Wow, this is a fascinating tribe. Never really thought to think about my upbringing in this light. I wasn ’t raised on a commune, but my hippie parents defiantly raised me and my older sister, as good hippies should. Vacations were always going gross country, and camping in the woods, hiking all over the place, waking up in a tent and flicking the large northern climate slugs off our entrance flaps. I remember going every year to Vermont to the wood stove conventions, where face painting was always rainbows and beards. Flannel and overalls were uniform. I grew up in Boston, so I wasn ’t as secluded from the “real world ”as some of you, and as soon as I was old enough was sneaking out at night and running all over the city with friends from my public school upbringing. My parents stayed in the city because their hippie ethic brought them to be nurses, doctors, and eventually teachers, ‘cause they wanted to do good in the world, and optometry school was a way to dodge the draft. My dad always kept his ticket from Woodstock in his wallet. Snooping around the house my sisters and I would stumble on old pipes, crusted with old pot, and sometime random junk food maybe my dad had stashed. We were raised mostly on rice cakes and natural peanut butter, and soymilk boxes in our lunch boxes. Grew up on CSN&Y, the doors (who always creeped me out), the Beatles, cream, Hendrix, Janis, Love, Carole King, James Taylor, Free to be you and me, and so many more you would recognize from your folks play lists. My parents tried to use cloth diapers on us, but gave up I think cause they were too busy to deal with it all. We ate meat, but also plenty of tofu. I was also raised in a small town in Maine, where we would go to sing-alongs in various barns. I did my fair share of running around naked. My parents always had weird friends visiting or staying with us for months. One of my parents friends used to always baby-sit us, and tried to put nutmeg in everything, and forced me to like stamp collecting to learn all about other countries. I don ’t know where to stop, there are so many funny memories, but I truly appreciate the life and perspectives they gave me. My parents are still teachers and doctors, and live a bit more comfortable now, allowing themselves little luxuries, and try to eat organic when they can, especially now that they can afford it a little better, thanks to bread and circus, and trader joe ’s. I rebelled in my own ways, and in other ways became more hippie then they were. I am a vegetarian, which they never were, but I don ’t really care for drugs, which I am sure they did. I love camping and hiking still, and the woods and the ocean and the mountains. My families idea of a vacation together is going down to Nicaragua and teaching people about basic eye care and vision problem prevention, and improving our Spanish and hanging out with our friends down there. My family may not be typical, but I think we are pretty cool. I wouldn ’t want it any other way. We are weird and fun, and I am proud of my parents for taking the things they believed in during their Woodstock days and implementing them in realistic ways so that they could be comfortable and still be doing the good they talked about doing for the world when they were younger. My sisters and I are all very political and vocal about it, we have been to our fair share of protests, and are probably more liberal then the folks at this point. They raised a bunch of artists who are doing ok, and the little one right now is working at woman ’s shelters and doing other amazing things for herself. I have plenty of friends who have never had that, and a lot of them are just beginning to learn lessons that my sisters and I began learning long ago. We should be happy to have been raised, no matter how weird, or detrimental it could be, with a different perspective then most, allowing us to question and investigate the other perspectives around us. That is a gift that many don ’t have, we have the gift of seeing things outside the mainstream, because we have been outside the mainstream.