Same same but different, same age group, same background. I broke free but I was too hippie to be a biker and too biker to be a hippie.
I lived a double life with friends in high places and friends in low places.
Were you of the Hippie era and did you participate as such?
- Thread starter Bretrick
- Start date
I lived a double life with friends in high places and friends in low places.
bobcat
Well-known Member
- Location
- Northern Calif
I didn't participate, although I did enjoy a few aspects of the movement. Some of the music was pretty cool, the black light posters were pretty wild, and it's quite likely that my youthful mind was doing backflips when young women started burning their bras. It was a time of change and rethinking the norms, but as usual in society, the pendulum swings a bit too far and has to find what works and what doesn't. Mind altering drugs and free love eventually give way to family life and careers.
BJintheUK
Member
- Location
- Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, UK
When I was a teenager, I was the only one on our council estate to have long hair, wear tie dyed T shirts and bell bottoms, along with mocassins and a white Afghan coat. I kept that coat for ages, but it finally fell apart some time in the late 80s and I had to throw away what was left of it.
Here's a picture of me wearing it during the 70s. (Note the long hair, which I kept till 1979!)
I also smoked a lot of dope in the late 60s and throughout the 70s, rode a motorbike, and was generally a bit of an oddball. But I was more into music than politics then, and we in the UK didn't have the Vietnam war or the Civil Rights movement to protest about, so for us it was a fashion statement more than anything else. A rebellion against the straightlaced society that existed here up till around 1962-3. After that everything changed. The Beatles changed music, the pill changed sexual mores, and miniskirts changed how women were percieved.
Not now of course. Now I'm an old man, bald, with aches and pains everywhere, a wife and three grown up children, but back in my youth I didn't really fit in to any particular pigeon hole, hippie or otherwise.
Here's a picture of me wearing it during the 70s. (Note the long hair, which I kept till 1979!)
I also smoked a lot of dope in the late 60s and throughout the 70s, rode a motorbike, and was generally a bit of an oddball. But I was more into music than politics then, and we in the UK didn't have the Vietnam war or the Civil Rights movement to protest about, so for us it was a fashion statement more than anything else. A rebellion against the straightlaced society that existed here up till around 1962-3. After that everything changed. The Beatles changed music, the pill changed sexual mores, and miniskirts changed how women were percieved.
Not now of course. Now I'm an old man, bald, with aches and pains everywhere, a wife and three grown up children, but back in my youth I didn't really fit in to any particular pigeon hole, hippie or otherwise.
JustDave
Well-known Member
I remember that movement as a personal awakening. A time where I realized much of what I had been taught was simply wrong. Not everything I was taught was wrong, but maybe a third of it. I don't know; a lot of it, anyway. As far as social change, I had never seen so much social change as I did during those years. Today's social change is similar in strength, but in the opposite direction and oppressive rather than enlightening.
Sunkist
Member
Good grief.. logged in and now there's another! my statement was not meant to be funny!!!
Good grief.. logged in and now there's another! my statement was not meant to be funny!!!
@Sunkist - You can have a go at me for saying this but I can see why some of your responses are interpreted as humor. The above sentence brings to my mind someone who is almost horrified at the thought of being a hippy ā therefore the dry humor. Please donāt be offended and donāt change. Sorry - forgot to quote what you said....."Never in a million years would I have been involved in any of that".
Sunkist
Member
What you said it brings to your mind- yes, that's what I meant.. but nothing humorous about it.
Mat
Member
I never noticed any groups until my Army time and it came from the draftees from eastern states mostly. The potheads as they were called were huge in number in 68 and most commanders just gave up on disciplining any. Not many in Aviation but our attached units brought in a lot of them.
I lived in Nevada for 11 years and was only 24 miles from these old Indian dugouts. Ole creepy Charlie Manson lived in one along with a bunch of his crew long before they were on the outskirts of Los Angeles. The little town had one gas station and a diner and it reminded me of that spot in the Martian Chronicles series.
The Indians loved the area because of the perpetual hot springs. The entire area was once volcanic and you can clearly see the difference in Mountain colors driving from Pahrump Nv to Shoshone. Here are a few photos of the dugouts., no need for a broom there because you can't clean it ...
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/shoshone-castle-caves-shoshone?select=ucS7Y0N2jK2ycJvNeZgdkw
I lived in Nevada for 11 years and was only 24 miles from these old Indian dugouts. Ole creepy Charlie Manson lived in one along with a bunch of his crew long before they were on the outskirts of Los Angeles. The little town had one gas station and a diner and it reminded me of that spot in the Martian Chronicles series.
The Indians loved the area because of the perpetual hot springs. The entire area was once volcanic and you can clearly see the difference in Mountain colors driving from Pahrump Nv to Shoshone. Here are a few photos of the dugouts., no need for a broom there because you can't clean it ...
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/shoshone-castle-caves-shoshone?select=ucS7Y0N2jK2ycJvNeZgdkw
No, I did not participate in the hippie era. I was raised in a non hippie city at that time and thought it was something that happened in other cities like in California. I did witness the hippies in Haight-Ashbury in California and the people were so young and looked like they were heavy into drugs.
JBR
Well-known Member
I spent my early years in a small city, then in my late teens moved to Vancouver. After earning a BSc, I felt the urge to live in rural surroundings. So I rented a cottage and garden plot on a family farm in Richmond, BC. I got into organic food-gardening, originally guided by the Rodale books & magazine. A friend introduced me to the Whole Earth Catalog, that at the time had arrived from California for distribution in Canada. That related to the lifestyle direction I intended to go.
I'd started to play folk-style guitar while in high school. I'd smoked weed moderately during my last two years in university (didn't smoke any when I was writing an essay or cramming for an exam); continued to smoke some in summer. I noticed that people who smoked weed didn't get as crude or surly as people frequently did with alcohol. Had no interest in hard drugs, and cut way back on the weed; eventually almost abstaining after the age of 23.
I took a variety of jobs, partially because I wanted to be around diverse sorts of people, but also to acquire a variety of skills. So I wore practical clothes. I never wore bell bottoms or flower-pattern shirts, but I grew my hair longer. I also expanded my musical tastes.
When it was possible, I moved away from the coast and into the mountain-valley Interior of the province. I eventually acquired an inexpensive property, classed as "marginal farm land", surrounded by bush (woods). I raised chickens, vegetables, and fruit ā and revamped old buildings, etc. There were some people in my general age group, living in the area I'd moved to, whose style was much more hippie-ish than mine. Some I could respect and enjoy, some not. Agreeing with what some others have already posted in this thread, I'd say a lot of creativity emerged during the "hippie era" in the urban and rural regions I've lived in.
I'd started to play folk-style guitar while in high school. I'd smoked weed moderately during my last two years in university (didn't smoke any when I was writing an essay or cramming for an exam); continued to smoke some in summer. I noticed that people who smoked weed didn't get as crude or surly as people frequently did with alcohol. Had no interest in hard drugs, and cut way back on the weed; eventually almost abstaining after the age of 23.
I took a variety of jobs, partially because I wanted to be around diverse sorts of people, but also to acquire a variety of skills. So I wore practical clothes. I never wore bell bottoms or flower-pattern shirts, but I grew my hair longer. I also expanded my musical tastes.
When it was possible, I moved away from the coast and into the mountain-valley Interior of the province. I eventually acquired an inexpensive property, classed as "marginal farm land", surrounded by bush (woods). I raised chickens, vegetables, and fruit ā and revamped old buildings, etc. There were some people in my general age group, living in the area I'd moved to, whose style was much more hippie-ish than mine. Some I could respect and enjoy, some not. Agreeing with what some others have already posted in this thread, I'd say a lot of creativity emerged during the "hippie era" in the urban and rural regions I've lived in.
Naturally
Well-known Member
- Location
- Corner of Walk 'n Don't Walk
... i don't remember
But I found a picture from around that time period
But I found a picture from around that time period
David777
Well-known Member
- Location
- Silicon Valley
Obviously to this person from postings, but not surprisingly, most of those in this SF community understand little about the late 1960s/1970s Counterculture movement and history primarily because of distant cultural views so alien to where they lived. This below well-rounded article covers a lot but only briefly, though with a long list of links and references into more in depth articles.
Counterculture of the 1960s - Wikipedia
According to notable UK Underground and counterculture author Barry Miles:
"...It seemed to me that the Seventies was when most of the things that people attribute to the sixties really happened: this was the age of extremes, people took more drugs, had longer hair, weirder clothes, had more sex, protested more violently and encountered more opposition from the establishment. It was the era of sex and drugs and rock'n'roll, as Ian Dury said. The countercultural explosion of the 1960s really only involved a few thousand people in the UK and perhaps ten times that in the USAālargely because of opposition to the Vietnam war, whereas in the Seventies the ideas had spread out across the world..."
And this is a sub-article on hippies:
Hippie - Wikipedia
...By the end of the summer (1967), the Haight-Ashbury scene had deteriorated. The incessant media coverage led the Diggers to declare the "death" of the hippie with a parade. According to poet Susan 'Stormi' Chambless, the hippies buried an effigy of a hippie in the Panhandle to demonstrate the end of his/her reign. Haight-Ashbury could not accommodate the influx of crowds (mostly naive youngsters) with no place to live. Many took to living on the street, panhandling and drug-dealing. There were problems with malnourishment, disease, and drug addiction. Crime and violence skyrocketed.
None of these trends reflected what the hippies had envisioned. By the end of 1967, many of the hippies and musicians who initiated the Summer of Love had moved on. Beatle George Harrison had once visited Haight-Ashbury and found it to be just a haven for dropouts, inspiring him to give up LSD. Misgivings about the hippie culture, particularly with regard to substance use and lenient morality, fueled the moral panics of the late 1960s...
After an HD from the USAF during the Viet Nam War, from September 1970 till June 1971, I lived in downtown San Francisco a few blocks from the Fillmore West that I went to frequently that was $7 to enter. Following is a list of rock shows from that period, that I went to nearly all venue shows at least one night:
Fillmore West Shows
...
Counterculture of the 1960s - Wikipedia
According to notable UK Underground and counterculture author Barry Miles:
"...It seemed to me that the Seventies was when most of the things that people attribute to the sixties really happened: this was the age of extremes, people took more drugs, had longer hair, weirder clothes, had more sex, protested more violently and encountered more opposition from the establishment. It was the era of sex and drugs and rock'n'roll, as Ian Dury said. The countercultural explosion of the 1960s really only involved a few thousand people in the UK and perhaps ten times that in the USAālargely because of opposition to the Vietnam war, whereas in the Seventies the ideas had spread out across the world..."
And this is a sub-article on hippies:
Hippie - Wikipedia
...By the end of the summer (1967), the Haight-Ashbury scene had deteriorated. The incessant media coverage led the Diggers to declare the "death" of the hippie with a parade. According to poet Susan 'Stormi' Chambless, the hippies buried an effigy of a hippie in the Panhandle to demonstrate the end of his/her reign. Haight-Ashbury could not accommodate the influx of crowds (mostly naive youngsters) with no place to live. Many took to living on the street, panhandling and drug-dealing. There were problems with malnourishment, disease, and drug addiction. Crime and violence skyrocketed.
None of these trends reflected what the hippies had envisioned. By the end of 1967, many of the hippies and musicians who initiated the Summer of Love had moved on. Beatle George Harrison had once visited Haight-Ashbury and found it to be just a haven for dropouts, inspiring him to give up LSD. Misgivings about the hippie culture, particularly with regard to substance use and lenient morality, fueled the moral panics of the late 1960s...
After an HD from the USAF during the Viet Nam War, from September 1970 till June 1971, I lived in downtown San Francisco a few blocks from the Fillmore West that I went to frequently that was $7 to enter. Following is a list of rock shows from that period, that I went to nearly all venue shows at least one night:
Fillmore West Shows
...
Last edited:
Naturally
Well-known Member
- Location
- Corner of Walk 'n Don't Walk
Hippies moved through the world trying to soften it for bare feet and open hearts, a fragile work that reappears in the margins of every generation and insists on the same mistake.
Naturally
Well-known Member
- Location
- Corner of Walk 'n Don't Walk
Let me explain "mistake" ...
It might be considered a mistake not because the impulse is wrong, but because history keeps teaching the same hard lesson.
Trying to soften the world assumes the world can be persuaded by tenderness. Often it canāt. Systems tend to reward hardness, efficiency, and conformity, not bare feet and open hearts. People who lead with softness get dismissed as naive, impractical, or "unserious". They burn out. They get absorbed. They get pushed to the margins again.
Thereās also the personal cost. To move through the world openly and unarmored means you feel everything. You get hurt more easily. You carry disappointment without the usual calluses. From a survival standpoint, that can look like a mistake.
And yet the āmistakeā keeps repeating because the alternative is worse. A world that only hardens eventually cracks and breaks. Each generation seems to produce a fringe that decides, consciously or not, that even if softness fails, itās still worth attempting. Not because it works reliably, but because something essential is lost when no one tries.
So the line holds a quiet paradox. Itās a mistake in the way loving the wrong person can be a mistake. Costly. Predictable. Repeated. And still chosen.
Marv Malone
New Member
- Location
- midwest USA
Actually, the word hippie is from the media and books. I never knew anyone back then who called themselves hippies. No one, in person or in underground newspapers.
We called ourselves heads, short for pothead. Or no name. Much written about them is nonsense and overgeneralizations in US.
We called ourselves heads, short for pothead. Or no name. Much written about them is nonsense and overgeneralizations in US.
JustDave
Well-known Member
I did know people who got off on being "hippies," but I never identified myself as a hippy. I didn't like the term. I saw myself as in agreement with the culture, but not a "True Hippie," whatever the Hell that means.
Cornhusker
Member
- Location
- Nebraska Panhandle
I don't think I would have been considered a hippie. too young for the Viet Nam protests, too busy to lay around smoking weed.
I grew up on a ranch, but in the 70s, I wore long hair, flared or bell bottoms, usually a T-Shirt and cowboy boots.
Never really liked pot and never tried anything else.
Did drink some beer though.
I listened to folk and rock music too loud and hung out with girls in hip huggers and tube tops.
The 70s were groovy, man.
I grew up on a ranch, but in the 70s, I wore long hair, flared or bell bottoms, usually a T-Shirt and cowboy boots.
Never really liked pot and never tried anything else.
Did drink some beer though.
I listened to folk and rock music too loud and hung out with girls in hip huggers and tube tops.
The 70s were groovy, man.
Dr.Colosso
Senior Member
Trade
Well-known Member
I was wearing arrow shirts with button down collars. They cost $6 bucks at the time. I really wanted to wear Gants with the loop in the back but they were going for $9 bucks which was out of my price range. I was going to Junior College at the time and working part time for a buck fifteen an hour.
Last edited:
George1959
Senior Member
In fact even most of the young women didn't burn their bras. And those women who burned their bras didn't even want to be seen dead without a bra shortly afterwards
.I've watched so many nude women in German sauna cabins that for me a naked body is boring to look at. Breasts need a bra for seduction. What is a gift (for a lover) without pretty wrapping?
.https://history.howstuffworks.com/history-vs-myth/women-burn-bras-in-70s.htm
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/blog.../how-the-myth-of-feminist-bra-burning-spread/
PeppermintPatty
š¢. š³. š¢
- Location
- Canada
bobcat
Well-known Member
- Location
- Northern Calif
Sorry. I didn't mean burning them literally. It was just a braless trend that took off. What they did with them isn't really important.In fact even most of the young women didn't burn their bras. And those women who burned their bras didn't even want to be seen dead without a bra shortly afterwards
I've watched so many nude women in German sauna cabins that for me a naked body is boring to look at. Breasts need a bra for seduction. What is a gift (for a lover) without pretty wrapping?
https://history.howstuffworks.com/history-vs-myth/women-burn-bras-in-70s.htm
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/blog.../how-the-myth-of-feminist-bra-burning-spread/