Old memories of back in the day :P

[hippietoad]

Wondering if any of you old hippies would be willing to share a story or too or maybe some pics for me site ¿

[grendel 44]

I came to America when I was 20 from the UK. I had married an american serviceman and he got stationed in California. He was (he passed away) black and I am white. It was 1965 and our marriage was not legal in several states. We stayed in New Jersey for a few weeks then got an Oldsmobile and started driving. He was an air force medic and very anti-war, when he got to the base they made him remove his peace sign from the car. That was a strange trip for me. I was overwhelmed by the sheer size of this country.We took the Northern route (for obvious reasons) and had no problems regarding our racial differences.
I remember sitting in that car for hours, just watching the land go by and saw it change from the east coast through the plains and finally the rockies and then the desert. The radio was constantly playing "I Got You Babe", and as we got closer to California the Watts riots started and I started to get a tad worried. People were so friendly and kind to us and it seemed as if the world was changing before our eyes.
I think this was the start of my hippiness, that is still with me after all these years. There were other trips, like driving up through Big Sur and waving peace signs at people, stopping and drinking sangria with strangers on the road. Protesting the war and coming together with friends. The love was really there then. I remember wearing my bellbottoms, a top made out of a bandana and one of those floppy leather hats and no shoes. Smoking pot and just being. Listening to music that was not about inane nothingness, but really had a message. Life was good.

It's not so bad now for me I still feel like that girl on the road with her bandana and floppy hat, but now I have three grandchildren, what happened ???

[luvndrumn]

Thank you, m'lady! I got images from reading your post.
Can we go back to the garden, now?

[hippietoad]

Hey Grendel,
Can I post that on my site ?

[grendel 44]

Hippietoad, feel free to use that post on your site. It's good memories for me and probably a lot of others have similar. Those were the days of innocence and happiness. I feel that it all went crazy later, but for a short wonderful time, we were happy and carefree. I still have many of those feelings and am still that person with the same values I had then. I am so grateful that I never turned out to be another conservative robot, and it was all because of those times when people really loved each other. I would love to visit your website.

Luvndrum, To go back to the garden, even for a day, would be priceless, but life goes on and I still have my own little garden of my mind.

[teepi]

Lovely story Grendel, thank you for sharing.

Every time I hear a story from back in the daze it brings back a piece of it.
When I lived at EPP we had bonfires all the time,its pine country up there in Vermont and even to this day...34 years later, every time I catch a whiff of burning pine I'm carried right back.


When I left Venice Beach in '71 to thumb back to Earth Peoples Park, I found myself leaving a gas station in Syracuse NY , and walking up the onramp back to the interstate, it was about 6 in the morning and pretty quiet, I heard a car stop behind me on the shoulder and I just "knew" it was the cops.
I turned with the biggest smile on my face and walked right up to the car, inside were 2 state troopers, giving me the up and down.

Keep in mind I was 13 at the time and thankfully when they asked, I had ID that said otherwise, 19 was my projected age and I always did look older.
They of course asked where I was headed and I told them I had a sick granny up by the Canadian border in a little town called Norton VT.
They spoke amoungst themselves for a second and loaded me into the car....all I could think of was going back into the foster care system, and that I would have to plan better next time...
We drove for awhile, and then pulled into a very large truckstop/restaurant.

These 2 great guys took me in. bought me french toast, and walked around talking to the truckers till they found me a ride up to Burlington.

I will NEVER forget them.

teepi

[~Sam~]

Hitching a ride from SF back to east coast in '67, I was picked up, Somewhere in Idaho, by a girl my age driving a beater of a pickup truck.

She asked me where I was going, and I told her "Anywhere you can take me down this road." Hopping in, after I put my guitar case in the seat between us, we started to talk about things.

As we got to know one another a little, she asked me if I would be willing to do some work around her cabin. I didn't have anything better to do, so I told her I'd give 'er a go.

Back then, we had some stuff called Organic Mescaline. I had a whole baggie full of it, and when I started to come down from the last hit I drank, I just added a pinch or two more to some water...

It seemed like we drove for hours up this mountain dirt road and down the next before we got to her cabin. Which, I might say, was in some sad need of repair. I scanned the forest which surrounded her place and whistled to myself..."So this is paradise?" And it truly was.

There wasn't a soul around for miles and miles. The only sound I heard as I climbed down out of the truck was a Golden Eagle screeing overhead.

"Quite a place you have here." I mentioned as I lifted my duffle bag out the truck bed.

"Sure is. I just don't know how I'm gonna handle all this by myself. But it seemed like a good idea when I bought the place from my cousin. Tell me, Sam. Just how good are you with a hammer?"

My eyes, probably looking like kaleidoscopes, were doing their trippy thing, and I mumbled something or the other about how I could do just about anything she needed done around the place.

Well, let me tell you that I really did work my ass off there in the middle of the forest. The nights were cold, and the days warmed me nicely. Together we put a Shine on that cabin that remained there to the last time I was out there to visit with her. Yes, we became fast friends, despite the arguing that we did.

It was that arguing that prompted me to grab my kit, and my baggie, and walk off into the trees... alone.

I walked her mountains for a few weeks all by my lonesome. Staying up for most of the night around my fire, and sleeping out in the open under the warm sun. The things that I did, and felt and saw in that primeval forest could fill a book, but they're mostly my private memories and I won't go there now.

Guess I straggled back to her place looking fit for all my climbing, swimming and gathering, and she said so. I didn't stay with her too long after my return...

I had places to go and people to meet.

[MarkN]

In 65 my father was a Methodist preacher in the heart of the Mississippi delta. The civil rights issue was heating up. The church asked my father, " If a negro would want to attend our church, would you allow it?" I think my father replyed, "what would Jesus do?" That didn't go over well with the congragation. My mother was a nurse for The Head Start program, giving imunizations to poor kids (black & white). He became more active in the civil rights movement. We (all of us) became very unpopular in the town. The church asked us to leave. So, my dad took a sabatical for a year from the church and began working for MAP, (mississippi action program) a grass roots Federal program for the emplymentation of Head Start programs in the state. The Klan was very active back then. It was a spooky time for us. The state of MS. had a secret orginazation call the "sovernity commision" that spyed on subversive types like my dad. Here is the link: http://www.mdah.state.ms.us/arlib/sovcomm.html

So, All of my familys names are written up in some obscure archive of the right wing powers that were running the state. Darn! I guess running for Governor of Mississippi is out of the question now! lol
This reminds me of that eposide of "the twilight zone", where the old people in the nursing home start playing kick the can. They all grow younger.:)

[teepi]

I love that episode. I love to watch Twilight Zone still although most of them are familiar to me those wre reruns I don't mind looking at.....they are not "obsolite"
Remember that one??

Great stories here.

[~Sam~]

Anybody wanna play "Kick the Can?"

Teepi, that was a great story you related here. Nice to read you.

[WE1]

During the late summer of 1968 I was walking down Fillmore Street eating a Blimpie sub. When I stopped for a moment to check the traffic and take another bite of my sandwich before crossing the street. Sonny Barger [leader of the oakland hells angels] then pulled up next to me and waited for the light to change. I then noticed a young women who was sitting behind Sonny on his chopper. She then said in a rather loud raspy voice "Sonny give me a fucking cigarette". As I walked by them a few seconds later and looked back; I then realized that young women was Janis Joplin.

[mosaicthreads]

Such beautiful stories. Thank you all for sharing!

The hitchhiking stories reminded me of the summer of 69, hitchiking and camping in canada. Clad in jeans and bandana halters we met the nicest people and enjoyed some of the sweetest music. One night I remember dancing with a beautiful french-canadian boy. He could only say two things in english. "you are so beautiful!" and "Do you want to walk on the beach?"

[teepi]

Well what more needs to be said????...lol

Aren't these memories the sweetest??
I swear I can just taste it sometimes.

Wow WE your brush with fame was cool to read,
teep

[rubymontana]

Hitchin' was THE way to move from point A to point B...I was not rich or lucky enough to own my own ride, and a job? Please!..... Anyway, it's not something you can do these days with relative saftey, what with all the skitzos on the road, not to mention 'the man' hasseling everyone. But we did it fairly often and I met some very memorable brothers and sisters that I still think about to this day...Sharing a bowl on the ride, being so open with everyone.....WAH!!! I want to go back!!!!! Peace,Ruby

[scratcho]

Wonderfull stories--really brings it(you know what IT was)all back.Here's one.From 68 thru 74 I lived in Hawaii.Friend of mine lived on a 40 foot trimaran and sailed it over to Maui from Oahu to do some carpenter work on a house there.I decided to go over too,so when I got there I bought a 58 chevy station wagon to live in.When the owner of the sailboat wasn't working ,we sailed around between Maui and Lanai.One time there was a rather large ship out from Maui and we decided to investigate.We,being 3 or 4 guys and the same number of women.Somebody id'ed the ship as a sub tender.We didn't see a sub anywhere,but I'm sure it was lurking beneath us.The owner of the sailboat had a huge peace sign(probably 10 feet across sewn into his sail and since we were obviously long hairs with very little on and nothing much to do ,but live,we figured it only fitting to take a run at 'em.We started right at the ship going at a pretty good clip,with the girls shedding their tops and waving at all the sailors lined up waving back and hollering.Great fun,but some higher up didn't like it at all.A huge voice on a bullhorn warned us to stand off and leave the area immediately OR ELSE.Vietnam was going on big-time so we figured we'd better comply,which we did.I went back to Maui a few years later to visit some folks and saw my old station wagon going by full of hippies.I had left it at the airport with the keys in it ,hoping it would fall into good hands.Looked like it had to me,so I never mentioned to them that it was mine.Maybe it's still--there ,serving a new generation of "n'er do wells".--------------------------------------------------scratcho-------------

[abudman]

Living in Daytona Beach. I mean ON Daytona Beach. We would stay up all night and party and skinny dip in the ocean. We had to cause they wouldn't let anybody sleep on the beach at night. We would sleep under the pier during the day blending in with all the tourists then. Left to go to the Atlanta pop festival which was the ultimate blast. Met up with the Sunshine Family commune. Really great bunch. Came back afterward and met a couple of really cool chicks from Kent State who had been involved with THAT incident. They let me stay with them the rest of the summer. That summer my draft deferment changed from 1-S (for school) to 1-A. This was because I was having too much fun to go back home and return to school. Because of that and the fact that my draft lottery number was so low that I would have been drafted within 6 months. I decided to go back home and enlist only because I did NOT want to be drafted into the Marines. Instead I joined the Army, got my GED while I was in basic training and spent the next 20 years in uniform. Doing my bit for peace from the inside. That was 33 years ago now. I did drop back in to college never got a degree but am working as a Systems Engineer here in Northern Virginia. Not bad for a high school dropout. As I write this I am listening to the Moody Blues. Can't wait till I finally retire for good and can start smoking pot again, damn those piss tests. I left out a ton of other stories. Maybe we could somehow get together somewhere and share those stories, drink some Ripple, smoke some and play kick the can!
I have no regrets.
Peace,
Steve in Virginia
AKA White Rabbit

[rubymontana]

Oh Man!!!! This is so cool.... Major flashbacks. Plenty of Ripple,or Boones Farm Strawberry Hill to go with the strawberry rolling papers!!! Ruby

[Bellfire01]

Even though I was born too late to meet the actual people in person I've always been a hippy and hung out with first and second generation hippies. My mom use to tell me about her days in California. She was a divorced mother with two small children and had moved to California because she hated the pressure her family was putting on her. She had an apartment but she mostly loved to party and slept at different friends' houses on their floor. (She'd go make different friends and crash at their house a few nights and then find the next friend's house.) One time, while she was at a party she heard this really groovy song on the radio. She told one of her friend's that she thought the song was going to be a big hit one day. That song turned out to be Proco Harum's "Brighter Shade of Pale". I have to log of now so I can't share with you the time she met some of the members of the Hell's Angels until another time.

[WE1]

We skipped the light Fandango
Turned cartwheels 'cross the floor
I was feeling kind of seasick
But the crowd called out for more
The room was humming harder
As the ceiling flew away
When we called out for another drink
The waiter brought a tray

And so it was that later
As the Miller told his tale
That her face, at first just ghostly
Turned a whiter shade of pale



She said there is no reason
And the truth is plain to see
But I wandered through my playing cards
And would not let her be
One of sixteen vestal virgins
Who were leaving for the coast
And although my eyes were open
They might just as well've been closed

And so it was that later
As the Miller told his tale
That her face, at first just ghostly
Turned a whiter shade of pale

And so it was....




K.Reid/G.Brooker

[scratcho]

Thanks we1--I loved their music-had all of it.But none of their stuff except 'Whiter' and Conquistador ever played on radio.Robin Trower is still one of my favorite guitarists.

[WE1]

HOLY SHIT!!! YOU SAW JANIS JOPLIN!!! ok i need to calm down....WOW i love Janis Joplin ok......so gimme details...what was she wearing? did you speak to her?


No,my dear,I did not speak to her. This happened almost thirty six year's ago;and the event only lasted maybe 20 seconds. So,you'll have to forgive me,if I no longer remember the exact type and color of the clothing she was wearing. But,I do recall the clothing was brightly colored and,she was wearing several different kinds of beads in different colors.





Thanks we1--I loved their music-had all of it.But none of their stuff except 'Whiter' and Conquistador ever played on radio.Robin Trower is still one of my favorite guitarists.Your welcome my friend. I also enjoy Robins guitar work very much. I find his style to be very similar to Jimmi Hendrix's. Except Robins delivery was smoother in my opinion. I was lucky enough to see him in concert several times in the mid to late 70s. I Especially enjoyed his "Bridge of Sighs" album from 1974. Life is so unforgiving bridge of sighs...

[grendel 44]

Hey Scratcho. Your trip about Hawaii bought back a not-so-good memory. I had a friend who was in Maui about the same time, had to be 66-68. He went there to avoid the draft and lived in the jungle with some friends. He took acid and decided he was god or something and flew (he thought) out of a three story window, through a tree and broke his neck. He lived but was a quadraplegic. I met him when he was in a hospital and we ended up living together for a while. He was a great guy and got me interested in all sorts of stuff that expanded my mind and opened new worlds to me. We eventually went our own ways, he became a junkie and I could not handle that. There were more good times than bad and the people that passed through that time are always in my memory.

Sorry if I 'm being a bummer, but you gotta take the bad with the good. This forum is one of the few places I feel I can unload and people who have been there understand.

"What a Drag it is Getting Old"

[Southernman]

Here at Germany we didn't call us 'Hippies' because this term was used by the corporate media, we called us 'Freaks'. Most of us didn't have the money, to go to SF or visit Woodstock, but as soon, as the musical industrie found out, that there was a market for this 'Underground Music', we could buy the records as soon, as they were published in the US, U.K. or elsewhere and all this great bands even did promotion tours to our little country. My hometown Munich was even a station on the route to/from Kabul, Kathmandu or elswhere in Asia. Yes, you could take all your money, enter your car or the Magic Bus and travel overland. With all this influences from near the whole world and even our home grown cults, rites and sounds, it was a great time to get 'Psychedelic Experienced'. At the same time there were big student riots in Old Europe from 1968/69 with huge Anti-Vietnam demonstrations, giving personally to me, together with a growing consciousness about that, what the Nazis did to the world some 20 years ago, a personal point of view about the importance of living and spreading 'Love, Peace and Happiness'. One of the students from Paris, Daniel Cohn-Bendit is today Spokesman of the United Greens in the European Parliament, one of his friends from Germany is Joschka Fischer, our Foreign Minister. I saw them both in the 80ies in an Austrian talk show, which was really boaring and while one the conservative guests was refering, you could hear in the off saying one to the other, 'Good thing, that we smoked something before'.
http://www.seyfried-berlin.de/uhr.jpg
Source: (http://www.seyfried-berlin.de/)Gerhard Seyfried (http://www.seyfried-berlin.de/)

[teepi]

When I lived at EPP we could hop a freight train into the closest town, Island Pond.

It was about a 20 minute ride.
The train would stop at the Canadian border and we would wait on the U.S side for it to start up and would run along side and grab the ladder on the side of a car, pull ourselves up and on top of the cars there was a grid running down the
center you could sit or lay on and tuck your legs under.

We would take our back packs and hop the train about 9 in the morning, spend the day in town,buy what we could carry and then hop the 5 PM train back.

One day me and another girl got on the train at the small station in Island pond, it only stopped there for about 5 minutes, as soon as it started pulling out we would have to scramble to make sure we got on it, couldn't be late, anyway we got on and climbed up and got situated, laid back so no one in town would notice us and the train suddenly stopped, I about shit, I thought maybe someone had seen us and we's gonna get busted.
The train started backing up and I started shaking, it backed till it was in front of the station and I looked at the station and there at a small window on the second floor was a man staring at me, man I was scared, and just then the biggest smile overtook his face and he WAVED.....Oh the relief, the train pulled out again, and we made it back...
I loved those train rides.
teepi