Hey you two,

I was born in 59 my parents were beats prior to doing the Hippy thing. I grew up in San Francisco of the 60s never lived on a commune but visited a couple several times. Was pretty much left to raise myself and my little brother while my parents did their thing. The only time my mom would by cookies they were oatmeal and had to eat whole wheat bread with avacado and sprouts while all my friends had wonder bread and bologna sandwhiches. One of my friends dad called me Sally because I had long hair and I used to sell copies of the underground paper my dad worked on on height street.

I graduated high school in 76 so I remember Nixon well and today am a very hands on dad because of my lack of parenting. Glad to see some folks who are my generation on here....

what northern California 'mune? just wondered.

like I say, my parents weren't hippies though my dadhad long hair and wore jeans I patched, but my aunt was one of the older ones.

right now I'm feeling annoyed with this trend for everything that does owe a deb for its resurgence to hippiedom to diavow hippiedom. just heard the producer of "The business of being Born" on the radio yesterday talking about how "home birth isn;t this crunc hy organic hippie thing" and I;ve heard the same defensiveness about vegetarianism, organic farming/gardening, and many of the cultural artifacts that the more creative of the hippies did, in fact, bring to the eventual attention of a larger group.

it's damned annoying, honestly. don't ou tink someone, and some groups, would be quite rightfully offended if I said I love to eat black-eyed poeas and cornbread but "this isn't a Southern African-American thing?"

I think I ehard parts of "wild Child" read on the radio a few weeks or months back too...they made a big deal about the macrobiotic charred-eggplant-and-sea-salt toothpowder that a girl's family insisted on using. hey, whatever.

I think you are right in saying our issues with your parents may have had as much to do with their personal dynamics as with whether they were hippie types.

I'm still kind of on the edge at age 51, living what I think are the best of hipppie values -yeah, i had my baby at home without apology, yes I;ve studied Zen and yoga and mantra, yes I eat organic vegetarian food...and while I don't do the eggplant tooth powder thing, I found out my kid gets a rash from most commercial toothpaste and we do better with Tom's. which I hear, ironically, has been bought out by one of the big companies just like Santa Cruz Naturals and Celestial Seasonings and Odwalla...yeah, the mainstream got hip to it all later.


like my aunt once said about Wheeler's Ranch...there were those who gardened and those who littered.

there are those who were self-indulgent and those who became really selfless.

meanwhile it seems like almost every adolescent in North America and western Europe has parent issues, whether your parents are/were conservative or hip or liberals or religious or...we jsut need to set out on our own a lot. and there are self-centered people in every walk of life.

for now, JG