THUMBS UP

Wachsberger details a life spent supporting meaningful causes.

Growing up in a Cleveland suburb, the author gave few hints of future political activism. In the 1960s, he was a well-rounded high school student in the National Honor Society, participating in spelling bees, band, and the school newspaper, and he became class president twice. At Michigan State University, he worked toward a degree in social science, but in 1970, the killing of four Kent State University students protesting the Vietnam war prompted Michigan State students to strike in solidarity, and Wachsberger’s focus was forever altered. While engaging in protests, he says, he was arrested and jailed, and he ultimately decided to drop out of college. Wachsberger became involved with an underground Lansing newspaper called Joint Issue, and he continued his activism with members of the Youth International Party, or the Yippies, and its splinter group, the Zippies. After he married his ex-girlfriend’s co-worker, Wachsberger took a different path as half of a husband-and-wife vegetarian catering business. Eventually, he circled back to writing and the underground press, as well as continuing to advocate for ways to make life better in places he lived, worked, and worshipped. The memoir is well organized and often humorous, as when Wachsberger recounts his first-ever arrest by “Officer Grunt” and “Sergeant Nostrel,” or the horror of searching for a Band-Aid he lost in some dip while catering. The book vividly captures the mood of the early 1970s and the East Lansing environment, which included bicycle co-ops, guerrilla theater groups, and a nightclub called Cave of the Candles. Some of the later parts of the book slow the pace; Wachsberger’s account of his early 1990s attempts to improve conditions at his manufactured-home community, Arbor Meadows, though worthy, features overabundant lists and explanations of regulations. Still, the author emerges as an admirable figure, and his advice remains on-point: “learn from the past, keep the vision, read banned books, and laugh often.”

An open and funny account that spans decades with joy and passion.