Melancholy warning.. I'm an old hippie

[Why Syzygy]

and I prefer the "ie" ending as opposed to the "y".

Muddle. What made us hippies was not the flowers and beads or the outrageous (at that time) sexual innuendos and free love and lib adventures, etc. What we actually stood for, ground level, was like No Corporations. We fought the pending takeover of Corporate America. But know what? We failed miserably. The dudes and dudettes have failed. But our spirit still lives. I hope it is contagious.

[Faygo Kid]

1. Peace, love and rock and roll.

Not a bad combination, when you think about it. Also, the fight for civil rights, gender equity and against the war(s). George Bush is a boomer, but so are those now finally turning against him. Stop the war, fight the power.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

4. Not all hippies were boomers

Some of us were born during WWII, and we were right there in the sixties, getting the job done.

Look, our music changed the world. Our political stance brought a war to an end. We changed HAIRSTYLES and CLOTHES, for god's sake. We changed everything, and today you see the Bush-supporting rednecks with their shoulder-length hair, and you've got to laugh when you remember that their fathers and grandfathers used to beat up our boys for having thta EXACT SAME HAIR.

We did good. We did really good.

And we didn't do it from keyboards. This generation has got to get up and get out there. That's my theory, anyway.

Peace.

[Faygo Kid]

5. Apologies, you are right.

The so-called "Silent Generation" wasn't very silent at all. I was only 16 in the summer of love (1967). You are correct.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

9. No apologies, honey

The hippie world embraced everyone. That's what the people who chose to hate us never understood - we had kids of all ages with us - I'm not as old as, say, Timothy Leary, but we had that panoply of people who came along and understood the messages we had to bring.

We also had a fucking draft hanging over the heads of our boys, and that was a great impetus to get out there - saving them was as important as getting our soldiers out of Vietnam. Too many rightwingnuts never understood that. And they still don't. They're the 33 percent who still support Fuckface, I am convinced.

We're all still hippies, my friend. I was on my first honeymoon in 1967 - in San Francisco...... :)

[Faygo Kid]

14. By the way, I am truly a "hippie" - recovering from second hip replacement

Just went back to work on Monday; spent much recuperative time this past month posting on DU. Too much aerobics in 80s-90s. I never thought I would get old (I never thought I would lose this much hair, either). Give me a head with hair (hair!), long beautiful hair (hair!) - etc.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

16. For what it's worth,

you'll always be the FaygoKid to this old hippiechick.

Glad you're feeling better.

[Faygo Kid]

23. Stop, tell me what's that sound

It gets worse, I'm a lawyer, too. And you're not old, you are a Child of the Universe. Thanks for the good wishes. Back at ya.

[CanSocDem]

30. One Night In late June 1967, between LA and 'frisco....

...I was hitchhiking back to Canada when a 'straight' couple(much like myself) with a young son picked me up in a '52 Chevy. We talked for awhile. I was exercising my Canadian citizenship and 'leavin' town' and he was leaving Oklahoma to work in California. I dozed off only to be woken up when he stopped the car to pick up the "hippies" I had chatted with briefly earlier on the road.

The hippies were on a pilgrimage to Haight-Ashbury and for the next few hours they shared 'the vision'. By the time we hit the park gates, our Oklahoma driver was convinced he'd found his calling. So the 5 of us, not counting the mother and child who stayed in the car, took off for an early morning tour of the park and some coffee.

As an 18 year old door-to-door salesman, I was blown away by the shy smiles, the gentle demeanor and the ritualistic exchanging of the peace sign that we encountered from ALL THE PEOPLE who had spent the night in the park. Over coffee, we decided to put the box of specialty paint bottles (fluorescent poster paint, unheard of in Canada) to a more immediate use than I had originally planned.

Believe me...at the time it didn't seem at all hokey or patronizing to paint this fellows car with musical notes, the peace signs and the slogans of the day. It was what he wanted and after he had consulted with his spouse and given her the first brush strokes, we spent the next few hours expressing our dissatisfaction with modern society.

By the time I left to continue on to Canada we were all family. Looking back I always thought that day was one of my most important crossroads.....for whatever reason, I never mentioned, nor produced the bag of pot that was in my traveling bag.

Had I done that, I'd still be there.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

32. What a glorious tale.........

Thank you for this marvelous gift of a slice of your personal history.

Looks like you took the right road.

Welcome to DU (a bit late), friend.

[Faygo Kid]

33. Great story! Thanks for sharing. Dude.

One of these days, I may post the story about when I was deported from Amsterdam in 1973. Those were the days, my friend.

[lumpy]

35. I was a 40 yearoldish housewife

with 4 kids in the 60s and I caught the message. It was the most inspired time in our lives. A time to grow up and see the light. We saw good things beginning to happen; the peace movement, the demand for civil and human rights. Our heros were progressives like the True Jesus Christ, George McGovern, M.L.King, Benjamin Spock, Betty Freiden and yes, the Music.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

36. Bless you

Bless us all.

Weren't we wonderful? And lucky?

Thank you for reminding me of how good it was, how good people like you were.

[xxqqqzme]

47. I graduated high school in '66

spent many Saturday & Sunday afternoons @ love-ins in Griffith Park. I passed information to my former MIL who volunteered w/ American Friends in DC. Spent 4 years on Guam, w/ B-52s, as they approached the SAC base landing strip, rattling our apartment complex. Guys in the military would take classes @ U of Guam, my ex taught there, we would become friends; they would tell us stuff - I would pass along 2 my MIL in DC. We all did what we could. Sampled some fine hashish and Thai stick that came 2 Guam through the military.

[pecwae]

10. Fabulous photo!

:loveya: Jimi, Jimi, Jimi!

[Faygo Kid]

18. After all the jacks are in their boxes. . .

and the clowns have all gone to bed
You can hear happiness staggering on down the street
Footprints dressed in red and the wind whispers mary

A broom is drearily sweeping up the broken pieces of yesterday’s life
Somewhere a queen is weeping somewhere a king has no wife
And the wind it cries mary

The traffic lights they turn of blue tomorrow
And shine their emptiness down on my bed
The tiny island sails downstream cause the life that lived is is dead
And the wind screams mary

Will the wind ever remember the names it has blown in the past
And with this crutch it’s old age and it’s wisdom
It whispers no this will be the last
And the wind cries mary

[Why Syzygy]

39. Good point ..

the styles we set are baaack. I for one will never wear another pair of bell bottoms or hip huggers. I'll stick with my straight leg jeans. But we did set trends, didn't we? Even classic rock still rocks. Where have all the flower children gone? We need peace, bro. You know that of course. Still muddling...

[OldLeftieLawyer]

48. And we'll never stop

I am so proud to have been so fortunate............

Peace.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

2. We're still here, my friend

and perhaps all we can be is a remonstration to the younger generation of what they should be doing, but, I rather think we've done more than that, and will continue.

We're hippies. We're eternal.

And we had the best time of all. Don't forget that.

[mac56]

3. 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

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

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

[babylonsister]

8. mac, what is that song? The lyrics are great and seem familiar. nt

[OldLeftieLawyer]

11. Of all people,

it's the Bellamy Brothers - "Old Hippie," I think it's called.

Hell, I went silver when I was 17 - we come in all colors................. :)

[babylonsister]

13. Thanks, OLL. That song reminds me of my b-i-l. He's around 55 and

has been battling PTSD since Vietnam. I must send it to him. Do you know what year that was released, per chance?
Speaking of, I just went 'au natural' myself, and I'm proud of my silver!

[OldLeftieLawyer]

15. My sorrow for your B-I-L.

It'll never end for him, alas.

Here's all I could find about that song - looks like it came out in 1992: http://launch.yahoo.com/release/152604

And, there's NOTHING like having silver hair. I wish I could show you a picture of mine - it absolutely shimmers, and I love it! You will, too!!

[babylonsister]

22. Thanks again! nt

[Why Syzygy]

43. Alas.

The silver hair thing is something to be proud of. Old tradition tells us it is a sign of wisdom. After 10 years of coloring (starting at 40), I let mine go natch for a couple of years. Then I hooked up with a younger guy and moved to a new place and went back to the bottle. I'm tired of it. I'm gonna let the silver shine through! I love that ya'll appreciate the natural. And I still want to live in a commune. As long as I have a door to shut 8*} .. so many great memories. Walk down the streets of Austin, the state capital, and run into someone who just happens to be selling a real oz, and cheap too. No worries. Just out tooling around in the vw bug. So many people had the bugs and the vw vans. We made history. It was glorious.

[Why Syzygy]

41. I love this thread.

Was feeling blue about the lost hippie era. Now I know . and should have . we are not lost at all.

[China_cat]

6. Is it true that we're no longer young?

Lather was thirty years old today,
They took away all of his toys.
His mother sent newspaper clippings to him,
About his old friends who'd stopped being boys.
There was Harwitz E. Green, just turned thirty-three,
His leather chair waits at the bank.
And Seargent Dow Jones, twenty-seven years old,
Commanding his very own tank.
But Lather still finds it a nice thing to do,
To lie about nude in the sand,
Drawing pictures of mountains that look like bumps,
And thrashing the air with his hands.

But wait, oh Lather's productive you know,
He produces the finest of sound,
Putting drumsticks on either side of his nose,
Snorting the best licks in town,
But that's all over...

Lather was thirty years old today,
And Lather came foam from his tongue.
He looked at me eyes wide and plainly said,
Is it true that I'm no longer young?
And the children call him famous,
what the old men call insane,
And sometimes he's so nameless,
That he hardly knows which game to play...
Which words to say...
And I should have told him, "No, you're not old."
And I should have let him go on...smiling...babywide.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

7. Jeez, that's - what - 1969?

We're still young, but Lather died when Gracie Slick gave up drugs.

[annabanana]

38. ow ow ow

I've got time cramp,
and it brings the warmest, softest tears to my eyes...

[DELUSIONAL]

12. Go to Port Townsend, Washington -- that's where all the

hippies went.

One of the most together places in Washington or the US.

[uppityperson]

21. We're all here because we're not all there.

our town motto.

[livetohike]

28. I love it

:-). Reminds me of the sign when you enter Folly Beach in S. Carolina "The Edge of America". Great place, by the way, or it used to be.

[uppityperson]

29. someone tried to change it, didn't work...

"some of us are here because we're not all there" just misses the whole point

[livetohike]

26. Oh, I thought all the hippies went to Port Douglas

Queensland, Australia. Seemed like it to me :-).

http://www.pddt.com.au/

We are everywhere.

[northofdenali]

17. Us old hippies never die -

we just

[BlackVelvet04]

19. Hey, we fought

the good fight. Time for the younger generation to carry the torch. I don't mind helping and supporting but I'm too tired to lead the charge.

[tularetom]

20. I'm too old too have been a hippie

By the time all that hippie stuff started I was an Army veteran, a college graduate and a father of two school age kids with a junior executroid type job. By the time the sixties ended I was 30. But I did manage for a couple of years to live and work in Berkeley so I got to see it all close up. Later on I found an occupation where I didn't have to kiss anybody's ass so I let my hair grow but by then it was turning gray so I didn't look like a hippie just a poorly groomed older dude.

[Faygo Kid]

24. Well, old guys seem to do OK, too.

Is this you? Say hello to Moneypenny for us.

[tularetom]

25. You flatter me

Yeah I've got the beard and moustache but I have the old guy eyebrows that grow every which way. Gotta trim them things every day.

[Faygo Kid]

31. Yeah, and I grow the most hair in my ears now. For your entertainment. .

Alex Trebek: That's beautiful. And finally, Sean Connery's also here let's move on to Double Jeopardy where the categories -

Sean Connery: Not so fast Trebek.

Alex Trebek: I really thought that was going to work.

Sean Connery: Well, you were wrong, you mountebank. I pose a conundrum to ya, I riddle if you will

Alex Trebek: I don't want to hear it.

Sean Connery: What's the difference between you and a mallard with a cold? One's a sick duck and I can't remember how it ends, but your mother's a whore.

[fla nocount]

27. We did not fail. Pass the baton.

It's time for another generation to share a residence in groups of 6-8 and share a vehicle in groups of 4-6. Time for others to invent cheap entertainment and become innovative in cooking on the cheap. Time for others to refuse to participate and say HELL NO. We brought those fucks to a standstill and it's taken them 40 years to gain enough momentum to dare another grab. We did not fail. We were members of a group of refuseniks who can trace their movement back to the templars and the concept of compound interest. Just refuse to play with the snivelling little cretins and they'll start begging us to reconsider.

It's time for others for others to

Blow up your TV
Throw away your paper
Move to the country
Build you a home

Plant a little garden
Eat a lot of peaches
Comtemplate the universe
On your own.

As a proud single Dad of three teenagers (two adults who won't leave home) it's my personal observation that the tradition and the movement are still alive.

[EFerrari]

46. I was young and hungry, and

I acted real naive,
I could that topless waitress
Had something up her sleeve


:hi:

[lonestarnot]

34. Yes we have failed. Our efforts must be revived.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

37. What's this past tense bullshit?

You kids fought the good fight and you've got nothing to apologize for. But if I've got one complaint it's that some of you gave up to early. Failed? Nonsense. Fight ain't done yet.

[Why Syzygy]

45. We haven't given up.

We are still in the fight. I was feeling blue when I wrote that. Thank you. I think the younger generation stands in awe of what we did and how we did it. Kent state? People gave their lives, not to even mention V.N. That was the blood of true patriots. "Fighting" for peace. That's what I want to see again. Not more bloodshed. Much more peace.

[RedTail Wolf]

40. Old Hippie here too.

The state of the world now has me all bummed out as well. I have a kid in college and they just are not as political as we were. I don't get it. By the way I still am a hippie, got hair down to my waist. It'd be longer but the belly it has to go over makes it appear shorter! Eat a Peach for Peace Brothers and Sisters!

[JVS]

42. *points finger and shrieks*

[JeffR]

44. The revolution hasn't failed

It's still in progress.

[Squeech]

49. Me too

I journaled my response to sasquatch's thread, so I won't recap it here. (But I invite you to read it, I think I made good points, which sasquatch largely ignored.)

Hippiedom for me was all about mind expansion. I wanted to know many things, both book learnin' and real world experience (that last including, but not limited to, getting high). If many of the things I learned caused me to reject conventional wisdom and question authority, well, them's the breaks: I thought society should have applied more rigorous standards of proof all along.

As for the question of whether the hippie movement "failed," that begs a lot of other questions. First of all, at what point did we sit down and formally decide what we were trying to accomplish? No two of us had the same goals, and pretty much the only goals I would say we shared (and not even these were universal) were that everybody should follow hir own bliss and enjoy hirself. I think we did succeed at promoting creative hedonism as a plausible lifestyle choice, and that's something to be proud of, even if the present-day beneficiaries include Ted Nugent and Thomas Kinkade.

Many of us did want to end the war, or at least keep innocent kids (including ourselves) from becoming cannon fodder. I would not say we succeeded. We assumed that the rest of the country would simply take our word for it about how capricious and cruel the whole war was, and agree with us. We misunderestimated the average American's capacity for denial. The war didn't really end until facts on the ground made it impossible to continue, *and* it was by then firmly identified with the Nixon presidency in all its venality. (Which was the point where all the surviving hippies learned to say "I told you so," which is probably what has made us insufferable to our successors.)