If you have to ask, you're too young.
Do you remember the Summer of Love?
1967, baby. I was 13.
A certain older sibling who shall remain nameless introduced me to pot that summer. We were camping in Big Sur, and my sis got it from a new friend, a tall woman with an auburn Afro and rust-colored, fringed boots. I don’t remember feeling high – I was probably too excited to inhale properly – but I remember the magic. Even touring the Haight with my parents in our vacation-loaded station wagon seemed otherworldly, blissful. All those hippies flashing peace signs.
The Sexual Revolution was in full swing, and many of us Boomers were right in there with it. We were a shockingly uninhibited generation. It was all there for the taking, and we did whatever we wanted. There were no consequences! We had the pill to prevent pregnancy, and any STDs were (we thought) treatable with a little dose of this or that. With the specter of Viet Nam hanging over us, we felt justified in partying our asses off. Who knew what tomorrow would bring, with those old fogey warmongers in Washington DC calling all the shots?
Eric Burdon's "San Franciscan Nights." Click on the picture for the music.
What made me think of this whole period of my life was a post this morning on my friend Vonnie’s blog, Boomer Women Wise and Wonderful. She reports that many Boomer Women are angry that they’re not feeling the love. Many of our generation, now baggin’ and saggin’, are bummed out that a good number of our men can’t get it up. Or can’t be bothered.
And some of the women are fine with that.
Time passed and we got older, with all the changes that brings. I often wonder where the carefree-hippie part of our generation went. We seem so conservative now, and the younger generations see us as a bunch of consumption-happy gluttons who’ve run the country’s budget off the rails. I wish they could have known us back when we lived in communes and talked about living off the land. Making our own bread, doing things organically. Bricks in our toilet tanks to conserve water.
I miss the purity of our intentions.
Click here for the song, "Age of Aquarius."
Sure, we were young and naive. I miss that sense that we can fix things, especially now, with the country divided into colors and our elected representatives sinking into the quicksand of intransigence. I wonder if, maybe when we’re really old, we’ll be able to go back to that openness and tolerance? Will anybody have the nerve to hang a peace sign in their 55+ community?
But as for dancing naked in the rain? Maybe some things are better not revisited.
Kindle readers can contact me at LMSpreen@yahoo.com.
I’d love to get back that certainty and optimism. We were so sure we could change the world, and we almost did.
Thanks for your comment, NQO. “…and we almost did.” What a sad and accurate way to put it. Maybe we still can, if we get old enough and brave enough that we stop worrying about plastic surgery and fighting wars in other countries, and start to, as CSNY sang, “get ourselves back to the garden.”
Stop by again.
I’m a little bit younger than you so I don’t remember the Summer of Love, but I adore the unfettered optimism that surrounded it then… and now. What a cool time!
Ally Bean, thanks for your sweetness. Just picture your own age group rebelling against materialism, rejecting Wall Street and rejoicing in the freedom of making new rules (growing your own food, embracing nature and living lightly on the land, wearing casual and sometimes handmade – yet beautiful – clothing) and you’ll see why I’m a bit melancholy. I wonder if we Boomers are the ultimate sell-outs. Man, I even golf now!
Always fun to visit the days of old that live on with such emotion within … just listening to oldies is a great way to spend a summer afternoon. As for the state of our contemporary culture, not sure where things are at — or headed for that matter. But I suppose every generation makes its mark, one way or another. Let’s hope something positive rises to the surface!
Oh my gosh, Lynne, does this ever take me back. I was 21 in 1967, newly graduated from nursing school but certainly was witness to the turmoil of the times- Vietnam, Kent State, antiwar demonstrations, flower children-lots of angst among all that free love and a challenging time to come of age It’s amazing how the music takes me right back there. Thanks for the memories!
I think I’m more truly unburdened than the carefree self I pretended to be at 18, even knowing that the world doesn’t dance to my drummer like I thought it did then. When I get twitchy about my memory, I remember I still know all the lyrics from the 60s. Doesn’t help me find my lost library book, but it feels a little better. Thanks for the memories, Lynne and Vonnie!
From your older sibling, right on Sister!!!!!! I will find that rarifyed air again. This is the only life I have and some of my experiences of late have left me wondering, is that all there is?
OMG, these pics bring back so many memories!!! Although, in my experience, the music, dancing, and the ‘other’ was done mostly at my own house. We had one of those big stereo consoles (remember them) and you could hear Satisfaction blasting for miles!
I wasn’t old enough to go to Woodstock, but I had my ear close to the transistor radio every night in my safe little bed.
As for free love, I’m sure many of us are wishing we’d been freer with it back then, because it certainly comes with a cost today.
Thanks for the shout-out, Lynne, you’re a peach! :>
If you click on a couple of the pictures, Vonnie, they link to the music.