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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!
Funny, you can meet someone your own age (64 for me) who got stuck in the poodle skirt/greaser culture and there's just no connection. Thank you for this post and the memories.
There were at least several forms of "dropping out"/alternative culture in the 60s and 70s.
My spouse and friends and I were part of the art culture, didn't have the money from great jobs or trust funds to be traipsing the globe or buying land for the natural life style. We had to work, mostly at hospitals while putting ourselves through college and hobnobbing with the art scene and wealthy collectors. The time of "happenings" in the art world, remember? And room-size canvases a la Rothko and Stella.
We were part of another kind of culture at the same time, the alternative food scene, being among the first in the culture to go against the grain (or should I say, for the grain), rejecting the postindustrial SAdiet and experimenting with non-mainstream forms of spirituality. All this at the age of 20.
Then we were part of a back to the land movement (with a foot in town to make a living), living on a Missouri farm not knowing what we were doing but it felt good at the time. We somehow completely evaded another type of culture at the time, the hippie-drug culture. We never even got into weed, probably because of our holistic health consciousness. Thank goodness, b/c I'd probably be dead by now if I'd gotten into drugs.
So what the late 60s and 70s did was open a time period when not only could young people explore alternative values and lifestyle, we could afford to do it. Shelter and food and clothing and backpacking the world was cheap. Health insurance? What was that? We'd go to the ER at any hospital for practically nothing. Retirement? What was that? Oh, a half century away. What, me worry?
I don't think we'll ever see times like those again.
Do I regret missing out on the hippie lifestyle, being lazy, immoral, stupid, and irresponsible. No, I don't regret it for one second. For one thing, I had to work to support myself. Not everyone has parents who spoiled them and gave them money to do whatever they wanted. Not only that, but I had a neighbor who went totally off his rocker from drugs, so skipping the drug scene was a great idea IMHO. Instead, I went to college, got a degree, started on a great career, met my wife, and started a family. Sounds a lot better than sleeping on the floor on mattresses with a bunch of dirty, drugged out nuts.
Do I regret missing out on the hippie lifestyle, being lazy, immoral, stupid, and irresponsible. No, I don't regret it for one second. For one thing, I had to work to support myself. Not everyone has parents who spoiled them and gave them money to do whatever they wanted. Not only that, but I had a neighbor who went totally off his rocker from drugs, so skipping the drug scene was a great idea IMHO. Instead, I went to college, got a degree, started on a great career, met my wife, and started a family. Sounds a lot better than sleeping on the floor on mattresses with a bunch of dirty, drugged out nuts.
I could have written that. Nail hit squarely on the head.
Being in the Midwest at the time, I wasn't so aware of it going on at the time on a personal level, only through news and TV. When we moved to NY, everyone there claimed to have been at Woodstock when it happened. The coasts usually lead with changes.
My take on the era is best summed up for me by my brother. He went to Vietnam listening to the Beach Boys and came home listening to Jethro Tull and Biff Rose.
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And I'm still an anti-materialistic, anti-establishment sort of person to this day!
