I’m waiting in Heathrow for a flight to Paris. Flight is delayed. I’ve got conversations going in Germany, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, … . Had a midnight call London time last night with Australia.
Shaw, like father like daughter?
DTE, I don’t know if I could pass three college courses if I wasn’t doing anything else. I love your energy!
Non hippie here. I guess being in the sorority in college kind of ruled that out!
Not a hippie either. Although I took a class in college on Religions of India, and it was full of wanna-be hippies. I made sure to dress extra preppy and wear my sorority stuff on class days, because I wanted to annoy them and teach them a lesson about being judgmental. I was the only one in the class who had actually been to India (besides the instructor).
This is good:
http://www.theonion.com/article/moms-fears-about-daughter-leaving-college-channele-51060
^^Ahhh…memories!
No hippy here…more of a disco queen complete with an absurd flip back hairdo. B-)
My sister and her first husband were hippies. They moved to Austin in 1974, He still lives there and has not cut his hair since about 1969…yes, he’s one of those guys you see in Austin with long white hair. Anyway, because the “black sheep” sister was a hippie, I could not be one myself. But socially and politically, the leanings have always been there.
I could totally be a hippy. I live a very “normal” life but my inner perspn is a hippy. I hate to dress up, I believe in many spiritual things although I don’t share it. I want to live very simply, want a tiny house. Reiki is very popular its a Japanese healing type practice. It is used for anxiety, it is energy healing. It is practiced in many hospitals. Very accepted.
I did two years of the sorority life in the late 60’s at a small college in Ind. I think that pushed me to the idea of free thinking. This particular college and sorority were traditional and we still had a curfew and could not wear pants in the formal living room, dressed for dinner 2 nights a week with waiters. Soon after I transfered and left the sisterhood all of those rules changed. I was just as few years too early.
That said I never did heavy drugs as I was too afraid. We did not know if that would hurt future babies–which is interesting now that I think about it as I did not even want kids then…
dt, admire your ability to take classes!
mp, just wondering if S ever got a bed?
Shaw, love the metal star imagery
Like mp I have social and political leanings that would appear to make me a hippie. Like dte I would love to live a simpler life. Like oregon I would have rebelled against those rules…I guess I am a mix.
I had “early hippy leanings” in that I got my hands on a Jerry Rubin book and LSD by the age of 13, with great plans to join a commune 
LSD, as it turned out, was a little scary…and maybe so too was Jerry Rubin…so somewhere in there I’d reinvented myself before the ripe ole age of 15!
Hippiedom, or at least communal living, became much less romantic for me when my childhood BFF was forced by her potter/yoga mom to move to a “spiritual community” in the Nevada foothills after a failed granola-cookie enterprise with a hippy guy.
Said friend sent me reports of life-at-the-commune…where to her mind the basic “spiritual” tenet was to make sure the women looked after farming, cooking, cleaning and repairs while the “spiritual” men smoked pot, slept with whoever they liked, and philosophized a lot
Communal life-in-practice quickly lost its allure for me
By some fluke and despite her unconventional and undocumented education in California, BFF and I ended up at the same Canadian university and were reunited in Toronto. It was really interesting watching her reintegrate into society after a decade on the lam/sequestered at the ashram as an illegal alien. She went on to have a very interesting and successful career in journalism.
It is interesting to now hear what modern young radicals think about boomer-hippiedom…the cultural studies set characterizes the movement with the kind of disdain formerly reserved for dilittante bohemians and beat nicks, I think. Today’s young radicals seem to feel that maybe everyone was high for a few decades and fell asleep at the wheel while the “man” was busy socio-economically repressing us all…and I don’t know that they’re wrong
Love this conversation!
Son and Fiance have an air mattress that belongs to her parents. We’ll see how long they can take that.
Fiance asked me to go wedding dress shopping with her, her mom and a friend. Ignoring all responsibility, I said “Sure!” and will leave work today at 2 pm. (Okay, I didn’t totally ignore responsibility - I was at the office last night until after 9 pm.) As the future MIL in the entourage, my baseline will be “beautiful” and will go up from there.
I used to post on an open Facebook page for parents of kids at older D’s college. Some of these parents are SO the opposite of CC parents. Question today: “How do students register for classes? My son is a freshman and will be starting school soon.” HOW did she miss all the mailings, the info on the website, the info on orientation? Even if all the emails went to the son, the info is on multiple places on the website and multiple pieces of mail are sent to the parents. Lady, you don’t need to be a “helicopter” but having a clue would be a good idea! About one in five questions are at this level of cluelessness!
Sitting in the condo in Cambridge, having a “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.” Came up from RI yesterday so I could take my car in for service first thing this morning. The appointment ran a little longer than planned, but I was on my way (back to RI) a little after 11:00 AM. Maybe a half mile down the road from the dealer I ended up in the wrong lane to make a left turn to get to the MA Turnpike, so went straight, figuring I’d turn onto a side street and go around the block. All of a sudden the car in from of me stopped and I couldn’t stop in time – which of course resulted in a rear-end collision. No injuries; police officer walked up within 3 minutes; the other driver took a phone photo of my license & registration; I took photo of hers; officer asked if I could drive my car (I could); it was all over within 5 minutes. Officer was very casual about the whole thing – I guess because there no injuries? As an afterthought he said I could come to the PD in about 24 hours to get a copy of his notes – didn’t even call it an accident report. After several phone calls back & forth with our insurance company, I’m now waiting for a call from an estimator who will come take a look at the damage. H (who is in RI) wants me to drive the car down there to have it fixed. I honestly have no idea how extensive the damage is – the car seemed fine driving side streets back to Cambridge, but on the highway? Don’t like the idea of possibly breaking down part way there. And here’s something – the air bag did not go off, yet there is a fair amount of damage to the front end of my car. In fact, my car took the brunt of things, and it’s a fairly large SUV. (The one we need for hauling around H’s boats.) So, yeah – not a happy camper at the moment. 
PS Just went back and read all fun the “hippie” posts. Sorry to bring down the conversation. (And no, I probably wouldn’t have been considered a hippie back in the day.)
CBB - so sorry for your terrible day! Sounds exhausting to me! My car which at the time was all of 6 weeks old was hit in the front from some dumb driver who thought that they could turn quickly on a down hill right turn in a terrible snowstorm and not hit the car that was STOPPED AT THE LIGHT - yes I was NOT moving - was STOPPED. Still irks me. Extensive damage to the car but driveable. Looked a lot worse than it really was and the bag didn’t go off even though the front of the van was basically in my side door. That person was driving way to fast for the conditions. So hopefully yours just looks bad! Glad that you were not hurt!
MP: Lovely that she asked you to look for a dress.
CBB: Sorry about your no good, horrible terrible day.
ShawSon called for my help while I was traveling – needed to submit a whole bunch of stuff for business school by today – classes start in a few weeks. Seems they wanted a personal statement for his academic advisors (?) and a resume uploaded for career services. I helped. But, as we were getting started, one of his professors informed ShawSon that he was starting a company. He knows ShawSon’s research over the last few months and asked him about joining (the first person he asked). Prof is a star in the field and it is extremely cutting edge. Interesting times.
kmcmom – that was fascinating. Living (back then) in California, I often saw people who’d dropped into that life, but didn’t usually see them afterwards. One of my cousins went from a tiny, tiny all girls Catholic high school to UCLA, joined a cult, disappeared from the family for years, ended up out of the cult and married to a lovely man in Italy, and then moved back to the US after he very sadly died of leukemia. She had real trouble speaking English after all that time.
Very sorry for the car problem, cbb.
Your son seems to be a magnet for interesting people and opportunities, Shawbridge. I’m guessing he’ll have more as classes progress.
cbb, so sad to read your post. Glad you did not mention being sore or injured.
I am personlizing your accident as this is my 65th B-day and it is not a great day and now you have given me more to feel bad about. Nothing really terrible, in fact if I were an optimist I would say it is a darn nice day. But as a pessimist I am finding the day dissapointing and hate the 6 and the 5 in a row. I have never cared about my age–always felt I was old at any age but now it is real and disturbing.
My goal for the day is to happy the S called, D is home, GF met for coffee and gave me flowers, H bought a huge bunch of sunflower, and we will have a nice dinner out tonight. We have a boating party set up for the 29th.
But what I want is to win the lottery so I can buy the overpriced lot that is finally on the market (way out of of price range) that I have been watching for the last 5 years. It is in a wonderful location and is River waterfront. They are asking $450,000 for a 3500 ft lot with a decrepid house and garage that would have to be torn down.
I have already figured out my floorplan
(
Shaw, great for your S.
Back to Hippidome–I was living in Ind./Ill. and PA. during the main years. I was so surprised when I moved to a small town in OR. and the “Hippies” were uneducated and unsophisticated. I did not identify at all. My experience was with smart peers who read everything under the sun and made macrome (sp) jewlery. Did you know that if you put salt in your rinse water and then hang your jeans out in the winter to dry that they will not freeze?
Fun stuff.
Sorry about your car, CBB. Always stressful and frustrating dealing with any accident. Glad you’re okay.
Happy dress shopping, MP!
Happy Birthday, oregon! And congratulations to your daughter. What an honor.
Great news for your son, shaw, Can he join the startup and still continue his studies?
S2 is making the move to a startup at the end of the month. The main guy is also an expert in their field and they have some contracts lined up. He is employee #4 . Pretty funny- the original 3 founders asked him to come on board first, with some share incentive stuff thrown in (which could add up or end up pretty worthless depending on how things go). He may end up back on our couch but at 24 , without a wife and kids, now seems to be the time to take that kind of risk.
Oregon, wishing you a happy birthday and many more. 65 is sounding younger and younger to me. I hope you are able to enjoy your day.
CBB, how frightening and terrible for you.
Wedding dress shopping was fun but it left me feeling sad. Fiance and her family have a tight budget. We were at a shop that sold only samples, so the prices were low (bridally-speaking) but there were still a few that were beyond her budget. She was great about sticking to the budget but I SO wanted to say “I’ll pay the difference!” I need to be respectful of how much they want to spend and it would be totally awesome if she could teach Son a thing or two about handling money.
She ended up with two lovely choices. She is going to sleep on it, maybe for a few days.