Hippies, peaceniks, and the sands of time

[timo2]

I'm a second wave boomer, the war protesters and actual hippies were 1st wave boomers. The year my draft number was picked the draft did not go that high (the year before it had). Hippie style clothes and hair were the norm for fashion wear, not because of a belief system. And I went to a lot of rock concerts from 1971 to 1978.

Looking back, the counter culture movement pivoted around one thing: not having people shoot at you. Without the draft, there would have been no widespread counter culture movement. And subsequent history has shown that the faux hippies were not really into cultural change, they just did not want to go to war and get shot at. When the opportunity to get drafted ended, so did the hippie era and everyone got a job.

IMO, the desire not to get shot at is also the motivation for the two nearest protest movement since the draft days of the 1960's. 1) is the Parkland 'march for our lives' folks.' Because these people also do not want to get shot at 2) Black Lives matter, because these people do not want to get shot at. Apparently, not wanting to be shot at inspires people to protest.

 

[Bestwifeever]

The people that I knew who were hippies pretty much are still hippies. Some have done well in the arts.

 

[marko]

I was secretly conservative but faked it with my motorcycle, Ray Bans, love beads, flowered shirts and moccasins (yes I drove a bike in fringed moccasins! --idiot) ...all the hot girls were hippie chicks, so I was headed in their direction.

All the rich girls wanted to freak out daddy and I was the rich boy on a bad bike there to help!

 

[HFWR]

The people that I knew who were hippies pretty much are still hippies. Some have done well in the arts.

Well, I got a degree and a “real” j*b, but I took some hippie with me. Just not quite as much hair...

 

[Nemo2]

Well, I got a degree and a “real” j*b, but I took some hippie with me. Just not quite as much hair...

 

[HFWR]

Nothing surprising about that. It's well documented that people become more conservative as they age.



For example:



Hard Evidence: do we become more conservative with age?



Why Are Older People More Conservative?

And stay off of my lawn!

 

[audreyh1]

Nothing surprising about that. It's well documented that people become more conservative as they age.

For example:

Hard Evidence: do we become more conservative with age?

Why Are Older People More Conservative?

Well, there are apparently a lot of younger people more conservative than I (and some quite high profile ones as plenty of members of congress are younger than I these days). So it's hard for me to see this trend.

 

[txtig]

I wasn’t a hippie, but a bit hippie-ish. Smoked my share of dope. In 1972, I volunteered with the McGovern campaign. I shudder when I look back on my beliefs back then. So naive.

 

[stepford]

...So naive.

We were indeed, but I wonder if all the cynicism that replaced our naivete is really that much better.

 

[Koolau]

By the time Woodstock happened, I'd just gotten my j*b at Megacorp. I consider the heyday of the hippies as virtually over by Woodstock. If not then, at least by the time of Altamonte. But I digress.

No, I wasn't a hippie. I went to a midwestern university where we had maybe one admin. bldg. sit-in (ca. 1968, to coincide with the protests at the Dems. convention.) I recall two defining moments during my time in school. About 1967, I was in a psych class and some wannabe hippie was whining to the whole class about how our school hadn't had any sit-ins, riots, tear-gas-tossing "pigs", anti-war demonstrations (actually, we had, but not many showed up.) The rest of the class just sort of stared at this guy (he was from the east coast - maybe Boston). After he'd vented, we all shrugged and went back to the subject - and that was that.

The second event was a rally of pi$$ed off students ca. 1969 to protest dramatic increases of student tuition. For some reason the "Peace Union" had managed to take the mic and lead the thing. Some hippie student got up and said "We're gonna roll back the F-ing fee increase - right??!!" The crowd went wild. "And were gonna stop the F-ing war, right??!!!!!" Silence and blank looks. A couple of minutes later, the crowd broke up as the 7 hippies tried to rally us back.

Oh, and another thing. My service frat had an office next to the Peace Union. I got to know one of the PeaceNics (casually). He was a very unhappy person who was a drama major. I saw him perform in the experimental theater once or twice. After graduation, I saw him driving a cab around town.

 

[davismills]

I guess I'm a bit different. I was the VP of the local Teenage Republican group and even attended a few John Birch society meetings. It taught me that one can go too far right AND too far left.

Anyway, if you have good hiking shoes, the fork in the road poses no dilemma.

 

[braumeister]

We were indeed, but I wonder if all the cynicism that replaced our naivete is really that much better.

Alas, my cynicism (although I prefer to call it skepticism) started early.

Back in the day, the word was going around at my college that there was going to be an antiwar protest on Friday. Nobody knew any details, but most of us had heard about it and wondered who was organizing it.

Friday afternoon, I was outdoors and watched two panel trucks from a local TV station drive on the campus. "Ah" I thought. "Even the TV station has heard about it."

As students began milling about the trucks, the back end of one of them opened up and we could see it was filled with protest signs. The kind with big letters attached to handles so they could be lifted up for a good camera view.

Two guys in the truck started handing them out to people. "Here, wave this around and you'll be on the 6 o'clock news!"

The whole thing was cynically organized by the TV station so they could get a story to show their audience.

Believe it or not, I'm not making this up. I was there and saw it.

 

[ivinsfan]

I was not a hippie in fact my room mates at the time tried to convince me to go to Woodstock and I declined because I hate camping .They returned grumbling about all the mud and lack of food , etc. no talk about how awesome it was.I did have some hippie clothes .

Just tell everyone you were there anyway ..everyone does it..

 

[MRG]

August 8, 1974 DW and I were dating about to start our senior year. We were at a concert in Hershey Park, Uriah Heep was the main act. They stopped the show to announce Nixon's resignation. I thought people were going to tear the wall down.

Peaceful group but there was a lot of emotions.

 

[Choices]

I was a hippie in my heart, got tossed from my high school political science class for being too anti-war, and maybe a bit loud.
I later was married to a soldier. Tough road to trod! I lived out in the country, wove macrame, sewed my own clothes, made candles and grew lots of our food. Lifestyle paid for by Uncle Sugar.
I have returned to those old times, except for the paycheck and that husband. A bunch of us are making candles this week.
I still hate war.

 

[GravitySucks]

I was 10 when Woodstock happened, 15 when the Vietnam war ended. But I did have long hair and enjoyed weed and psychedeli cs.
Would have liked the free love stuff but the easy girls were at the discos and were into coke by this time. I neither liked nor could afford either

On the road now heading for a camp host gig in Colorado where there are many an old hippie i can relate with. Maybe I'll be able to partake in some of that free love era stuff I missed out on.
Even more against the war now.

 

[CaptTom]

Listening to the music of that era, I'm struck by how simplistic we thought things were.

We wanted to end all war. We wanted peace and love. We wondered why we can't all just get along.

It's not that simple. When someone starts a war with you, it's pretty hard to just choose peace. When someone steals from, lies to or threatens you, love is not always the correct response. There are some people whom no-one can get along with.

I see the same black-and-white simplicity in today's politics. There's no nuance. Everyone on my "team" (political party) is perfect and everything they say is 100% correct. Everyone on the other "team" is evil and everything they say is a lie.

If we really want peace, and really want to get along, we need to listen to things we might not like to hear. Other opinions, other perspectives. Chance are very good that BOTH sides are speaking some truth, as well as some exaggerations, spin and misrepresentations.

 

[Nemo2]

When someone starts a war with you, it's pretty hard to just choose peace.

"The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it."

George Orwell

 

[redshift]

I like this cartoon.

[emoji1]

 

[RunningBum]

I have one small confession to make.

I only learned about Woodstock a few days before the event. It sounded like a great time, and as it happened I needed to drive nearby on Sunday, the last (scheduled) day of the festival. I had been visiting my parents in Brooklyn and needed to get back to work in Syracuse.

It was raining that day, which dampened (no pun intended) my spirits a bit, but I really wanted to see what was going on. I drove as close as I could, got to roughly the vicinity in mid-afternoon, parked the car on the side of the road, and started hiking in. By the time I got to the fringes, I could see that it was more or less complete chaos, and decided it wasn't worth it to keep going.

I hiked back to the car and went on my way. So I suppose I could claim to have technically been "at" Woodstock, but not really.

Great memories.

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

 

[Dtail]

I have one small confession to make.

I only learned about Woodstock a few days before the event. It sounded like a great time, and as it happened I needed to drive nearby on Sunday, the last (scheduled) day of the festival. I had been visiting my parents in Brooklyn and needed to get back to work in Syracuse.

It was raining that day, which dampened (no pun intended) my spirits a bit, but I really wanted to see what was going on. I drove as close as I could, got to roughly the vicinity in mid-afternoon, parked the car on the side of the road, and started hiking in. By the time I got to the fringes, I could see that it was more or less complete chaos, and decided it wasn't worth it to keep going.

I hiked back to the car and went on my way. So I suppose I could claim to have technically been "at" Woodstock, but not really.

Great memories.

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.

 

[Walt34]

No, I wasn't a hippie. I went to a midwestern university where we had maybe one admin. bldg. sit-in (ca. 1968, to coincide with the protests at the Dems. convention.)

That reminds me of the community college that I went to for my first two years. This was/is a commuter school, there were no dorms on the campus, and everyone I knew had at least a part time job so there was little interest or energy left over for protests, demonstrations and the like. After the Kent State shootings a few people wanted to stage some type of protest about that and I think about seven people showed up.

After that we referred to the school as "Apathy U."

 

[GravitySucks]

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 at the 1999 Rome NY one. Took my kid and she fulfilled her High school volunteer work requirment. We were there Sunday when the fires started. Fun day until that happened.

 

[Dtail]

I was at the 1999 Rome NY one. Took my kid and she fulfilled her High school volunteer work requirment. We were there Sunday when the fires started. Fun day until that happened.

Yes that was a little scary. I went for all 3 days. Food was all over the place by the 3rd day and supposedly the very high water prices initiated the actions to start the fires.
Your daughter was brave lol, although didn't see rampant drug usage.
Minimal police present there and we had a small tent, but it survived the night without any attempts to throw into any fires.

 

[beowulf]

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.