peculiar extent, people shape their lives ...
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More About This Book

Overview

Burping plastic bowls... aluminum travel trailers... Harley-Davidson motorcycles... the large-mouth bass... Name anything you could ever think of doing or owning or collecting, any "Way of life" you might vaguely aspire to, any obscure hobby you might like to adopt, and chances are if you look hard enough you will find a society of souls somewhere in America who have already built an entire world on it. Modern America is an archipelago of subcultures, a land where, to a peculiar extent, people shape their lives around private passions, and form national families of kindred spirits. Part travelogue, part journalism, part history, Stomping Grounds is a wild romp across the variegated landscape of the American subculture. A spirited and at times raucously funny book, Stomping Grounds explores eight unusual but enduring tribes of a distinctly American character, curious clans that have carved out discrete universes for themselves on the social frontier. All of the groups have established an annual celebration to summon their far-flung members back home - not merely a convention but a fabled pilgrimage like the return of the swallows to Capistrano. This is what the author refers to as the Stomping Ground, a term derived from jazz slang, which conveys the concept of rebirth through reunion, the return to the familiar, people gathered in a circle turned inward toward the same idea. For three years, Hampton Sides has been a wandering pilgrim attending these events. The product of this circuitous and wholly original odyssey is a dazzling mosaic of contemporary American life. With warmth and an abiding sense of wonder, the author voyages to these unfamiliar realms, and captures with a keen eye the high spirits and vibrant rhythms of the group gathering. Sides's eight groups span the spectrum of American culture: the Bohemian Club (an all-male secret society in California), the Rainbow People of Living Light (a loose-knit tribe of hippies), Tupperware Home Parties (women
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Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
Contemplating the various subcultures into which Americans organize themselves, freelance journalist Sides once mused, ``If an American was into tiddlywinks, he could start a national association, and tiddlywinkers in their thousands would come crawling from the woodwork.'' Finding to his surprise that there actually was such an association, he set off to explore the national passion for joining. Sides attended the annual gatherings of eight associations that particularly titillated him; he reports here on a reunion of the power elite at the campy but exclusive Bohemian Club in San Francisco and the religious ardor he observed at annual meetings of Tupperware saleswomen, recreational-vehicles owners, sledders, aging hippies and Church of God disciples, among others. Almost always curious and entertaining, his descriptions of the settings, the members, the mystiques, the hoopla, the charismatic leaders and the histories of these groups throw revealing light on an idiosyncratic aspect of the national character. Photos not seen by PW. (Oct.)
Library Journal
Renowned for individualism, Americans paradoxically have what the author calls a ``native genius'' for forming groups. Here he presents eight such subcultures, each reflecting a kind of collective individualism run amok. His choices are as diverse as bikers at the Black Hills Motor Classic, Tupperware salesladies on their annual pilgrimage to company headquarters, modern hippies at their ``Gathering of the Tribes,'' and members of the Bohemian Club, a secret all-male retreat of the rich and famous. Sides offers some sociological insights and historical background on each group, but he relies primarily on his acute power of observation and ability to tell a good story. A fun, fascinating book that is recommended for most public libraries.-- Jim Burns, Broward Cty. Lib. System, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Donna Seaman
An ebullient chronicle of some of America's liveliest subcultures. Sides prefaces his animated "pilgrimage" tales with an intriguing overview of the subculture phenomena and the tradition of annual gatherings, or "stomping grounds," where group members experience "rebirth through reunion" as well as communal ritual and celebration. The eight gatherings Sides describes perfectly reflect America's marvelous diversity, inventiveness, and penchant for extremes. He had to sneak into the first stomping ground, the Grove, the infamous summer retreat of the exclusive, all-male Bohemian Club in northern California. The well-off, politically powerful (Republican) members are anything but bohemian. In splendid contrast, Sides takes us next to the Gathering of the Tribes, the anarchistic love-in, camp-out of the amorphous, hippie Rainbow Family of Living Light. We also meet perky, silver-haired Airstreamers at their Fourth of July powwow; witness the astonishing sight of 400,000 leather-clad Harley worshipers at their annual Black Hills Motor Classic; and get a glimpse of the spiritual ecstasy of the Church of God in Christ's Holy Convocation and the jolly jubilee of the ladies of Tupperware. Sides gets a kick out of all of it; his amazed readers will, too.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780688090494
  • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
  • Publication date: 10/1/1992
  • Edition description: 1st ed
  • Pages: 320

Table of Contents

Preface 11
Pt. I Back to the Garden 25
In Darkest Bohemia: Monte Rio, California 29
Welcome Home, Brother: The Jarbidge Wilderness, Nevada 64
Pt. II On the Road 99
The Silver City: South Bend, Indiana 103
The Buried Gates of Nome: The Iditarod Trail, Alaska 129
Woodstock in Leathers : Sturgis, South Dakota 154
Pt. III Going to Graceland 175
Jerusalem on the Mississippi: Memphis, Tennessee 179
Sisters of the Bowl: Kissimmee, Florida 216
Let Us Now Praise Famous Fish: Richmond, Virginia 244
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