In 1964, inspired by youthful treks from the big city to the green outdoors as well as by a formative visit to an Israeli kibbutz, Brooklyn native Bernard Sanders and his college girlfriend Deborah Messing purchased 85 acres in the most rural part of Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom for $2,500. There they turned an old sugarhouse on Shady Rill Road into a cabin with running water but no electricity.

“I don’t think Bernie was particularly into growing vegetables,” a friend of his put it. The couple soon left Vermont to travel around Europe. But a little over a year later, they split up, and Bernie sold his share of the plot to his ex and her new husband.

Sanders’s time living off the land ended much as it did for the rest of the flower power generation: with romantic discord, economic (and agrarian) failure, and a hasty exit to more populated regions — just years earlier than the rest.