How Many Retirees Missed Out On One Of The Greatest Shows Of The Century? (graduated, friends)

[jane_sm1th73]

Originally Posted by tijlover

I jumped into it headfirst, the hippie/counterculture of the 60's/early 70's, being I always have done things to excess. Yup! It left me messed up for awhile, but, given the chance, I'd do it all over again, partake in, IMO, the one of the greatest shows of the century! And I'm still an anti-materialistic, anti-establishment sort of person to this day!

My sister missed out. Got married in her senior years in HS, got pregnant, missed the show completely, as so many others I've talked to did as well. And they're clueless as to what they missed out on!

Backpacking around Europe, LSD/Peyote/Mescaline/Pot parties, Vietnam war marches, the camaraderie, and I even had friends living on communes back then, mattresses on the floors their only furniture!

Ah! Those drop-out of society days!

I was standing at a phone booth in Amsterdam one night, a middle class woman from Miami behind me: I left a note for my husband I was off to Europe to be a hippie for 6 months, and to take good care of the kids!

Does anyone regret missing out on the show, from talking to others who had? And why didn't you partake in it at the time?

Understandably, it was the middle class members who mostly partook in this party, not the poor!

Tij, this post is not directed at you, no offense meant. I absorbed the culture through pores, not by dropping out. What I saw of the people who dropped out and then tried to return scared the bejeezus out of me.

From the standpoint of today's graduates, with so many not finding jobs despite drowning in debt, tuning in and dropping out must appear wasteful to the max.

I was a tad behind the first wave, working my kiester off in one of the elite schools to make the cut for next year's ride. I saw quite a few members from previous cohorts who had dropped out, who never made it back on the carousel - although some look like they tried.

Dropping out was never an option, not even for kids from the upper middle class.

Networks and support systems dry up quickly. We have seen this amongst the unemployed during the aftermath of the Great Recession. At first, I extended a hand. Help with problem sets, tutoring. It got old real quick, carrying people who kept missing the bead. You get out of the flow really quickly when you go "find yourself". It is not realistic to believe you can just plunge back into it within the first couple of weeks of the new semester.

Further, mj makes your short term memory go to h*ll for a loooonnnng time. Expecting your compatriots to compensate for your performance deficits is also not realistic. In many programs, if you're not up and running by the third class, you can kiss the semester good-bye, resign yourself to leaving, and party hearty until you leave.

Many of the former hippies just never made it back on. They subsequently dropped out for real, and cultivated a certain je ne sais pas. If they backpedalled, it was to state schools where they got "me degrees" and spent until their thirties crowing about not "workin' for The Man". Of the others about whom I hear through collegiate publications etc., some became public school teachers, safe in the arms of the union.

Anecdotal evidence is not reliable. Here's my contribution. The two returnees with whom I had contact in later life embraced the very structures in their classrooms, that they had sought to protest by dropping out. Others I heard about through word of mouth were serially right-sized until their 50s, and face some lean years. I had a broad network, and did not hear of a Bill Gates-type success story. In the end, how did it benefit them? Of course, I only heard about the ones who had kept "in touch" through the publications.

It appears to me that the drop-outs lacked understanding about how critical it is to maintain a battle rhythm to get through a demanding program, how quickly support systems erode, and the limits of parental capability.

Because we can never see ourselves as others see us, we stay-behinds will never be able to judge if what we missed would have helped us in later life.

My opinion, and I'm stickin' to it.

[texdav]

Originally Posted by tijlover

I was one of the poorer hippies, had to work part time, no parental support, even had to pay my own college tuition, but I took every opportunity to participate in the hippie counterculture when I could. I always envied my more middle-class, spoon-fed, college roommates who could go to a Vietnam war protest, while I had to work that night!

I still have one good hippie friend left, she has never changed through the years, her 60's philosophy/value system remains intact. Shunning materialism, most disposable income is spent exploring some part of the world, like myself.

I re-connected with one hippie friend I hadn't seen in 20 years, someone I used to LSD trips with, denouncing the establishment and materialism, and I was struck stupid when we met, as she had become an Assessor with the county government, nice suburban home, and after her lecturing me to get a good government job, I couldn't believe it this was the same person! Back then, she smoked like a chimney, and after the lecture to quit smoking (tobacco), I had had enough!!! I never saw her again!

The wealthiest hippies I envied the most! They were lucky enough to hang out in Goa, India, Puerto Angel in Mexico, Bangkok and Kathmandu, Nepal. I finally made it to Kathmandu in 1996, and the traces of it are still there, as they renamed a major street there called Freak Street, in remembrance of those times! Imagine what the scene was like back then!!!

Your luckily that didn't include going to work in Vietnam.;then you might have a complaint;IMO. Most people grow up and stop just hanging out in the world .Why hate on that girl who decided it was time to grow up and take responsibility? The mid 60's was much like the 20's which my mother was a young girl during. But they grew up to be what many considered the greatest generation.

[SunGrins]

I don't remember that era as a show. I was 20 in 1968, a year that people ought to think about when they fuss about that generation. Woodstock was in 1969. I was stranded in the Midwest so couldn't easily take part in much of the turmoil and most-remembered events but we were politically aware and active. We were much less judgemental, having gone through the civil rights movement...we were believers. I miss that part of the 1960s most. I have no regrets about being anti-war...then or now. There were some who over did things and some who spiraled into lifestyle choices that seem very strange today by the reactionary standards that now prevail. They were not so strange back then to many of us who were stifled by what was going on in the 50s and early 60s. There were some who were feeling threatened and overreacted to what was going on with young people. Something as commonplace as long hair would send folks over the edge. I miss the activism and the non-judgmental attitudes and the creativity of that era.

[kapie9969]

Yeah.. if you didn't get drafted. I personally like the early seventy's after Nam. I actually liked about all of my years until 08.
Forces beyond my control really screwed things up. I lost almost everything. The bankers and wall street haven't learned anything or really changed. I recommend you all get ready for really tough times. The coming financial collapse will be horrible.
Any real look at the numbers put out by the government, tell us they are a lie. Just wake up. Go for a drive and look around.
All those empty warehouses and commercial buildings. No jobs in the paper. Do you see a 17000 economy?
Anyhow,those that retired already and have some money. Your dam lucky. Your kids and grandchildren. Not so much. Talk to them and tell them to prepare for whats coming. Help them out if you can. Get out of big city's. A future violent prison of sorts.
Try this site. TheBurningPlatform check it out for a week. Tell your kids to also. Learn some truths.

[Pocopsonite]

Originally Posted by Darth Vespa

I do have one regret. In the summer of 1969 I was working my summer job at Cabot Creamery in Vermont. A fellow college student worker (much more a true hippie than me) asked me if I wanted to go with him to Woodstock in neighboring New York. He had info about a giant music festival about to happen there. I knew nothing about it and turned him down. He went and had a great time. I've always regretted my close-minded decision.

I'm college Class of '68, so when Woodstock rolled around I was completing the first year of my career. But boyfriend and I took off on Friday morning and drove on up (from Delaware) and then walked, I don't know, 5 or 6 miles, because traffic was at a standstill. We had backpacks and a tent. On Saturday I remember distinctly we got to see Country Joe and the Fish. And then we started hearing about the traffic jams and people spending hours to go a few miles.

So I told my boyfriend I was sorry but we had to leave Saturday night because I couldn't take the chance of missing work on Monday. Made it back home Sunday and watched the coverage on TV. But I got to work on time Monday. <sigh>

We had, of course, bought tickets, which by the time we arrived were unnecessary. I wish I had saved them; they apparently have some value. I had a wonderful poster that we threw out somewhere along the line in the '70s, when we became "grownups."

I loved the music of the late '60s/early '70s, even though I was not into drugs at all.

But here's an indicator that perhaps I do wish I had "indulged" a little more at the time. Now retired and on Medicare, a group of us are planning a trip to Colorado next summer. Guess why . . .

[doc1]

Originally Posted by Blondebaerde

More on that, from a generation or two later:

OP: Yeah, that's real...uh, attractive. Gen X here, btw, the Reagan Kids. Today's mid-to-senior management professionals who went to college, made all the right contacts, and (some of us) are doing exceptionally well without a lost decade or so in there. Others are not doing so well, of course, but the Gordon Gecko generation (for those who get the analogy) have the right idea...to a point. Compare / contrast with:

(blank) responsibility!
(blank) taking accountability!
(blank) it, dude: tune in, turn on, drop out man!

Wish Abbie Hoffman were here so I could laugh at his political philosophy in-person.

I suspect the largest group of senior and executive decision makers these days is (still) hippy Boomers, though thank God we're displacing them in the fullness of time. I don't see the outcomes of their actions going too terribly well for the country, Hillary Clinton e.g. as a perfect example. Fortunately, a lot of them are starting to retire or already have. Those in their late 50s into 60s scare me, though, because they're still influencers with schizophrenia-like decision making processes. "If proven wrong and against the will of the people, double-down!" ...is not the wisest way to go as a matter of national policy, btw. We tried that for six years; fair enough. It failed, however.

Next up is us, Gen X, at the most-senior levels and we're already in a number of key roles. "I hope" we have a big swing in the national political pendulum back the other way, back to the values that made this country great. We shall see, however. I'm not worried about Gen Y taking the helm, either, because a lot of them are living through the hippy/schizo outcomes...and some of the overly-enthusiastic business-centric, too-little-control stuff, on the other hand... culminating in 2008-current Great Recession. I'm retiring in 13 years (cross fingers hopefully), not sure Gen Y will have that luxury. Millennials? (shudder).

Nor am I so sure as-yet how Millennials will fare as executive leaders of our national destiny. Those of us still alive to find out will surely do so, in about thirty years, though.

You really shouldn't paint such a large segment of our population with so large a brush. It clouds your judgment of them. In a most negative way.

The fact is you just described an exaggerated minority of the total count of Boomers. I started at the state university in '71 and when they had an anti-war protest it was a small minority participating compared to the large number of students.

Most just enjoyed the music, fashions, pursuing the opposite sex and smoking pot/drinking beer. Same thing that goes on at colleges today.

Way too broad of a brush in your post.

PS. Even Jerry Rubin had a conservative epiphany.

[Lodestar]

I was eighteen in 1966 and perfectly primed by the music for a bit of revolution. Of course at that age a person really doesn't grasp the finer implications. You could say the instinct was purely personal teen-age rebellion.

We married during the ""Summer of Love" but were too involved with our college careers and work to be able to travel then. When my DH graduated he got his draft notice and eventually we ended up in Ft. Lewis, WA.

There were hippies in the army and we hung out with them, did a couple of music festivals and lived the life-style as much as possible for two people working for the Army. When he finished his commitment to them we took his separation pay and traveled throughout the west and southwest until it was gone and then returned to MN. Then we went back to college.

By then, as someone else mentioned, everything had changed. The big protests were over at the college, Johnson decided not to run again, the students were running the college.

It was a different atmosphere. We got together with a young veterans group and those became our friends. So I think perhaps being raised with a sense of duty and our experiences with the military "saved" us from permanent immersion in the alternate lifestyle.

It was a good time and a time of tremendous upheaval in the US and I'm glad I got to experience it.

There was one regret and an obligation to be met, however, and that didn't come to light until some years later when a large percentage of my patient population turned out to be former veterans. I realized that I had been oblivious to what some of my peers were experiencing during those years that I had been partying and protesting.

The realization of that was not a little shaming. There was a lot of catching up for me to do to get the bigger picture of those times and apply that knowledge for constructive purposes.

No regrets now. I like to taste a little of everything and that's how I've lived. Even negative experiences can be turned for good use.

[Lodestar]

Something I forgot to mention that I miss today -

I'm aware of Altamont and the other isolated incidences, but for the greater part, thousands of us young people could gather together with a sense of camaraderie and good spirit and not perpetrate verbal or physical violence upon each other.

Pretty awesome accomplishment considering people can't even brush shoulders today without coming to words. Most of us were genuinely sincere in wanting what today has to be legislated - harmony and acceptance.

[animalcrazy]

I was too young and about as close as I got to being a hippie was dressing like one for Halloween. I wish I was old enough for Woodstock, that would have been something to see. Some of the best music came out of that era and I still listen to it.

[Mr5150]

Some people have a checkered past. I have a paisley past.

Have mixed feelings about it. But I do have interesting stories.