Louey Kachinsky

Louey Kachinsky is an American self-proclaimed hippy, civil engineer, carpenter, designer, musician, self-styled chef/food connoisseur, blogger, and entrepreneur born on The Farm (Tennessee), an intentional community located in Summertown, TN. Louey's birth story is well documented in "The Book of Louey" found in "Spiritual Midwifery" written by Ina May Gaskin. Gaskin, a pioneer of the modern midwifery movement, was not present at Louey's birth. Louey was delivered by Cara Gillette and Mary-Louise Perkins, two other midwives working closely with Ina May at The Farm at the time. The name, Louey, was given to him as it was a family name belonging to two paternal great-uncles. Louey's father spelled it uniquely, Louey, as opposed to Louie or Louis, as a homage to Walt Disney's Huey, Dewey, and Louie believing that was how Disney spelled it.

Louey was raised in an alternative lifestyle enabled by living in the unique environment of The Farm. He was raised as a vegan conscientious objector. His parents, Joel Kachinsky and Roberta Marx, became hippies in the late sixties and independently made their way to The Farm. Joel and Roberta met and married on The Farm. Shortly afterward, Louey was born in a house built for, but never occupied by, Stephen Gaskin (co-founder and spiritual teacher of The Farm). Stephen supposedly did not want to live in a nicer home than the rest of the community, so he let a group of individuals, including Louey's parents, live there to care for an elderly community member and grandfather, William Axlerod, or "Uncle Bill". Roberta was the primary caregiver for Uncle Bill, and Louey and Uncle Bill quickly became best friends. Roberta worked in the school kitchen, while Joel worked first at the store and then at the foundation office, as he was an attorney. Louey was often seen in the school kitchen, pressing buttons on commercial equipment or socializing with older children. Louey credits "being raised vegan in the kitchen" for his obsession with cooking and food. Louey lived in "Stephen's house" until he was three. During that time, another residence was added to the side of "Stephen's house". The large duplex, approximately 2,500 square feet per side, was named "Kissing Tree" (the newer side) and "Kissing Cousins" (the older side). Louey's father named the houses after a nearby pair of oak trees that appeared to be kissing. There were as many as eighty people, adults and children, living in the duplex during The Farm's peak and as few as one family per side after the "Changeover" (see "2.2 TheChangeover" The Farm (Tennessee)). Louey's early childhood was filled with play with other children, working in the household and organic vegetable garden, helping his mother in the kitchen, assisting with horses, playing soccer, building and riding bikes, swinging on large rope swings, and attending community events such as weddings, performing in community shows where he often had the honor of saying Hebrew prayers over candles at Chanukah, and various other theatrical productions. When Louey was four, he entered The Farm's private alternative school, "The Farm School." He attended preschool and kindergarten in a building attached to the "Soy Dairy", where adult members pioneered American-made tofu, soy milk, soy yogurt, and tempeh. At the age of six, he went to school at "The Solar School", a passive solar building touted as the largest passive solar school in the world at that time. Around that time, Louey became interested in music. A man from Guatemala, Juan Salvahan, who only spoke Spanish, came to live at Kissing Tree. He brought a portable record player and several Beatles albums. All the children in the house would assemble drum kits from pots, pans, and other found objects and jam to the records with Juan. When Louey was six, he broke his femur while riding his bike with his parents on the way to a wedding. The Farm's EMT service transported him to Maury County Medical Center, where he spent two weeks in traction. Every night, someone from The Farm would come to keep him company and read to him. Afterwards, he had to wear a cast that went from his right toe up to his waist for six weeks. Louey attended The Farm School through seventh grade, after which he attended two years of public school. When Louey was in seventh grade, an interview with Louey was included in "Following Our Bliss". In that interview, Louey discussed entering the world outside his insulated life on The Farm. Louey returned to The Farm School for ninth, tenth, and twelfth grades and chose to attend eleventh grade at Summertown High School. During this time, Louey learned to play guitar and played in his first three bands, "The Lost Boys," "No Boundareez," and "The Vibe Tribe."

After graduating high school in 1993, Louey attended Columbia State Community College for two years. He then moved to Boston, MA, where he attended the Berklee College of Music for two years. After withdrawing from the performance major at Berklee, Louey moved back to Tennessee, enrolled at Tennessee Technological University, and eventually earned a bachelor's of science in Civil Engineering in May 2002. During this time, Louey took up the trumpet and eventually began playing with THB, a rock outfit based on The Farm, playing gigs and festivals in the surrounding area. The band received several write-ups, most notably from "The Murfreesboro Pulse" "THB: Keeping the Jam Going".

Since graduating from Tennessee Tech, Louey Kachinsky has worked as a Production Structural Design Engineer, operated his own business, Louey Kachinsky Structural Design and Construction, worked as a carpenter, worked as a tofu production engineer, worked as a trade show representative for radiation detectors, and started his most recent venture: blogging about his unconventional life with his wife and daughter at FullyDADDYcated.com.

References

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