50's/60's babies: are you ever accused of being too liberal?

[ladeuxiemevoiture]

I'm amazed sometimes at how times have changed when I open my mouth in order to discuss something more "light" or fun and young people look at me like they are shocked and appalled at the very idea of, say, wife swapping or other things, typically of a sexual/relationship nature, which are things unthinkable to a crowd raised in post-Reagan America.

Or maybe I'm just low-class?

Anybody else ever have the experience of being shunned for being too libertine and you were just being yourself?

[villager]

1. born in '59, and the Bellamy Bros. song "Old Hippie"

is making more and more sense to me, with each passing year...

[jackster]

3. born in '56...

and to my never ending heartache, my son born in '78 is a die-hard Reaganiac Republican.

He tells me constantly that I'm too liberal!

I should have known when we argued about his hair length when he was a child - I wanted it LONGER!

[cyberpj]

12. Old Hippe - Sing along now...

Old Hippie

He turned thirty-five last Sunday
In his hair he found some gray
But he still ain't changed his lifestyle
He likes it better the old way
So he grows a little garden in the back yard by the fence
He's consuming what he's growing nowadays in self defense
He get's out there in the twilight zone
Sometimes when it just don't make no sense

He gets off on country music
Cause disco left him cold
He's got young friends into new wave
But he's just too friggin' old
And he dreams at night of Woodstock and the day John Lennon died
How the music made him happy and the silence made him cry
Yeah he thinks of John sometimes
And he has to wonder why

Chorus:
He's an old hippie and he don't know what to do
Should he hang on to the old
Should he grab on to the new
He's an old hippie...his new life is just a bust
He ain't trying to change nobody
He's just trying real hard to adjust

He was sure back in the sixties that everyone was hip
Then they sent him off to Vietnam on his senior trip
And they forced him to become a man while he was still a boy
And in each wave of tragedy he waited for the joy
Now this world may change around him
But he just can't change no more

Chorus

Well, he stays away a lot now from the parties and the clubs
And he's thinking while he's joggin' 'round
Sure is glad he quit the hard drugs
Cause him and his kind get more endangered everyday
And pretty soon the species will just up and fade away
Like the smoke from that torpedo...just up and fade away

Chorus

[villager]

14. now to post lyrics from the sequel!

n/t

[cyberpj]

17. The sequel -

Wow. No can find.
But did find they also had an Old Hippe Christmas song!

[blm]

2. I'd say more Repubs wifeswap than Dems ever did. John Bolton comes to mind

,

[MuseRider]

7. Ewwww

Ewwwww Just Ewwwww.

[cyberpj]

4. I'm there.

The 70's in particular were quite experimental for me when it came to (and I use the term loosely) relationships. At one point the phrase 'commune w/benefits' explains it better. At the time, it seemed like something worth exploring but

now that you mention it - and this is awfully interesting to note...


I don't feel as free and fun if I talk about it now -- society has made me embarrassed and even a little ashamed again!


Wow.

Maybe that means the pendulum will swing back the other way again soon?

You never know...

[ladeuxiemevoiture]

10. That's EXACTLY what I mean.

On not infrequent occasions, I feel I'm taken to task for being so libertine, and I'm puzzled, like, that's libertine? And then I realize, it's not anything, it's that I'm old. :D

[cyberpj]

15. I've read

that AIDS was the major factor in the change of attitudes.

I'll buy that. But NOT the people who label you for what you did.

[Karenina]

25. Those of us born in the 50's

were the ONLY GENERATION for whom having sex was not necessarily a death sentence. THINK ABOUT IT. ;-)

[Child_Of_Isis]

5. What amazes me in the contrast in society.

I was born in the 60's. It was a "he ain't heavy, he's my brother" mentality. We didn't look down on those who had less, we tried to help them. I didn't sign up for this "me me me" crap. Someone changed the rules in the middle of the game and I am a fish out of water. It is like being in a big factory and someone shutting down the machines. I remain frozen in time until the order comes to restart them.

[cyberpj]

8. Well said!

And you're right about 'changed the rules in the middle' - The 80's were the real death of "Peace, Love, Music" and the birth of "Greed is good".

[Crazy Guggenheim]

9. Moreover, for some reason when 1980 hit everything changed.

I was living in Berkeley at the time and it changed there too.

[trackfan]

20. Bingo - the whole world changed around 1980 -

and, technological gizmos, cell phones, internets, etc. notwithstanding, hasn't changed much since. (Though things really started going downhill when the current dunce took over).

[Crazy Guggenheim]

21. That's when it really started to hit. I'd say it's three times as bad.

[Crazy Guggenheim]

6. The problem I used to have was telling some of these

"whipper-snappers" - back in the late 90's - that these companies won't think twice about bouncing your ass out if the economy goes down. Also that you don't show up with shorts and a t-shirt to a job fair regardless of what the recruiters say about casual dress.

[ladeuxiemevoiture]

13. Yep.

I remember a couple recessions now, and it's no fun, and young tech people and others just don't/can't believe it can happen to them, and then it does, and the cycle continues. I don't take pleasure in seeing people's lives take a downturn, but you do get a certain schadenfreudish, "I told you so" satisfaction from it.

[Crazy Guggenheim]

16. Ya know it's going to happen. This is my forth recession.

However I do remember a time when many of these companies didn't have lay offs in their history. Come to think of it, it began in the 1980's.

[cyberpj]

18. Yes they did. But it was called "restructuring" and, at first,

they at least had some decent compensation packages.

[Crazy Guggenheim]

19. Wow. I remember that. They would give some sort of severence

package.

[havocmom]

11. Been called everything from a 'pinko commie' to a 'wing nut freeper'

Been accused of being a hippy AND a narc.

And I am pretty consistent in my positions on issues, changing only when convincing evidence and thoughtful consideration comes along to make me believe I was in error.

Guess I am just a free thinker who can't be pigeon-holed. :shurg:

[kevsand]

22. Not so much shunned.

But definitely lots of blank stares in response to what I thought were obvious references. Particularly when it comes to the drug culture, which apparently no longer exists as we knew it. Who are all these people, and what are they doing in my living room? :shrug:

[Kickin_Donkey]

23. Politically speaking, I feel out of it, yes.

I was born in '62, so most of my formative years were during the '60s and '70s, when you were socialized to question authority, especially the government, religion, and patriotic symbols.

I remember when we were kids, we used to substitute words in the Pledge of Allegiance to mock it, and we thought getting all serious about the national anthem at a ballgame was silly -- and no one gave a hoot if you did. Nowadays, in this theonationalistic atmosphere, you'd probably get expelled from elementary school for saying something like, "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of Germany ..."

And I can't believe all the references about god and Christ that you hear on the news, on sitcoms, in reality shows, in everyday situations. It used to be a private affair, if you even bought into that stuff at all.

When I was growing up, you were taught NOT to march in lockstep. Now it seems to be the other way around.

But then again these are bizarre times and I never thought I'd have to worry about the draft in my 40s.

[donheld]

24. All the time

I wear it with pride.