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Except at the last minute my best friend's mom wouldn't let her go to Woodstock so I kept the unused tickets tacked to my corkboard blue light wall for years. In a lapse of sanity I ditched 'em when I moved.
Oh well.
Now I am quite joyfully retired in SoFla and only don bellbottoms and my great long-fringed suede vests at Halloween.
And since I quit smoking the bong has been re-purposed as a beer mug.
I remember one summer-evening, anti-Vietnam-war march to City Hall in Rochester, MN, back in 1970, all gathered on the lawns, lighting candles, some openly smoking pot in the presence of a police squad, and no arrests. Now just try that today!!!
I was high on mescaline, one night, with some friends, at a big rock concert in Minneapolis, and there were signs all over: Look for those with the Orange Arm Bands. I waited, impatiently, for the Orange Arm Bands to start playing and they never played that night! Why? Stupid me, those with the Orange Arm Bands were there to help those having a bad LSD trip! And? If I had had a bad trip that night, wrestled to the ground by these helpers, I might have said: The reason I'm having a bad trip is because I've lost patience waiting for the Orange Arm Bands to start playing!
When I read of the 780,000 marijuana arrests in this country, this past year alone, what do you think my reaction is to this news? Or anyone else that indulged during that time and was never arrested?
I didn't read the entire 8 pages, and I am far from a free spirit basher. If this was cool at the time for you and you look back fondly then I say good for you. The only part of what I read that I had an issue with was the part about leaving the husband to take care of the kids to go to Europe for 6 months. Still unclear if that was you or the woman from Miami but either way if I were the husband the door would be locked when the wife finally decided to return. Incredibly selfish thing to do and if I'm the husband there is no way I would believed my wife remained faithful. Deal breaker for sure.
I'm only 45, so I was born in 1969 and didn't experience any of the lives you guys are talking about.
But in high school I became OBSESSED with the 1960s and read books (Ken Kesey, Aldous Huxley, etc.), listened to the music and basically became a bit of a hippie in 1985-87. Then I went to college and was introduced to industrial music and became a goth for 3 years. Then I graduated and was introduced to techno music and became a raver for 7 years before I got married and stopped all of that.
Anyway, in college I was still enamored with the hippie culture and ended up writing my 100-page thesis on the youth culture of the 1960s as part of my Liberal Arts major.
I consider my "show" days to be my years in the rave culture. It was AMAZING. I spent seven years going to clubs 3x a week in the DC/Baltimore area and then traveling the east coast on the weekends to go to raves anywhere from Rhode Island to North Carolina. The early rave days were very reminiscent of what I believe the hippie days to be. Unfortunately, raves now are a far cry from what they were in the early 1990s...
I didn't read the entire 8 pages, and I am far from a free spirit basher. If this was cool at the time for you and you look back fondly then I say good for you. The only part of what I read that I had an issue with was the part about leaving the husband to take care of the kids to go to Europe for 6 months. Still unclear if that was you or the woman from Miami but either way if I were the husband the door would be locked when the wife finally decided to return. Incredibly selfish thing to do and if I'm the husband there is no way I would believed my wife remained faithful. Deal breaker for sure.
Haha, I have a story about that. One of my very best elderly friends, who passed away two years ago at 90, was a (formerly quite wealthy) socialite free spirit (for her times). She was not a hippie by any stretch. Her husband was a diplomat of some kind. She couldn't take motherhood 24-7, so she announced to hubby that she was leaving for Europe for a number of months...alone...and he would have to find help to take care of the kids. She returned to find that hubby and the au pair apparently had a great time while she was away, and furthermore, he was leaving my friend for the 18 yr old au pair. And he left his entire fortune to the new wife.
Bear in mind, Dave, worth repeating, the hippie culture was largely a middle class phenomena. Many of the poor were working, just to survive, and didn't have the luxury of running off to Europe and backpacking around for a month or 2.
The woman, mentioned, was a middle class woman who just wanted to spread her wings for 6 months and enjoy the party, influenced by all the publicity at the time. Have no idea what happened to her, but she may have just tired of it all quickly and returned home.
Way, way back there was a similar movement, out of Italy, centuries ago. I learned of that when I was visiting Meteora, in Greece, with all those hilltop monasteries. My guide compared that phenomena to the hippie movement, centuries later.
Rich kids, dropping out of upper class life in Italy at the time, and building all those hilltop monasteries, and who knows if they did any praying?
It will be interesting to see if a movement, like this, re-occurs at some point in time, started by disenchanted rich kids from Silicon Valley?
At the height, 1967, I was 8 years old. But liked rock music starting around then. Beatles, DOORs, Small Faces, Eric Burden and the Animals.
I was too young to be drafted. And when I was in my mid-teens, thankfully the State did not require me to register.
I am an anarcho capitalist (google "voluntaryism") and materialist only up to the sense of investing for my own financial freedom - I hardly spend and live very cheap. I prefer wilderness to luxury vacations. I have really been similar to a hippie since the late 70s - in that sense.
I have never done the drugs. I don't feel as if I missed out on drugs. I have seen what LSD did to some people. And I am anti-war. I post on my FB site anti-war posts. What the heck happened to you former hippies? War is costing us citizens hundreds of billions of dollars a year and your grandchildren will be enslaved to pay for it. The "Patriot Act" has greatly reduced our freedoms. I feel far less free than I did in the 1990s.
I am not a hippie though in one sense: I am no hedonist. I never seen hippies do regular one hour intense workouts. I know one who was a self-admitted hedonist. Hardly exercised, ate whatever tasted good. Well she got cancer this year. Very late stage and the surgery, chemo and radiation thankfully worked for her favor.
What happened to you Anti war types? America has been in war in the Middle East just about as long as the Vietnam war. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed by our weapons in American soldiers hands, and all this has been a big recruiter for terrorists. We have to stop this world cop business.
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Now just try that today!!!
Why? Stupid me, those with the Orange Arm Bands were there to help those having a bad LSD trip!
