<p>That is so true! Mine got dragged into the future and finally went along. Interesting, my son thought his grandparents were the greatest, married for 66 years, solid folks. He loves his hippy now sedate mom who dragged him around the globe. But he loves his own rhythm. And so we do follow through…from generation to generation. And because he is so solid, I am appreciative and somewhat relieved. In fact, I may have set him up. :)</p>
<p>Very interesting! I have been a stable, settled bedrock for my kids, though told tales of travels in my 20s, and they had much overseas family. First chance, my kids left their midwestern home, and are off seeing the world, as if driven to take it all in. Luckily, they are getting a formal education as well.</p>
<p>Seond thought, remember Auntie Mame. I am in the wings, waiting for the grandkids…</p>
<p>glm, it seems to bounce around. My “overseas” kid loves the Midwest! I can’t drag him away for long…</p>
<p>I love the midwest as well, if need to escape it on occasion. Contrast is good. My kids, I think will end up elsewhere permanently, to my sadness.</p>
<p>The midwest is very cold and very snowy. It’s cold and snowy in DC but just not as long.</p>
<p>True story: I was returning from a week long bus trip around the state in 2005 with other new employees of the university. It was the third week in May. We had been as far north as Lake Superior. It was cold and rainy for most of the week. When we arrived back in Madison it was sunny and in the mid-70s. I turned to my seat mate and asked him: "Do you know what we call this kind of weather in DC? He said: “No.” I said: “March.”</p>
<p>I am so cold, and it wouldn’t stop snowing. We have broken the record already for the most amount of snow in Madison. We are pushing 80 inches with many weeks of winter left. Twice we have had huge backups on the interstate outside of town because of the weather. The last one involved 2,000 cars!!!</p>
<p>I’ve heard. My son is getting his really first snowy winter. He and his girl, Minnesota native, are scoping out Madison this spring for grad school. They are also looking at Chapel Hill and University of Hawaii…hmmmm? This snow may push 'em over the edge, but I doubt it. I figure Madison is in the cards…</p>
<p>My wife and I met at Chapel Hill in grad school. Not much snow but lots of ice as I recall. </p>
<p>“The southern part of heaven,” so they say.</p>
<p>Madison is balmy compared to Minnesota, for the most part. Don’t know about Minnesota snow levels though compared to ours. I’m in Madison as well. </p>
<p>Would love for my son to go to grad school here, but though he appreciates Madison, the rest of the world still has more appeal.</p>
<p>But, But…Madison is part of the rest of the world. It is all in your perspective. Madison is very exotic to me! I have heard amazing things about it. Who wants Rome when they can visit Madison!</p>
<p>The spring is a good time to come. The lakes look great. They can sit on the patio outside the Union and drink beer or wine and watch the sailboats on Lake Mendota.</p>
<p>I took these pictures several Mays ago. </p>
<p>[UW</a> pictures from college photos on webshots](<a href=“Desktop Wallpaper: Free Trial!”>Desktop Wallpaper: Free Trial!)</p>
<p>Madison is a great place.</p>
<p>I was thinking of this thread when I saw the sidewalks being plowed in Burlington this morning. We had a socialist mayor (now US Senator) followed by a Progressive mayor who was ousted for a term by a Republican who vowed to cut taxes–and did, but he also cut services. So when the Prog ex-mayor decided to run again, his campaign slogan was, “At least the hippies plowed the sidewalks”. He won big.</p>
<p>Okay, I just started reading this thread, cuz, well, I was too young to be a hippie, though I wanted desperately to be one, so I didn’t think I’d fit.</p>
<p>But, I started reading it today, and I got as far as the album, and I just wanted you to know, Mini, that I guessed it! Still one of my favorites.</p>
<p>And here is my Ina Gadda Da Vida story:</p>
<p>I was about ten, living in typical NJ suburbia, with typical Republican dad. Every night, we were the last stop on the Good Humor route, and the ice cream lady was a young college girl whom all the older guys in the neighborhood had a crush on. Two of em decided they needed to serenade her with Ina Gadda Da Vida (don’t remember why.) My conservative dad ran a hundred foot wire down our driveway (rural-ish area), rigged it to a reel to reel tapeplayer the kids brought, and we blasted Iron Butterfly through the summer night.</p>
<p>Shortly after that, he lost his job (again, alcohol), was diagnosed with cancer, and eventually died. That’s one of my last good memories of him.</p>
<p>Garland, that is the stuff of legend!</p>
<p>I have two memories from the late 60’s which probably exemplify my experience with “hippiedom” better than anything else:</p>
<p>Story 1: I’d been working all day on soundproofing the garage of a house a friend had rented so we could use it for rehearsal of our (terrible) band. I was hot, sweaty, and hungry. My friend scurried in, all excited, about a “macrobiotic” dinner that was being given a couple of blocks away, and that we were going there to eat. So I dutifully filed into the designated home, where a roll of white paper had been laid down the middle of the floor, with place settings on each side. *Eventually<a href=“I%20was%20%5BI%5Dhungry%5B/I%5D,%20man!”>/I</a> I got to sit down, crosslegged, on the floor, and confront the repast: a small cylinder that looked sort of like a hot dog, only smaller, and some brown rice. I hoovered that stuff up in about four seconds, and looked up for the main course - only to see, to my horror, that everyone else was still dutifully chewing their first grain of brown rice a hundred times (or whatever.) I went out for a cheeseburger afterwards.</p>
<p>Story 2: Same friend, this time the bright idea was to go astral traveling. So we drove to the home of the astral travel guides, and met about two dozen other eager travelers. The weird thing was that the place was an absolutely stock standard tract house in a middle class suburban neighborhood, and our guides looked like Ozzie and Harriet. Not at all what I would have expected an astral travel station and guides to look like. Our travel that day was to the past, and after we all returned from our travels, I was interested to note the remarkably high percentage of my fellow travelers who had been royalty, witches, warriors, explorers, and other people of note in the past. Given the predominance of dirt poor peasants as a percentage of the world’s population in the past, I had sort of anticipated that someone might have returned from their time travels to announce that they had been weak, sick and hungry in a stinky hut in the past. Apparently not. </p>
<p>Anyway, those experiences might explain why I never felt that I was a “hippie.” I never really achieved the appropriate state of mind.</p>
<p>Memories:</p>
<p>Seeing A Hard Day’s Night 3 times in a row with my grandmother!
Seeing The Dave Clark Five at Convention Hall, Asbury Park, NJ-my first concert.Seeing The Association, Procul Harum and LedZepplin there in later years.
Reading Mad Magazines, Women, Our Bodies Our Selves, The Aquarian and Be Here Now.
Listening to The Strawbs and Pink Floyd endlessly.
Seeing Jethro Tull for $1.50 at the Shaeffer Music Festival in Central Park-my first altered state of consciouness. Those were the days, my friend, I thought they’d never end…</p>
<p>garland: how evocative, wonderful and sad.</p>
<p>Thanks, mythmom.</p>
<p>I just reread what I wrote, though, and I shoulda made it clear that by older guys, I meant the teenagers in the neighborhood, not the dads. Though at some level, maybe dad had that crush, too. I don’t think I’ll go there, though!</p>
<p>Memory: Having great seats for a Joni Mitchell concert and sitting there and watching her singing and strumming a dulcimer that was on her lap and seeing the tendons and muscles in her bare arm flex as she strummed back and forth and being blown away by that - realizing that the <em>real</em> Joni Mitchell, and not some apparition, was sitting right there in front of me in the flesh.</p>
<p>I was thinking Joni Mitchell was missing from this thread. The epitomy of cool and emotion and wild soaring voice and free expression. At one point I saw her as well, so enamored, as were my HS friends.</p>