I tried to...so could you please help

i tried to ask these questions in old hippies, but then i realized that it was probably the wrong place to ask. these questions are for my american history and adv. english project (which i'm doing on hippies) and i have to interview a few people (maybe 5) so i figured this would be the best place to ask my questions. (those who were in the teens or older in the 60s' please answer) well..here they are.

1) Where you involved in any of the movements that hippies in the 60s were involved in? if so, which one(s) and what did you specifically do?

2) do you feel that hippies had a good or bad impact on the american society today? why?

3)what was your reason for becoming a "hippie" and joining the hippy family?

4) What have you learned from your experience through out the decade of the 60s?

5) if you could go back and do it all over again would you? why or why not? and if there was anything that you would change that you did , what would it be?

6) If there is anything else you'd like to add, feel free. I'd be glad to hear it.

Thanks a whole bunch for your help! I hope to hear what you guys have to say to these questions!

Take Care
~*~Peace~*~
-Kiri-

 

anyone at all?

 

Thanks.

 

I was involved in the late 60s - early70s anti-war movement. I attended demonstrations in Washington, DC. Lately I'm more involved in environmental and animal-rights issues, though I did attend some anti Iraq war demos a couple years ago -- even got gassed (ah, memories!)

2: I feel we had a decidedly positive impact.

3: Odd question. I didn't "become" a hippie or join anything. I've never thought of it as a membership organization. My social and moral views are simply congruent with those I associate with hippiism (is that a word?)

4: I came onto the scene only at the end of the 60s. Apart from purely academic achievements I'm not sure how to answer this question. Perhaps you cpuld narrow it.

5: I'd have taken off for San Francisco in the mid 60s, and perhaps migrated to one of the Taos area communes later on.

Good luck on your Hx/English project. I'd be interested to hear just how you perceive hippies from a 17 y/o perspective.

 

I was a beatnik before I became a hippie - (I guess that's what you'd call someone who, in the early sixties, wore all black, hung around in coffee houses, composed poetry - and listened to it spoken by someone else on a stage... but that's a different forum..)

I saw three paths that "hippies" seemed to take:

1: There were the peace, love and take-life-for-the-moment kind who smoked some dope, dropped some acid and loved life. They wanted to change the world by their experience of it - "be like me, and the world will change - make love, not war..", etc. Think Woodstock and Haight Ashbury;

2. there were the (many anti-war protesting), college educated, or college-bound (usually), political activists. They were civil rights protestors, too. Very vocal and opinionated. Think Alabama or Kent State;

3. and, then there were the druggie hippies who got caught up in the extremes of the culture, tried every illegal drug created, and many never made it to the '70's.

Some from categories 1 and 2 wound up in category 3, and there was some overlap between the categories. Oh, and there were subcategories too, like Bikers, musicians, the gay subculture, and Black panther-wannabe's, Buddhists and Hari Krishnas, rock, folk, bluegrass, and some country musicians, to name a few... and I'm sure I've forgotten someone.

But, I think, basically, at the time, you were either just enjoying the "trip" or you were protesting something about what the country was doing - either the war in 'Nam or civil rights.

The decision to be one way or the other was usually not made consciously; it was usually a gut feeling (this is based on the people I've known...); you went with your beliefs. One thing I do recall is that it was all or nothing back then. You said what you felt, you acted on what you said and to hell with the consequences.

...and I hope all that (above) was not too intellectualized to be of value. As one who was there, there are a lot of gaps in my memory, too.

 

Sorry, I forgot to answer your specific question:

1) Too many "movements" to consider. I don't think you can categorize them that way ('cept for the three 'categories' that I mention in my earlier post....). As I said, things were done from the heart. We didn't just decide, "Oh, I think I will become a war-protester." If you hated the war, you became a protestor. It was really very simple.

2) If you look around, all the old hippies are in offices in congress, or heads of corporations, or have created amazing works of art or literature (or are the parents of people who have..), or have been influential mothers and fathers to generation of kids who grew up probably hating the hippyish lack of structure in their lives - kids, who then gave birth to their own children and gave them so much structure that the children now want to become hippies.... The circle continues to turn....

3) I just left my high school graduation - after the ceremony - threw some clothes in a paper bag, crawled out through my sister's bedroom window, thumbed a ride down to the railroad yard and hopped a freight to San Francisco from Seattle. Before that? It was just the same as, well, if you became a cheerleader, how did you decide to become one? Dunno, eh? You just hung with those people, did the same things, liked the same stuff, and pretty soon you were a cheerleader like the rest. It's the same with everyone, hippie or cheerleader.

4) I learned not to let a 6'7" hustler into my bathroom-down-the-hall (that had a window seat with an open window) while I was naked, running water for a bath on the fourth floor of my apt building. Well, that was only one of the many things I've learned. Mostly, I think, I've learned that life is very simple - and very, very funny. ('learned that on an acid trip once....) and not to take anything very seriously - change happens.

5) If I could do it all over again, I'm not sure that I would let Sebastion - in the basement - introduce me to meth. (Methamphetamine - speed), or maybe I'd start using moisturizer on my face earlier on..., that is, maybe I'd tell my earlier self to think a little bit more about the future, because we sure didn't think about it at all then.

6) Feel free to ask, email or anything. I hope you do well on your essay, report or whatever it is. (dunno why more 'old hippies' didn't reply....?)

 

We old-timers seem to be a minority here, madcat.