Elected through Terror

Untitled Part 56

In 1989 the ranch was foreclose on by its mortgage holder. During the preceding years it had gone into bankruptcy and receivership. A lot of the items left behind were sold to pay off debts.

When Sheila left and it became clear, that fall, that the ranch was going to go down, our county Treasurer posted notices on the portable items that were taxed by the county, such as the trailers, so that they had to have the taxes paid if/when sold, before anyone could take possession.

I remember meeting with one of the bankruptcy trustees on one of my trips down to the ranch. He said he was impressed with the quality of the workmanship – everything was built to code, even if they had built it illegally.

The Rajneesh had used a lot of local (meaning The Dalles and Madras) businesses to purchase needed items; it was one of the ways they were trying to endear themselves to people.

To begin with they paid cash on delivery, once they established their willingness to pay, they had some of the items and work done on credit. However, later, they stopped paying the vendors, and there were several businesses that lost a lot of money because the Rajneesh didn't pay them. If I recall correctly, some went out of business because they couldn't sustain the loss.

One business that did not; was a Propane dealer in Madras. He was a friend of my dad. One day, he and I had a conversation about his contacts and business dealings with the Rajneesh.

He had several propane tanks on the property. He rented them to the Ranch and was paid every time gas was delivered – which included the rental on the tanks.

He was in his office one day when some Rajneesh came in wanting him to help them with heating the 'green house,' turned meeting hall.

There are formulas for determining what is needed to heat a building and where the best location of those heaters would be – it changes only so much as the type of building, how high are the ceilings, what is the insulation and other issues that need to be factored into the answer.

When he asked them the size, they said, 'two acres.'

He said, he thought about that for a couple seconds then said, "I don't know, I have never been asked to figure heat by the acre before."

Of course that broke down to almost 90,000 square feet and he was more than happy to help them with their heating of the 'green house,' it brought in more money for him. And since it was cash on delivery, he was never at risk of losing any money.

When the Rajneesh declared they were closing the ranch, he had his crew go down and get all the tanks back to Madras. It took a bit of time and more than a trip or two, but he got them all back.

From the Fall of 1985 until Fall 1988 there was a small group of Rajneesh left at the ranch to do maintenance. There were not very many, so they could only concentrate on a small area – that area was the house, outbuildings and immediate area surrounding Rajneesh's compound.

The Fall of 1988 all the legal work for the foreclosure had been done. The ranch was to be sold on the steps of the Wasco County Courthouse.

The week before the sale, some of the Rajneesh invited the public, mainly news media, to come down to the ranch for one last meeting with those that were still there and a few that would come from outside the ranch.

Bill told me about the meeting and wanted to go down one more time. We left that morning and drove down to the ranch.

While we were there, waiting for the Rajneesh to open the area up for the meeting, I received information that there was someone close to the area with a gun. They had already called the Sheriff's Office.

One of our deputies was close by and made contact with the person, I stayed outside for a few minutes – we had radio contact with each other – to make sure he was okay. He was. The man was a hunter on BLM property.

The rest of the people, and Bill, had gone into the meeting area. I came into the room and saw Bill sitting back in a corner and joined him. He admonished me, "Don't ever leave me alone with these people."

After all he had gone through I couldn't blame him. I had told him what I was doing, but he didn't hear, went into the room thinking I was just behind him and then he realized I wasn't.

I don't really recall just what all was said, the speaker was upset that they were losing the ranch; upset that Bhagwan had been forced off and some general statements of other complaints.

There was no apology, however.

The following week, at the appointed time, I stood on the court house steps and sold the property – back to the mortgage lender.

But that was not the end of the history of the ranch itself.