Any Other Old Rainbow Family Hippies from the '70's - '80's around Here?

[Wiley50]

One of my other old "family" from the mid '70's has managed to find me here.
Blew me totally away!

Are there any others?

I was at Arkansas '75

Montana '76

New Mexico '77
and

West Virginia '80

[12string]

1. highbridge park

expo 74 spokane?

[Wiley50]

2. Cool! Year before me, but I heard all about it

I used to hang with Don Moser and Uncle Ben the Converted Bus

(The first Alternative fuel hippie bus on tour)

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Alternative-Energy/1975-05-01/Don-Judy-Mosers-Methane-Powered-Bus.aspx

[Crunchy Frog]

3. I knew one once. Let me know if the name sounds familiar.

His name was Medicine Story, and I know he was active in the Rainbow Family in the mid to late seventies.

[Wiley50]

4. Shit! I Knew Medicine Story !

In Stillwater Oklahoma and in New Mexico

Have you seen him lately?

If so, Tell him Wyler Smyler says Hi!

[Crunchy Frog]

6. Shit, you did?!

I don't know him at all now, but he spent a semester teaching at my Quaker boarding school my freshman year, I think it was spring of '78. He had a big impact on me, helped me alot in making a very difficult adjustment.

I googled his name once, and found some stuff. Also, years ago, I remember seeing something about him in Newsweek in a story they had about the Rainbow Family.

He was a pretty cool guy, wasn't he?

[Wiley50]

10. He was a wonderful and widely respected brother n/t

[mrbill]

19. wiley, did you ever run into Grey Eagle?

Grey Eagle was born William E Stephens in Tennessee in 1925. His family then moved to Childress, Texas to go into the cotton farming business. He served on a destroyer in the Pacific in WW2 and after the war became a train engineer. Then in the early 70's he bacame a hippie.

I first met Grey Eagle around 1975. He showed up at a commercial photography studio in Dallas where three or four of us where sharing space. He was doing early retirement from the railroad and wanted to use his photo skills to pick up some extra cash. Then to make a long story short, spent the next 7 years hanging out with Grey Eagle or Bald Eagle as the kids called him.

He went to the gathering every year and took thousands of picture. Every year about a month after the event we would smoke refreshments and the watch the slide show that was about 50% naked people and hear many wonderful stories. The year's dealing with the Forest Service was one of my personal favorites.

In 1982 the studio operation shut down and we went our seperate ways. Grey Eagle moved into an off-the-grid underground cement dome house in the Whitehawk community North of Denton. That place was like a mini Rainbow Gathering every weekend. Any excuse to get out the drums.

Grey Eagle died on 2 February 2006.

Fun fact about Grey Eagle - He attended the first Gathering in Roosevelt National Forest, Colorado and then every single one until 2005. Did did not miss a year - that's dedication to the cause.

Thanks Wiley for inspiring me to google grey eagle. I didn't know that he had died. Wonder who has the thousands and thousands of images?

[Wiley50]

20. Yeah! I Knew Grey Eagle. He had also been a "Freedom Rider" in the '60's

Riding the city buses in Montgomery, taking up all of the back seats so the blacks would have to sit up front.

I spent many hours with Grey Eagle around campfires, listening to his stories.

I'm sure that wherever those photos are, I'm in a few of them.

Thanks for reminding me.

Great wise man

[Lenore]

5. I went to a picnic or two...

but the real reason I am responding on this thread is to say that I claim association by virtue of the fact that "Jeff McMonagle", later known as Gideon Israel, is a dear friend who lives just a couple miles away. He has *the most* amazing collection of Rainbow Family paraphernalia, posters, pictures, billboards etc, from the time he owned and operated "Rainbow Valley" (for Family and Peace gatherings and music fests) near Little Rock, WA.

Gideon is a great guy with even greater stories to share concerning his time with The Family.

[Wiley50]

9. Wonderful! I wish that I had had a more stable life so I could have saved more of that stuff

I have a thick scrapbook though

The only one I remember with a name like that was "Love Isreal" (sic

He came to gatherings with a sizable entourage of followers and yurts

Don't think that is pprobably the same person

I left the Arkansas Gathering in 1975 with a caravan to Stillwater, Oklahoma
ostensibly to repair damage from recent tornados

We ended up starting a veggie restaurant there called " Om Cookin'"

From there I went to Boulder CO and was a member of

the Carnival Cafe Restaurant Collective

( There is a current Yahoo groups reunion of old Carnival Cafe folks)

[L. Coyote]

7. Check this out in person once or more

The Oregon Country Fair
http://jqjacobs.net/photos/fair/index.html

[Blue_In_AK]

8. I'm not an old Rainbow Family hippie

but I am an old hippie who did track down one of her old hippie frinds a couple of years ago. We first knew each other in 1968 and had all sorts of wonderful and strange adventures together in Denver and San Francisco up until 1971 when I moved out to Marin County. Neither of us had cars -- and I didn't even have a steady home for a while -- so we kind of lost touch. The last time I had seen or talked to her was in 1975, just before I moved to Alaska.

Fast forward 30 years. I was feeling nostalgic one day and - in this day of the internet - decided to look her up. Lo and behold, she had never changed her name, and I found her on an on-line playbill for a community theater production of the "Vagina Monologues" somewhere in northern California. I contacted the e-mail address on the program. The woman who responded confirmed my friend's identity and put us in touch with each other. We were able to see each other again in San Francisco in the fall of that year.

It was like a day hadn't passed. She's my best old friend, and some bonds can never be broken. If there is a peace march in San Francisco on October 27th as planned by UFPJ, we will protest together just like old times.

Was reconnecting with your old friend as positive an experience?

[Wiley50]

11. Yeah! exactly like that although it has been recently that we connected here and haven't meti

in person yet.

But we were part of a very close artificial family, a clan, if you will

and so far the emails have flown like water,

like it was all yesterday

[Blue_In_AK]

12. You will have a wonderful time when you see each other.

It's quite an amazing thing - a blessing really - that such friendships can survive through so many miles and so many years of silence. I guess love exists outside space and time. :)

[TomInTib]

13. I always miss out on of all the good shit.

But I knew where I was going (1968).

So I took my '47 panhead on a peripheral tour of the USA. I didn't know if I would make it back or what.

But I had a heck of a time.

While this might not be germaine to the OP, I just wanted share this with Wiley50, the One and Only.

[Wiley50]

14. Wound up loving you too, Tom n/t

[TomInTib]

15. While I am cashing in my change...

I am also doing this...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=141&topic_id=28169&mesg_id=28169

And acting like everything is OK.

Good Dog, buddy, I love the dance.

I told you about that spot on my leg, didn't I?

Do yourself a favor and listen to the Katie clip.

But crank it up, not when your wife is sleeping.

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoID=1225683950

[AndyTiedye]

16. Made it to the One in Vermont

Though I was always more of a dancing-to-the-Grateful-Dead kind of hippie than the rainbow gathering kind.

More recently I have become more of the dancing-to-psytrance and Burning Man kind.

[David__77]

17. I knew one: a woman named Jherym

It was pronounced like "germ." She was an interesting one. Very revolutionary and radical. She was deeply committed to left politics, but was also very countercultural. She lived in a house with people of different ages who kept a garden and were very open and egalitarian in their social interactions. It definitely wasn't my "scene" per se, but I had a certain appreciation for it.

[TomInTib]

18. My banker can sing better than your banker.

Katie manages my blind trust.

As in, I would entrust my life savings to a blind person.

As in, you cannot see that which is not there.

Jeebus X, man. How did we work so hard for fucking nothing?


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=210x20048