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I haven't been to Boulder (or Colorado at all, for that matter) in many decades. I stayed out there (in Denver and later Boulder) for maybe 3-4 months in the 1970s and remember Boulder's Hill District neighborhood.
The question is: Way back then (in the early to mid 1970s), Boulder at-large, but especially the Hill District neighborhood, was a major hangout and haven for all the countercultual hippie element (i.e., the street people, the panhandlers, the Woodstock-generation hippie types, dress in all their hippie garb and with all their hippie affectations and manifestations) like you'd find in San Francisco in the 1960s and 1970s. Does that kind of element of people still prevail in Boulder (and especially in Boulder's Hill District) to this day? Or has that hippie countercultural population pretty much been replaced by the yuppie, millenial, Generation X, Y, etc. crowd (as well as the older folks)?
One might ask: "How do you distinguish the the 'hippie countercultural' element from the modern-day 'hipsters' or 'yuppies', 'millenials', 'Gen X', 'Gen Y', etc. popuulations?" Well, to me at least, it seems that the countercultural hippie crowd, by and large, do not work as a way-of-life (i.e., not holding down regular jobs or having a defined career life but instead just live life pretty much floating around and trying to live off the generosity or benovolence of others). This may not be universally true across-the-board but seems to have been a defining characteristic of the old hippie countercultural mindset (as distinguished from modern-day "hipsters" "millenials", and the like -- who mostly tend to be productive and working members of society).
So the question is: Does Boulder's Hill District neighborhood (and perhaps Boulder-at-large) still have that "hippie countercultural" element that spends their life hanging out and camping out in public as a way-of-life . . . like it did in the 1960s - 1970s (or at least in the first half of the 1970s)? I would wonder if that kind of population with that kind of mindset would still prevail after all these many decades since the 1960s and 1970s (or at least the first half of the 1970s).
No. Don't see many true hippies these days.
The Hill is a mainly college student hang out.
Some people that may sort of fit your description either hang out on the Pearl Street Mall or along the Boulder Creek path (neither of which existed when you last visited.)
No. Don't see many true hippies these days.
The Hill is a mainly college student hang out.
Some people that may sort of fit your description either hang out on the Pearl Street Mall or along the Boulder Creek path (neither of which existed when you last visited.)
Thanks for your response.
Though I was open to whatever the answer would be, I tended to think that those that subscribe to this mindset of the old 1960s - 1970s hippie countercultural element would have burned out by now. I mean, how can one go on decade after decade after decade and not want to make some useful contribution(s) to society-at-large . . . instead of just aimlessly living day-by-day-by-day, floating and wandering around, getting high, and hoping to scrouge freebies and handouts from others as a way-of-life? As much as any individual may have whatever degree of aversion to being regularly employed or even self-employed (i.e., making an honest living for oneself), don't they want to have a stable place to call "home" and to be invested in life like the great lot of the rest of the human population is? One can still be a "free spirit" or "hip" and still live a productive and useful life.
Though I was open to whatever the answer would be, I tended to think that those that subscribe to this mindset of the old 1960s - 1970s hippie countercultural element would have burned out by now. I mean, how can one go on decade after decade after decade and not want to make some useful contribution(s) to society-at-large . . . instead of just aimlessly living day-by-day-by-day, floating and wandering around, getting high, and hoping to scrouge freebies and handouts from others as a way-of-life? As much as any individual may have whatever degree of aversion to being regularly employed or even self-employed (i.e., making an honest living for oneself), don't they want to have a stable place to call "home" and to be invested in life like the great lot of the rest of the human population is? One can still be a "free spirit" or "hip" and still live a productive and useful life.
Let me give you some information that you sorely need. I was and still am a hippie. I went to Woodstock, lived on a farm for a while, and I just bought a new Lexus. Yesterday I was walking my dog in a beautiful park that is one minute from our beautiful home and saw and older gentleman picking up trash. I stopped and thanked him for his efforts. He said that he was a hippie where I live 40 years ago and he was picking up trash to atone for all the cigarette butts he left in the park all those years ago. That's the hippie mindset. There are bums you know that are not hippies, and you want to place everyone in the same category. You can't. If you see a youngish person with long hair smoking dope does that make them a hippie? Chances are 99.9% not. True hippies came from the sixties and early seventies.
The hippie mindset was and is a call to make this world a better place by being kind to our fellow humans. Of course there are always those who took things too far with drugs, but there are also many people like me that stopped doing drugs 40 years ago. Smoking pot doesn't make one a hippie.
Long hair doesn't make a hippie. What makes a hippie is in their heart and mind. And you can never tell a hippie from anyone else unless you interact with them. When people see me driving in my Lexus listening to Hendrix ( that no one outside of the car could hear unless it's a really nice day and I put the windows down) who can tell who I really am?
Last edited by seethelight; 04-06-2015 at 11:03 AM..
My parents are true hippies --- flower children from Berkeley. They lived in Boulder for awhile and some of their friends still do. So yes, there are still some "real" hippies in Boulder but they are not "obvious" as seethelight stated so well. The Hill is not their hang out.
I would think of myself as a “true hippie” in the sense that I embraced whatever wholesome and humanistic values they exemplified (i.e., wishing to make the world a better place, trying my best to do right by others . . . whether I always actually succeeded or not in this endeavor, trying to feel a kinship with the lot of humanity in the spirit of brotherhood and sisterhood). Where I differed from certain elements or subcultures that prevailed within greater hippiedom (not all of them but certain prevailing mindsets within the thinking of their population) is that (a) I was never into making a way-of-life out of using chemical substances (drugs, alcohol, smoking) other than a slight bit of experimentation at the beginning and then stopping that altogether, and (b) unlike a certain prevailing mindset amongst some of them (notall of them but it seemed to be a goodly number), I somehow came to develop a sensibility (early on) that life is a game of 'give and take' (i.e., not just always being on the receiving end of others' givingness but also aiming to give of oneself as well). That is, to allow the lot of humanity to profit from our own presence within it as well as we profiting from them. This is another way of saying that I came to understand the need to have a work ethic.
About that last point: I remember, as a traveling hippie transient myself, being in the Hill District and vicinity one evening in 1972 and a bunch of other male and female transient hippie types (maybe 5 or 6 other persons) were trying to find a place to sleep for the evening other than out in a park or just laying in the streets or wherever (being transient and homeless). They asked around various places and couldn’t find anyplace or anyone to take them in. I said to them “You’re going about it all wrong. Don’t just simply ask for a handout or favor. Offer your own labor or efforts to them to allow THEM to benefit from YOU as well!” To show them what I meant (and I was seeking an abode for the evening myself), I took them all with me to a large and impressive-looking student residence building or frat house (I don’t quite remember what type of student residence it was classified as) in the midst of the Hill District area and said “Let me do all the talking” and I rang the bell or knocked on the door of that large frat house. Some young man answered the door and I said “Say, my brother, I have a proposition to make to your house. If you just let us stay anywhere at all within or on your property (even on the floor in a room or in the hallway or in the yard or in a basement or in a bathtub or wherever), we can clean all your dishes or move items for you or do fixup work or labor for you or clean and straighten up the entire house or run errands for you or whatever else you need in exchange for us to just have an abode for this evening. If not, that is OK and I thank you anyway.” And the man let us all in and we all spent the night on that large property and, the next day, I don’t recall that he or they had us do anything in return. But just the fact that they were approached and offered by myself a bartering arrangement (instead of us just asking for them to bless us without us offering to bless them as well), they offered their property to us to spend the night in or on. And the rest of my fellow hippies acted startled . . . as though such a concept never occurred to them. They were so used to just having life be all about taking and receiving from others and always soliciting others for handouts or aid of whatever type; it didn’t appear to ever cross their minds to approach life in a different way (i.e., a reciprocal way).
Similarly, I would volunteer in Boulder for a prevailing feeding program at the time aimed at the hippie/transient population that would come to and congregate in Boulder and, in the midst of preparing foods and serving others, I would get fed myself. And there was a natural foods or macrobiotic restaurant or two located closer to the downtown vicinity (if I recall properly) and I would offer to be a dishwasher or janitor there and they would give me meals in return (and they might have even paid me some monies also; I don’t quite recall, being so very long ago).
This (what I said above) is what I was referring to in my previous postings. That is, that within the overall hippie culture at-large, there was a sub-element or sub-mindset that prevailed among certain populations within them that seemed to feel that life is just about simple hedonism (getting high and feeling good at all times and at all costs) and basically bumming (i.e., aiming to always live off of the benevolence or givingness of others and having others always pick up after them). It was an almost child-like mindset that they seemed to possess. I’m not saying that this makes them bad people but just , shall we say, rather immature and undeveloped or underdeveloped (i.e., to not have seemed to realize, after a point, that you have to give as well as take in life-at-large . . . that it isn’t just about living a life of dependency at all times as a way-of-life).
OF COURSEnot all in the hippie movement at-large were like I described above (for instance, even I wasn’t like that . . . or, to whatever degree I may have been for a fleeting time, I became more level-headed in my thinking and realized that people as a whole would feel better about me and toward me if I integrated myself into the fabric of society instead of just aiming to live parasitically off of all the rest of them as a way-of-life). I don’t like using the word “parasite” or “parasitic”, for it sounds so mean or uncharitable. I looked in an online thesaurus for a synonym to use in place of that word that didn’t sound so hard-edged and it came up with some other perhaps less-pointed options such as “freeloader” “free rider” “hanger-on” and “sponge” and than some even-less-charitable words. I think you get the picture. That is, I’m not trying to be mean in using such a word . . . but how else do you describe, in a more charitable way, a certain sub-element within greater hippiedom who embraced such a mindset which exemplified the lack of a deep-seated sense of reciprocity and a foundational work ethic?
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