Hippies, peaceniks, and the sands of time

[braumeister]

I suppose I could claim to have technically been "at" Woodstock, but not really.

Do you regret that now, or do you still feel it wasn't worth it, having seen the chaos first hand?

No, I never regretted it. My interest wasn't the countercultural aspect; I just wanted to hear some of the music. But I had lots of 8-track tape cassettes in the car so that was still possible.

 

[NewTimes]

Like many have stated so far, my path took many turns in the late 1960's and into the 1970's. In 1971 toked for the first time. Then it was wide open from that point on. The hair grew, the attitude changed and independence and awareness began to appear. How many times did me and my college circle of pot head, philosophical buddies say "how much better the world would be if just once everyone could be buzzed on the planet at the same time".

Then a brother, who I turned on, became an entrepreneur during that time making trips to Tucson, not for the weather. And from that next came intros to others enjoying the same cash lifestyle. I stayed under the radar, and was "cool" while others around me flew planes to and from the Bahamas filled with party goodies or made quick return trips to and from Tucson.

One of my most memorable experiences was picking psilocybin mushrooms in GA. In the Charolais cattle pasture, I was cautioned not to eat the rooms until I had finished picking. The temptation was to great. Several hours later, riding in a camper shell in the back of a Datsun pickup, and seeing, hearing and feeling ultra sensory experiences, I then understood the word of caution.

Luckily, I never was caught as my brother, and ALL others eventually were and worked for the government for a time at the gray bar hotel. I was the tag along to the high rollers. Someone "cool", who was fortunate to have the experience without the blemish of a record. And yes, I did have long hair, and was anything but "cool'.

 

[antmary]

I was in California going to college during the late 60's. It was really fun at first...the blend of plenty of pot, beer, friends...and, youth. And being away from parents. But, after Altamont, things turned, and the reality of the hard drug culture crept in. About 1970, I embraced meditation, and steeping myself in spirituality during the 1970's. I am incredibly thankful to have been able to experience those self-reflective years. Today, I still meditate every morning, and go tripping out into my (non-marijuana) garden.

But, really, you have to have money to be a hippie. During the late 80's my husband and I got serious about saving for retirement. I read The Bogleheads Guide to Investing, and that was a Godsend for us. So now, we can be hippies who invested...

 

[athena53]

After I started my first job out of college in 1975, and also started studying for the actuarial exams, which kill most of your remaining spare time, I was out with a BF on a sunny night in Mt. Adams, a suburb of Cincinnati, walking to a restaurant. A group of hairy hippie-types were splayed out on a nearby lawn. I still remember a bearded guy standing up and yelling, "It's all hogwash, isn't it?" "Yes", I yelled back happily. "It's all hogwash!" He repeated to his friends, "She says it's all hogwash!"

And sometimes I still like to remind myself it's all hogwash.

 

[braumeister]

on a sunny night in Mt. Adams ... A group of hairy hippie-types were splayed out on a nearby lawn.

You might be amused to know that nothing has changed in Mt. Adams.

 

[athena53]

You might be amused to know that nothing has changed in Mt. Adams.

Then I need to find an excuse to go back there!

 

[MichaelB]

A mid-boomer here, went to high school in the late 60's. I barely remember seeing hippies in the south Chicago burbs where we lived. I went to college in California and expected to see hippies everywhere, but there weren't that many. Most of the people were like me, just a lot more mellow and laid back. Not a lot of drugs, though I really wasn't looking, there was lots of alcohol even back then, but I didn't drink, so NBD.

 

[Amethyst]

I was suspicious of hippies. Couldn't see how they could possibly make that lifestyle work. Plus, I read some articles that convinced me the women did all the work on the communes while the men just lay around giving orders. Not for me!

 

[REWahoo]

I've posted this previously but that's never stopped me from repeating myself...

My first exposure to a real hippie was, of all places, the military. Going through inprocessing into Air Force OTS in January of 1970 the guy in the barber chair next to me looked like the twin brother of the guy pictured below. His bell bottoms were made from a Soviet flag - bright red with a gold hammer and sickle design at the bottom. His barber was laughing so hard he had trouble holding the shears while giving him his "concentration camp" buzz cut.

FWIW, that ex-hippie made it through OTS, got his wings, became a B-52 pilot and retired after a 20+ year career in the AF.

 

[athena53]

I was suspicious of hippies. Couldn't see how they could possibly make that lifestyle work. Plus, I read some articles that convinced me the women did all the work on the communes while the men just lay around giving orders. Not for me!

Yes- I remember an article in "Sisterhood is Powerful" about that. When the writer, a woman, put up a tactful note suggesting that everyone clean up after himself/herself in the kitchen, the males objected that it was an impingement on their freedom!

 

[6miths]

I was a late Boomer so missed the revolution but benefited from the music and the liberalism that created the school that I was fortunate enough to attend and at which I still teach.

 

[Ally]

I think I must have been hippyish in high school and college, because lately when I’ve seen friends or relatives from that era, they delight in telling my grandkids “Did you know your grandma was a hippie?”

I know I found myself in some situations that I was worried about at the time, and now look back on it, I feel very lucky I arrived home safely so many nights. Plus there were drugs, which I eventually stopped and stayed away from any users after my freshmen year of college. I found myself with very few friends for this reason, so I transferred to a small university in Texas and started a more traditional life. I’ve been very happy with that choice.

I just finished watching Tales of the City on Acorn and it made me feel really uneasy. I think Hair, which I’ve seen, would affect me the same. I think I was using those hippie experiences to help with my shyness and social anxiety. I wasn’t all that happy going through it.

 

[freebird5825]

Would have been nice to go to Woodstock, but was only 9 yrs old.
I did go to the "3rd" Woodstock in 1999. Loved it and met some guys who went to the original one.

I was 11 years old and lived less than an hour away from Bethel. My older brother and sister were under "house arrest" and had to call my Mom at work every hour so she knew they had not gone with the neighbor guy who had a car, or hitchhiked up there on their own. I kid you not.
I attended the 1999 Woodstock also. I only went during the daytime because I had this gut feeling it would all unravel under the cover of darkness. That turned out to be a very good choice on my part.

I enjoyed the performers at the East Stage, and overall had a good time. What the promoters subjected the attendees to was abyssmal. No excuse for the exorbitant food/water bottle prices and breakdown of sanitation and water supply.

I was an employee of the organization located no less than 1/2 mile from the airfield where the concert was held. I saw enough nudity, body paint and tattoos to last an entire lifetime, plus another. I have a CD full of photographs, collected by a former co-w*rker from all of us who attended.

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

My biggest outside influence on me in the '60s was at an ELCA Lutheran church I attended as a child, where I got to know the pastor and his wife. They were the most authentic Christians I have ever known.

In 1965, they took a brief leave from the church to march with the civil rights movement at Selma, Ala. Looking back now, I know that many congregation members, mostly blue-collar Germans and Scandinavians, were aghast. Pastor Lesher weathered all the grumbling cheerfully and explained his position as an exercise of fundamental Christian values. His theological arguments quashed the grumbling, and he and his wife Jean continued to serve the congregation for several more years.

Every time I heard them confronted by people's bigotry (and it occurred repeatedly in my presence, since my peer group was children with no real filter on their thoughts), they rejected it calmly but firmly. At the same time, their leadership was not authoritarian in any way. They motivated me to attend church, not because I'd go to hell if I didn't, but because it was an enlightening experience.

The Leshers put their stamp on me. Even as I was growing skeptical of the Abrahamic myths as a child, I recognized their version of the Christian ethic as something special.

Bill Lesher went on to lead the ELCA seminaries at Chicago and Berkeley. He later embraced an interfaith movement as leader of the Parliament of the World's Religions. He died this year; here's a link to his obituary. It's quite a story.

I've never had a lot of heroes in my life, but Bill and Jean Lesher are my heroes.

 

[Nemo2]

here's a link to his obituary. It's quite a story.

I'm an agnostic, generally indifferent to religion, (but also bemused as to why some people are judged by anything other than their actions/behavior), and he sounded like a helluva guy.

 

[RonBoyd]

My nostalgia moment happened a couple weeks ago. After 20 years, "Tales of the City" was again shown (Yes, it has been available on PBS but at quite a price). It is now available on BBC America (free to cable/streaming subscribers) and on Amazon Prime for a small fee. It brought back many memories in 1993 when I first watched it and again last week.

 

[Ally]

My nostalgia moment happened a couple weeks ago. After 20 years, "Tales of the City" was again shown (Yes, it has been available on PBS but at quite a price). It is now available on BBC America (free to cable/streaming subscribers) and on Amazon Prime for a small fee. It brought back many memories in 1993 when I first watched it again last week.

It’s also on Acorn free. I read that there is an updated version coming out soon showing where the characters are now. It’s supposed to be on a streaming channel, but not sure which one.

 

[RonBoyd]

It’s also on Acorn free. I read that there is an updated version coming out soon showing where the characters are now. It’s supposed to be on a streaming channel, but not sure which one.

Oops. That is where I watched it. It was originally broadcast on the BBC... getting old and confuse easily, I guess.

https://variety.com/2018/tv/news/armistead-maupins-tales-of-the-city-netflix-series-1202784584/

Based on the books by Maupin, the new installment follows Mary Ann, who returns home to San Francisco and is reunited with her daughter and ex-husband Brian, twenty years after leaving them behind to pursue her career. Fleeing the midlife crisis that her picture perfect Connecticut life created, Mary Ann returns home to her chosen family and will quickly be drawn back into the orbit of Anna Madrigal and the residents of 28 Barbary Lane.

 

[Ally]

Oops. That is where I watched it. It was originally broadcast on the BBC... getting old and confuse easily, I guess.



https://variety.com/2018/tv/news/armistead-maupins-tales-of-the-city-netflix-series-1202784584/

Sounds interesting! I wonder which channel will carry it. Never mind, I see it will be Netflix.

 

[Marita40]

Speaking of Hair: I always thought it curious that the title song was made popular by, of all groups, The Cowsills.

 

[ncbill]

I would have liked to go to Woodstock just to see what it was all about, but I got married that weekend and went into the Army shortly after. My father, who had been an enlisted man island hopping in the Pacific theater during WWII, had always told me, that if you are going to go into the military, go in as an officer, you'll be a lot better off. I heeded his advice, and when I went to college in 1965, I took ROTC. Got commissioned and married two months apart and ended up staying in for 6 years active and another 17 reserve. Missed most of the hippie stuff - had to have a short haircut, but I did wear a field jacket and jeans everywhere. Our drills had a lot of protesters and pretty girls putting daisies in the barrels of our M-1s. Ended up marrying one and we are still together. First thing she taught our son was to make a peace sign and say "Army stinks." No regrets at all. Even though I lost several buddies during the war, I fully understand that protesters, then and now, had/have the right to express their opinions. I was never a big fan of the VN war as I believed it was being conducted poorly and for the wrong reasons, but there's not much a LT can do except obey orders. I do remember that, when I came home, in uniform, protesters threw stuff at us and cursed us - IMHO, that was wrong. We didn't have the luxury of refusing to do things we were ordered to do - they were protesting the wrong people. BTW, I was already in the Army when they had the first draft lottery - my number was 366 . Boy, was my new bride angry.

Dad was still paying back his service obligation from ROTC in 1965.
IIRC he went from Germany to Saigon that year.
Then he got stop-lossed (or whatever they called it that back then) because of the huge attrition in junior officers.
He joined their lawsuit, so was stuck at O-3. Army finally let him out a year or so later.
Probably the reason I never did ROTC, though in retrospect I wish I had so the government would have paid for college, like my kids are doing (though in different service branches)

 

[skipro33]

I was hippie. Nehru jackets, paisley prints, peace symbol medallion on a heavy gold chain around my neck and of course long hair. My bell bottom jeans were shredded at the heels and so dirty they could stand up on their own. I held no personal beliefs to the whole movement other than I wanted to score chicks. Got a van and an orange cat named Sylvester and we drove to all the van rallies and concerts we could get into for free.

Eventually I ran out of everything, not just money and joined the Air Force where my older brother was already serving in 'nam. I thrived on the discipline and turned into an ultra conservative politically and held a union job for over 30 years; the best of both worlds I always thought.


I do remember once landing in San Francisco on R-n-R. I was fresh from the field, in uniform, still had dirt and mud from the jungle under my nails and the hairy-krishnas at the airport hassling me. Everyone gave me the stink-eye and after that I never wore my uniform in public again. I remembered how smoggy the air smelled after Vietnam in San Francisco.

 

[beowulf]

I don't have the hippie experience, but, when I got back from an overseas tour and served stateside in the early '70s, we were told to never wear our uniforms off base, especially fatigues, except to official functions and that had to be Class A's. Most of us were really unhappy with that directive as we did not see the point in serving and having to hide that fact in public. Not that we were fooling anyone - being clean shaven and short hair made us suspicious looking anyway.

 

[donheff]

I was hippie. ... I held no personal beliefs to the whole movement other than I wanted to score chicks.

I used to laugh when old folks would wonder why any guy would have long hair. If you were on either coast or any big city or college town, that was conformity and seemed to be required on the scoring side.

 

[HFWR]

I held no personal beliefs to the whole movement other than I wanted to score chicks.

Most of the “hippies” I knew were in this category, only here for the drugs and the sex...

https://youtu.be/WnjufR8GDcw