<p>Yeah, I was a hippie of the “Look what’s happening in the streets. Got to revolution, got to revolution.”</p>
<p>I think there have been enough mentions of Country Joe and the Fish to qualify for this:</p>
<p>And it’s one two three
What are we fighting for?
Well I don’t give a damn, next stop is Viet Nam.</p>
<p>And then reminds of Phil Ochs:
I’m only eighteen
I’ve got a busted spleen
And I always carry a purse
I’ve eyes like a bat and my feet are flat
And my asthma’s getting worse.</p>
<p>Come and take a walk with me thru this green and growing land
C Em Am G7 Gm7 Gm6 Dm
Walk thru the meadows and the mountains and the sand
Dm7 Dm6 Dm Dm7 Dm6 Dm
Walk thru the valleys and the rivers and the plains
F G
Walk thru the sun and walk thru the rain</p>
<p>Am Em
Here is a land full of power and glory
Am G7
Beauty that words cannot recall
C Em
Oh her power shall rest on the strength of her freedom
Am G7 | C F C &–final ending
Her glory shall rest on us all (on us all)</p>
<p>From Colorado, Kansas, and the Carolinas too
Virginia and Alaska, from the old to the new
Texas and Ohio and the California shore
Tell me, who could ask for more?</p>
<p>Yet she’s only as rich as the poorest of her poor
Only as free as the padlocked prison door
Only as strong as our love for this land
Only as tall as we stand</p>
<p>[ extra verse supplied by Sonny Ochs ]</p>
<p>But our land is still troubled by men who have to hate
They twist away our freedom & they twist away our fate
Fear is their weapon and treason is their cry
We can stop them if we try</p>
<p>Ah, the music. Strangely enough, the best selling “hippie” album of all time (by quite some distance) was…well, maybe I’ll make it quiz: it was not by Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Doors, Janice Joplin, or the Byrds.</p>
<p>I don’t imagine it was one of the biggest sellers, but one of my best favorites was Tom Rush’s The Circle Game. I still go to see him whenever I can. He and his wife are wonderful people.</p>
<p>I heard it, too! We used to sing the Phil Ochs song as teens. Okay, we were definitely not hippies; BUT, hubby did go down to “The FARM” - the commune down in Tennesee, to visit his young college friends who were there waiting to birth a baby. Said people were generally unwashed, the work was rather difficult (he got sunburned planting something), and the children were way too excited about the sight of a real piece of fruit, (I think it was when the farm was still barely getting by, and they lived on a whole lot of soy products). Hubby did tai-chi in the nude on the beach at New College, and built a sweat-lodge and did a sweat the whole night before we got married… and the marriage took place on the banks of a lake, kids sprinkled blue cornmeal in front of us as we walked down the hill wearing homemade dress (me), white pants and colorful guatamalan sash (hubby), ugliest haircut ever (did it to myself), where we shared our madeup vows, after which we all ate potluck food, planted a tree, and hung out - before we took the “wedding party” down to the waterhole to skinny dip. Now that I write it all down, it DOES sound hippyish - but at the time, it just felt normal. ;)</p>
<p>Hm. After all these descriptions, I think I have to conclude that I wasn’t a hippie, though it sure sounds great! Too urban and activist. Definitely no nude skinny dipping; just the sex, drugs, rock-in-roll, SDS, demonstrations thing.</p>
<p>Heck, even at Woodstock I was working on distributing THE RAT newspaper and meeting with Abby Hoffman. (sad to write his name.) Maybe I was a Yippie.</p>
<p>Gosh, anxiousmom, I think you have me beat. Hubby and I were married in bare feet in front of a tent in the US Virgin Islands and served a luncheon of tuna sandwiches, Pringles and rum punch to our 4 guests, but we did have a communal shower nearby. The Farm–was this the guy whose wife was a midwife and they traveled around on buses and he talked about how spiritually evolved he was? If so, I had a little unease with that, but maybe it’s just me. I used to think I might be spiritually evolved too. Now I just want to sit in front of my gas fireplace and read English novels. Bring on the tuna sandwiches, Pringles and rum punch!</p>
<p>Remember “Wild in the Streets”(1968)? Ah–14 or Fight!</p>
<p>Seems like it was a time when:</p>
<p>Yippie= Active
Hippie = Passive</p>
<p>Whichever–it does provide memories from youth (and a BIG smile). What a capacity for experiences we had. Do our kids have it, or have they become more “careful?”</p>
<p>I was on a boat crossing Lake Atilan in Guatemala in the late 1980s and started talking with a woman my age (39–then). She said she had offered her college freshman S a chance to join her in hiking the Incan trail and bumming through central America to visit Tikal. He said “no thanks,” he had a part time summer job! She wondered at loud how she (as a hippie/yippie) had produced such a “stick in the mud” kid.</p>
<p>Well, their world has changed, hasn’t it? When we grew up there was so much money around for the middle class we just assumed we’d get jobs, be taken care of. And we didn’t have so much to spend money on either.</p>
<p>07DAD: I remember.</p>
<p>Here’s my weirdest, yippiest moment: Going on the subway with other activists led by Prince Crazy, replete with plumed drum major’s hat. We went to the Women’s House of Detention in Brooklyn He led us in chanting. I would blush to report what he chanted, but leave it to say he carried an actual dead pig with a condom on his snout and a sign that said, “Teddy Kennedy.” It was weird, even for me.</p>
<p>Did anyone guess the album yet? I was thinking maybe Mama’s and Papa’s with
California Dreaming on it? Or “Sounds of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkle?</p>
<p>Question: if my MOM came and stayed in a yurt with me to help me copy-edit punctuation on my masters thesis bibliography by candellight, was SHE a hippie, too? No indoor plumbing, if that’s the key issue…</p>
<p>If Tapestry can be considered a hippie record whoever said it Mathmom? I think got it right.</p>
<p>O7DAD: I already guessed Deja Vu, sigh; mini nixed it. Hey can I have some of your huckleberries? Notice how mini is leaving us twisting in the breeze? For some reason, I have trouble with Easy Rider. </p>
<p>I’m going with Tapestry. I remember hearing it broke all sorts of records for albums sold. Maybe surpassed by something else in the years since? Sweet music, but not the character of the age as much as others. </p>
<p>Mythmom, you were a hippie, just of the more urban/East coast variety. Took all kinds, and that was part of the beauty and fun.</p>