Hippie memories

Old Hippie,
Yeah..hitchhiking..in the late sixties...early seventies..
great experiences..once I got a ride from Genua(Italy)
all the way to Barcelona(Spain)with some Americans in
a van...great music they had..Steppenwolf..Lovin Spoonful..
Crosby etc...in Barcelona we went on a booze feast..
cerveza negra=dark beer..i hitched twice to Istanbul..
in Turkey..hitching..no use..transport to Iran-Afghanistan..
was real cheap..in Istanbul..it was possible sometimes.
to share a ride with hippies towards India..they usually came
together in the Lale Pudding shop=Eminonu part of Istanbul..
in Tehran..i stayed usually in Amir Kabir hotel..or a little hotel
in some small back alley..in these days..some Americans..
got a temporary job in Iran teaching army soldiers English..
once after the border(Wagah)the whole space of India was
there...great country..I met lots of Americans..great memories
once we smoked dope in a little village near Mirzapur..
there was a watertank with steps...suddenly around the corner..
a huge elephant appeared..wooh..strange..
in Varanasi..lots of dope...my dope days are over now..
i get my booze..and this Hipforum..to dream on
Oldhippie...these links..makes me dream again..
http://home.earthlink.net/~geduin/Istan.htm
http://www.ponty.dk/gallery9.htm
Emiel

 

It's a real pity that the hippie trail can't go over Afghanistan now..
i guess late sixties..early seventies..it was the cheapest country..
I ever have visited..I stayed in Kandahar..Herat..and Kabul..
after that crossing into Pakistan via Jallalabad..rough travelling.
Emiel

 

Wuz stoned enough already in Istambul, to go further on the Capmanduh Trail,
Life Mag. had a great story on it back in (?).

 

Tiger,
So you were doing the Kathmandu? I made it as far as Kriti '73 and it was wonderfull...
Tundrahopper4

 

Dang, I just finished posting this thing in another thread, but reading through this thread I forgot the biggest thing--The hitchhiking! Yeah, there was a lot of hitchhiking which is a whole other story on my part--but I should have posted my mini-hippie years paragraphs here?

I was a hippie chick, and a part of me still is, and will always be....

I lived in Monterey, California during my elementary school & high school years, and at about the age of 14, tripping on some acid my friends and I decided to sneak out of our houses and go to the now famous Monterey Pop Festival to watch Jimmy Hendrix, Mommas & The Poppas, etc.--(what a trip man!)

At the age of 15, my best girlfriend and I decide to run away from home, and guess where we ended up? In San Francisco, and of course, we went directly to Height- Ashbury looking for others like us, run-away under age hippie chicks! Our parents found us and we were back home within a week.

In high school I was part of what was considered the edgy cool crowd because we were hippies/idealist/artsy/radical--I remember one day when the local college kids showed up on my high school campus recruiting kids to come join the Anti-War Demonstration that was going on that day. Me and a bunch of friends cut school and went with them all in their Volkswagen Vans, and we all joined in the demonstration march against the Vietnam War--walking down main street and holding up our fists shouting: "Hell NO! We Won't Go! We won't Fight your Fascist War!"<<or something to that effect.

At the age of 17 I ran away from home again, this time with a little help from my friends, where basically I went "underground"--living with various other hippies, college students, radicals, etc., and moving from one communal situation into another. From Marin County to San Francisco, to Berkeley, to Santa Cruz, etc.--there was always lots of sex and free drugs, and even a little exploitation going on from time to time by opportunistic types (users/wannabees) who liked to take advantage of this whole runaway hippie chick phenomenon. Oh, there were other runaway chicks like me, quite a few in fact, they came from all over the country, and even some from Europe, no shit.

Eventually I settled down in Santa Cruz, California where I met and started living with what would turn out to be my first husband and the father of my 2 oldest daughters.---I worked as a distributor for the "free paper" which was a local underground UCSC student paper. I also worked in the bulk food store, where I helped fill the huge bulk foods bins with granola, bulgar, wheat flour, carob chunks, etc.--We lived in various communal Victorian houses which were common in Santa Cruz at that time. Most of them where populated with UCSC students, and some true hippies, heads, freaks, but also activists and radicals. I particularly liked the quick education in political awareness I gleaned from the activists and radicals that I oftentimes encountered and befriended. My then husband became a martial artist, and eventually we owned our own martial arts studio, and of course we all lived in the back of the studio, which was completely illegal zoning wise. The marriage was short lived and we were divorced less than 4 years later.

I was extremely idealistic then, I believed that LSD is all anybody really needed to realize the true nature of life, and I really believed that love and peace would eventually rule the world, but I also believed that something needed to be done to get things rolling. Something radical. I believed in action. I first became a social activist back then (I also enrolled in college about that same time) and I became involved with various causes over the course of many years for which I have never regretted having been involved in...
and blah, blah, blah, and it goes on and on the story of my life, but that was mainly the hippie years...

Just sharing. Trippy, eh?

Later-

 

I posted something to this effect a few weeks ago but i don't mind flashbacking. My first hippie experience was at Woodstock (how lucky can you get). My brother who had just gotten back from Nam after two years there, during a lay over in San Francisco, bought tickets to Woodstock before coming to San Antonio, TX. I didn't know What Woodstock was all about, being just fourteen at the time, but he invited me and I said sure why not. After his stint in the Army, my brother got this gig working for VISTA (Volunteers In Service To Amercia). He had this gravy job driving this US government van for only God knows what, but that is the van we used to get to Woodstock! The van was white with governement license plates.
Anyway, on our way to Bethel, we got stopped for speeding in New York state by troopers, and noticed the G-man plates. My brother showed them (it was two troopers) his government ID and they mistook him for an undercover agent that was going to infiltrate the festival and report on any illegal activities (far out!!). my brother played along with that idea and they let us go without a ticket!! As you can imagine, we laughed all the way to Bethel and arrived at Woodstock stoned out of our minds. Woodstock was one of the happiest five days (we arrived on Wednesday) of my life. I'll never forget the experience or all the groovy people I met.
When I got back to San Antonio, I became a full fledge hippie and did all the things in the early seventies that was started in the sixties, I protested aginst the war, against social injustice, against racism, against everything that was dear to the status quo and the spirit of the time is still in me as I have sopken out against corporate greed, against the Iraq War, and against everything that our conservative "American Idiot" president holds dear. Well that's just part of my story and I'm sticking to it. I could go on and on but it would only bore you.

Peace to all,

Ali

 

Cool I lived there in Yorkville in the 60s. I was there from 1964 to 1969 and
left at the first year Roshdale opened up. Anyone else from Yorkville Dayz...

 

Great story-You and I probably crossed paths a time or two-I used to surf in Santa Cruz in the early 60s then along came acid-whoops-I have a sister thats a lawyer living there in Santa Cruz now-wild town for sure!

 

One of my first exposures, I am an younger "old" hippy. It was probably around the summer of Love or maybe a year or so within then. There is a park, in Oak Park IL, that has a cool aninal/human fountain designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, the hippys used to congregate around this fountain, in the park.

Now my gramma was an old Flapper Chick. But, she has heard some bad things about hippys. One day, we were driving by the Park, and my grandpa and uncle start making fun of the hippies in the park, "Hey, why doncha go home and get yer bread and money from your parents who you hate." and idiotic stuff like this. I started to cry. These people looked so gentle and happy, and they flashed my family the Peace sign and I wished I could be with them.

Not too long later a bunch of my cousins, teens at the time, got hip, and the family started to change for the better. There were veggie freindly meals, and no one complained if people came to dinner with no shoes. The boys grew their hair. Things got Cool.

I thank those peaceful people in the park. The old men in the family never made fun of them again. Then, one day, they were all gone.

Two summers ago, the same park had a Harry Potter Festival, with cosplaying ect. I took my kids. I may have seen some of those old faces........