Let me be clear so you do not waste your time reading. I am not fan of dirty smelly hippies. Sure, I get along with everyone. Yes, one on one and individually I have had several people in my life who are actual hippies and I really enjoy their company. So think of this only as my closed mindedness and over generalizations of this group, not a particular member of it.
So where was I? Oh yeah, anniversary of dirty smelly hippies this month. For those of you who are younger readers, I am grouping together the counter culture under the heading of hippy. There were more than hippies, there were yippee, and trippee, and people who liked music, those who had strong political views and the like. But to save time I just call them dirty smelly hippies.
One of the favorite sayings of these groups was “don’t trust anyone over 30.” As the leading edge of this group now faces retirement I find these historical retrospectives to be highly hypocritical when that phrase it repeated. Like most people in youth they have the hubris to believe that they know everything.
Now that they are the power elite they put their trust into those over 30. In the coming years they will place their lives in the hands of those over 30 to care and look out for them. What a silly concept to not trust a group of people because of their age.
Now that they are about to retire we should take away their right to vote because they can’t make good decisions any longer. Sarcasm.
It wasn’t the age, but the generation before them you say? The “Greatest Generation” wasn’t good enough for you? You wanted the most amazing generation? The stupendous generation? I say that it was because of the “Greatest Generation” that dirty smelly hippies get to claim the 60’s. The tight times of the depression and the fight against fascist imperialism shaped the temperaments of the “Greatest Generation” allowing for the freedom to speak the patchouli and pot soaked minds of dirty smelly hippies.
My next gripe about the historical marker is Woodstock. In each of the three documentaries I watched this week alone (I now have that kind of time on my hands) they quoted Hunter S. Thompson without giving him credit:
“So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark — that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”
I am sure that others consider the “high-water mark” to be many things. But the linage is this: Monterrey Pop, Woodstock, and Altamont Speedway Free Festival.
You have heard this previously - that the number of people who claim to have attended Woodstock is disproportionate to the number of people who actually attended.
What made Woodstock so big, so memorable, and the “high-water mark” for a generation of people who did not attend this event was the movie. Yes. A movie. That movie version of Woodstock was huge for the time. It allowed everyone who could never have been there in the real culture to get a glimpse of the counter culture (and you thought that YouTube was new and unique to your generation kiddies.)
So I pose this question. If there were a group of really cool peers that found a way to have sex with the pretty girls, take all the quality drugs, and party with rock stars, wouldn’t you want to be a part of that? Wouldn’t you say you were a part of that?
When I was that age people like that were called posers. They wanted to be a part of something they couldn’t or didn’t fit into. I am sure that I was one.
So 40 years later the accomplishments of that great movement have all come to be realized and we should all be grateful, right? There are no more wars… oh, wait, well at least everyone is treated equally… I mean… the important thing is that they finally legalized it (in parts of the country with a prescription.) Well, I guess it is easier to blame Nixon for everything than think this through all the way.
As you avid readers are aware I am huge fan on visiting Presidential Libraries and Museums. And before you brush me aside with the conservative freaks I would never align myself with (Glen Beck), hear me out.
These are a noble and just cause to believe in - peace, love, understanding, and compassion. Humans have been trying to figure this out since the beginning. America has been working hard to teach the next generation to be more accepting then the last since it was a glimmer in the minds of the founders. But the dirty smelly hippies do not get to corner the market on these concepts. That generation filled the bloody streets of Chicago for the Democratic Convention, hired the Hells Angels to run security at Altamont, and filled the quasi-commune of the Manson Family compound.
No generation gets all the glory it asks for or the criticism it deserves.
Happy 40th anniversary you dirty smelly hippies. You have certainly made it interesting.
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