A berry
There is a Flickr group/game going around where if you are "tagged" (as in 'tag; you're it'), you are to write 16 things about yourself, and "tag" 16 more of your contacts to do the same. One of my contacts, Cheryl, had this as one of her self descriptions:
3. I’m an aging hippie and glad of it. Those WERE the days, my friend.
Did it all, don’t regret a bit of it. Walked out a lot of doors in my
mind and back in through others. If you were there you know what I’m
talking about.
I left her a comment saying that "I enjoyed living with the 60's more than living in that era. There is a difference." I suppose the difference was mostly just a very few years in my age and the actual hippie age. I was a war baby and not so much of a baby boomer, and a couple of years almost—if not in fact—made a difference of generations. To my thinking, the world changed with the advent of the Beatles in 1963 and 1964. They introduced mid-America teenyboppers to the concept that being different and nonconforming was ok, and that there was more to music than American Bandstand. Long (for then) hair and a different beat to their music made them and many wannabe bands the new mainstream. At the same time, the United States was becoming deeply involved in a war in Southeast Asia that had already been lost by the French at the battle of Điện Biên Phủ in 1954, and there was no way for the US to win, either. To go along with nonconformists and the war, there was the very important Civil Rights Movement, and there were the hipsters, a group of nonconformists in their own right that frequented "quaint" coffee houses, read poetry, and were big in making ballads a mainstream music force in the early and mid-sixties. Greenwich Village in New York City was their unofficial headquarters until about 1963 (I'm guessing) when another "colony" was formed in San Francisco in the Haight-Ashbury area. The westerners were into a more esoteric genre of music that marched to the beat of "get high and get laid", later to be called acid rock. They became the roots of the hippies as we know them today, but the word "hippy" has come to be a catchall for anyone with long hair and that had other non-mainstream or undesirable characteristics of the era. Actually, most of these folks did have meager jobs and had the wherewithal to get by in the world. However, the true hippies were usually stoned most of the time, weren't too familiar with water as a cleansing agent for their skins, and tended to live completely off the charity of others. They took nonconformity to its highest (and lowest) level. I would say that Charles Manson and his "family" were hippies, and the band Jefferson Airplane was not, even though the the latter were definitely "hip".
My view of the 60's was from the working and married-with-children class. Just being born a couple of years before the first "boomers" came along probably made the difference of my living in Tennessee or being part of the West Coast cultural scene. I had all the feelings that a lot of things were wrong with the world and I wanted to be in the forefront of change, but I was also aware that I had brought children into the same world and that I had a good wife, and even though I had no Christian or other religious scruples, I did love them and I did have a moral conscience at that particular time. Myself and others like me co-existed and shared a lot of views similar to the counter-culture, yet we managed to exist within the system. That made us live with the 60's happenings yet not be a true participant of the culture, but man, we did do a lot of the same things they did, and enjoyed the hell out of it, but under self imposed limits.
I could go into this for many boring pages because I loved the 60's and I love being associated with them. I just barely touched the civil rights crusades, and didn't mention the women's rights movement, but I hope I imparted some of what it meant to be "we" instead of the "me" that so many of us have become.
----
If you lived in and remember the 60's, please share with me (us) your stories from "the day".
There is a Flickr group/game going around where if you are "tagged" (as in 'tag; you're it'), you are to write 16 things about yourself, and "tag" 16 more of your contacts to do the same. One of my contacts, Cheryl, had this as one of her self descriptions:
3. I’m an aging hippie and glad of it. Those WERE the days, my friend.
Did it all, don’t regret a bit of it. Walked out a lot of doors in my
mind and back in through others. If you were there you know what I’m
talking about.
I left her a comment saying that "I enjoyed living with the 60's more than living in that era. There is a difference." I suppose the difference was mostly just a very few years in my age and the actual hippie age. I was a war baby and not so much of a baby boomer, and a couple of years almost—if not in fact—made a difference of generations. To my thinking, the world changed with the advent of the Beatles in 1963 and 1964. They introduced mid-America teenyboppers to the concept that being different and nonconforming was ok, and that there was more to music than American Bandstand. Long (for then) hair and a different beat to their music made them and many wannabe bands the new mainstream. At the same time, the United States was becoming deeply involved in a war in Southeast Asia that had already been lost by the French at the battle of Điện Biên Phủ in 1954, and there was no way for the US to win, either. To go along with nonconformists and the war, there was the very important Civil Rights Movement, and there were the hipsters, a group of nonconformists in their own right that frequented "quaint" coffee houses, read poetry, and were big in making ballads a mainstream music force in the early and mid-sixties. Greenwich Village in New York City was their unofficial headquarters until about 1963 (I'm guessing) when another "colony" was formed in San Francisco in the Haight-Ashbury area. The westerners were into a more esoteric genre of music that marched to the beat of "get high and get laid", later to be called acid rock. They became the roots of the hippies as we know them today, but the word "hippy" has come to be a catchall for anyone with long hair and that had other non-mainstream or undesirable characteristics of the era. Actually, most of these folks did have meager jobs and had the wherewithal to get by in the world. However, the true hippies were usually stoned most of the time, weren't too familiar with water as a cleansing agent for their skins, and tended to live completely off the charity of others. They took nonconformity to its highest (and lowest) level. I would say that Charles Manson and his "family" were hippies, and the band Jefferson Airplane was not, even though the the latter were definitely "hip".
My view of the 60's was from the working and married-with-children class. Just being born a couple of years before the first "boomers" came along probably made the difference of my living in Tennessee or being part of the West Coast cultural scene. I had all the feelings that a lot of things were wrong with the world and I wanted to be in the forefront of change, but I was also aware that I had brought children into the same world and that I had a good wife, and even though I had no Christian or other religious scruples, I did love them and I did have a moral conscience at that particular time. Myself and others like me co-existed and shared a lot of views similar to the counter-culture, yet we managed to exist within the system. That made us live with the 60's happenings yet not be a true participant of the culture, but man, we did do a lot of the same things they did, and enjoyed the hell out of it, but under self imposed limits.
I could go into this for many boring pages because I loved the 60's and I love being associated with them. I just barely touched the civil rights crusades, and didn't mention the women's rights movement, but I hope I imparted some of what it meant to be "we" instead of the "me" that so many of us have become.
----
If you lived in and remember the 60's, please share with me (us) your stories from "the day".
2 comments:
Good post. I'll have to get back to you on this one. But I agree the 60's were very important. I think that historians will view it as a major period down the road.
I try not to look back at the 60's through rose colored glasses. There seems to be a lot of misconceptions concerning the era which have helped make it more legendary than what it was, and the truth was plenty legendary.
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