Sometimes I wish I could have been a hippie

[Art_from_Ark]

Groovy, man

[In_The_Wind]

1. I'm glad I was a hippie!

[Art_from_Ark]

22. I would be interested in hearing something about your experience

All that I heard about the movement back in the day was filtered through adults, and the tiny bit of the culture that managed to appear in the pages of Boys' Life (mostly in the form of advertisements for patches and posters).

[grilled onions]

2. They Represented A Lot Of Positives

and while many of us were not in any way a "hippy",did not dress like them nor live their lifestyle we did appreciate a lot of their values. They loved their fellow man. They valued all our land and detested companies who wanted to spoil it for profit,to destroy the land and air or stream. The hippies disliked killing,they detested war. Make love not war was their chant Some would be seen in major parks(like Central Park NYC) handing out flowers to strangers,to the elderly--many totally confused why they were getting a flower and some very confused by the traditional "hippy" costume of the day. They would plant seeds. Better then planting our dead from 'Nam they said.
Money was not important beyond survival and you always shared bread and bed to those who needed them. You didn't see them with a gun strapped to their thighs either! But that was then and this is now...but still the youth of today could make changes...they could respect the land and the people,the seniors,disabled,the poor. They still could make a difference if we could only get them to text less and care more.

[Scuba]

4. ...

[Scuba]

3. Even better to be an OH WOW ...

Old Hippie With Out Worries

[REACTIVATED IN CT]

9. Groovy n/t

[livetohike]

10. This made me smile.....back in the day, I had a friend

whom we nicknamed "Oh Wow", but it was more because during high times that's about all he would say .

[Aristus]

5. I was born in 1968, a year after the original hippies had declared the "Death Of Hip".

But they were still around in 1972 or '73. My parents would go to my sister's school for PTA conferences, and take me and my younger brother along because they provided child care during the meetings. The child care staff were students at the high school, and most of them seemed like hippies. I remember long hair, sunhats (even at night and indoors), and tee-shirts that were usually frayed and ragged, but always very clean.

I remember them being very nice and friendly. They would always make Kool-Aid for us, and played games with us. I remember them as the nicest "Big Kids" I'd known up to that point (I was 4 or 5). I have very fond memories of them.

It's too bad the usual refrain regarding their memory is a constant "dirty-hippie" revulsion. They deserve better; and we need them back.

[livetohike]

11. I didn't go anywhere

and I could have been one of those "big kids" as I was in college to become a teacher back then.

[Aristus]

14. Thank you for the Kool-Aid. It was good.

[Art_from_Ark]

13. A few were still around in the late '70s

Mostly in college towns, perhaps.

I stayed with some hippies once in a college town that I had bicycled to. One of them saw me on my bicycle and asked me where I was going. I told him that I had reached my destination. He then asked me if I had any place to stay and I said that I didn't, so he said I could "crash" with his group. I ended up staying with them for a couple of months. As someone else on this thread noted, they were very generous and sharing.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

6. It's never too late.

I always said I was mad that I was born in 1969 and missed it all. Then I realized it's a state of mind, and nobody can stop me.
Luckily, I live in the PNW where it's not only acceptable, but still cool.

[RebelOne]

7. I remember the hippie days.

I was really never a hippie, but I had a lot of hippie friends.

[REACTIVATED IN CT]

8. It is not too late

At age 65 I'm still a hippie

[zanana1]

31. 61 today and still listening to The Dead and Dylan. nt

[Buffalo Bull]

37. and Bob and Phil still sound good live

FURTHUR @ BUFFALO 11.13.11

[raccoon]

12. "Why was I born too late?" --the Ponytails. nt

[MiddleFingerMom]

15. There's still plenty of them around -- and not just the "old" ones.

[tavalon]

16. Hippie, I've learned through the years is a state of mind

Sure, being a Hippie when everyone was a Hippie might have been cool but I've been a Hippie living in various communal situations most of my life and I was just a tiny little girl in the 60s.

[Art_from_Ark]

18. It might be a state of mind,

but I think there was something particularly magical about the movement of the '60s.

[tavalon]

20. My husband was born to a woman after the summer of love

He likes to call it the fall and spring of "oh, shit" as his mother was only sixteen. Anyway, he lived around the hippies and he said that during the height of it, there were many people who just joined up because they were joiners, not because they truly cared. The ones that were real hippies are still doing it. His mom is still a hippie.

[Art_from_Ark]

21. Interesting

I have heard that a lot of the "joiners" were just interested in the "free love"-- or maybe they wanted to stay out of sight until the war ended.

[olddots]

17. The Madison Ave term "hippie " was a sales tool

before it was "beatnik " you were " straight " if you weren't hip

of course there was hep before the beatniks -----its all confusing

[Art_from_Ark]

19. I thought the opposite of "hip" was "square",

and "straight" referred to someone who didn't do drugs

[zanana1]

32. We called ourselves "freaks".

I never understood the word "hippie". Very corny.

[Buffalo Bull]

42. Day-glo paint your wagon....

Away out here they got a name
For rain and wind and fire
The rain is Tess, the fast is zippy,
And they call the deadhead hippie

Jerry blows our stars around
And sends our clouds a’flyin’
Jimi makes the mountains sound
Like folks were up there dying

[Buffalo Bull]

41. money engulfs virtue

I gag when a venerable bit of counter culture art is used to sell cars.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

23. In the 60s I used to have a crush on this Hippie Goddess

Last edited Thu Apr 4, 2013, 03:05 AM - Edit history (5)

Melanie. I loved her off beat hippie soul, so earthy and natural and not at all artificial. I was living in France when she started getting popular in Europe where she was all over the TV and then she came back home over here to perform at Woodstock.

[Art_from_Ark]

24. So that's the Melanie who didn't like what they did to her song...

I can certainly understand why you might have a crush on her

[pinboy3niner]

25. A friend of mine did a couple of tours abroad with her

After serving as an Army combat medic in VN, he played bass guitar for your hippie goddess.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

28. Did he play at the gigantic Isle of Wight pop festival?

That's where Melanie played after her appearance at Woodstock. Supposedly, she volunteered to appear right after The Who, as The Doors refused to go on immediately after them. It would be fascinating to have a friend who had played on the same stage with Hendrix, The Who, and The Doors. Or was your friend in her band on her first European trip before she became famous? Although she’d been singing for some time in the U.S., she finally started making hit records in Europe before she became well known in the U.S.

[pinboy3niner]

30. One or both of his tours were to (or included) Australia

He was with me in VN when I got hit in Feb. '70, and according to my old unit roster he wasn't due to go home until 31 Dec '70.

He found me 20 years later, and that's when I heard about his playing for Melanie. We've gotten together a few times in KY, VA and TN, and we've stayed in touch by phone. He told me more about touring with her, but all I remember is that he said he and the other musicians never got paid for their work.

[Blue_In_AK]

26. It was fun.

I will be eternally grateful I was a part of that.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

27. Me too! i lived in a comune about two blocks from Haight street in the 60's

Now, many years later, I'm still an old hippie

[Blue_In_AK]

29. Me, too.

I lived on Haight Street, as well ... Haight and Broderick, actually. My old apartment building is still there. After living a few other places around the City, I moved out to Bolinas, then later lived in the woods in Southern Oregon with a bunch of other freaks, then in a tipi in the Panamint Mountains, back to Bolinas, finally to Alaska in 1975 where I sort of settled down, but I never really lost the mindset.

Good times.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

35. Ha! I lived on the mesa for several years. I think we talked about this once before.

[Blue_In_AK]

36. Oh, that's right.

I remember.

I think I told you that my oldest daughter was born up there, at home. Helen Swallow was my midwife.

[zanana1]

33. All the great songs and poetry...

still in my head.

[MineralMan]

34. It's never too late. Hippie is a state of mind.

You can go there.

[Art_from_Ark]

38. Hippie is more of a shared experience, I think

That's what made it seem so special.

I can lock myself in my room and watch "Yellow Submarine" and "It Was 20 Years Ago Today" all I want. Keep looking at my old magazines from the '60s with their ads for "Flower Power" jeans patches and Woodstock posters, while listening to an all-'60s radio station. Grow an all-organic garden, and buy whatever other food I need at the local co-op. But the virtual experience is nowhere near close to approximating the real experience.

[hunter]

39. I grew up in a "non-square" household.

Technically not "Hippie" but closer to "Beatnik"

Nevertheless there were many assorted naked people, "mixed race" couples, and known homosexuals (often in pairs) sleeping in the guest room. And occasionally lady golfers who wore men's clothes and various queens of their own domains.

My childhood was a hybrid Munsters with a dragon living under the staircase, Addams Family, and Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Welcome all. Wear your favorite shoes and bring rice.

As kids we never knew who was in the bathroom. Just wait patiently and maybe bang on the door if they are taking an unreasonable amount of time.

It was the wrinkly old dudes who disturbed me the most 'cause I know I'll look like that someday. Tiny shrunken dick and balls hanging low enough to throw over a shoulder...

Do your balls hang low?
Do they wobble to and fro?
Can you tie 'em in a knot?
Can you tie 'em in a bow?
Can you throw 'em o'er your shoulder
Like a continental soldier
Do your balls hang low?

"Balls" being entirely interchangeable with another one syllable word for breasts. Don't alert on me, I live with amazon warriors.

What makes me sad is there are a few people my age who claim to have been "hippies" but they were just the ordinary right wingers who happened to eat granola, get naked sometimes, mistreated the women they lived with, didn't abandon the patriarchy or social darwinism, and had one or two ""black" or "gay" friends.

I raise my middle finger to them.

[Art_from_Ark]

40. Oh, my gosh

I wonder what I would have been like if I had been raised in that kind of environment