A question for the older and wiser

My first interest was art, so at ten I was planning to retire to some beach and mail my comic strips to my publiser. At 17 I first saw my first drawings published, but being the lazy hippy I was, I thought one drawing a month was too much pressure, so I headed for the Las vegas of tye-died shirts, Greenwhich village NY.

I played(traded my pencils for a guitar) in three bands while I worked in the post office and as a messenger, in NYC, then everything was abandoned for cult hopping,which led to travelling on foot through the large state of California, sometimes on bikes, motorcycles, vans
and on foot.

Santa cruz, Santa Barbara, San Diego.San Francisco, Los Angeles, Hollywood, Santa monica. With one partner, two, alone, two van-fulls, on a purple Bus with a poet and a saint, tripping , straight, walking on the dessert, riding a moped to a camp in the dark of night, checking out rainbow gatherings, tripping on a greyhound with a friend while listening to a walkman.

And after doing that many times over, coming back to drawing and playing music at home and outside and writing about those wild days of wonder and magic, but now joining the largest gathering of people and arching with them in ways not possible before, even larger than Woodstock and with more variety of people.

As we speak we're in it.

The internet concert.

 

I'm glad someone brought this up, I'm only 25 but i feel like i'm too old to not have a responsible job and being what society says i should be but at work, I'm a sysadmin, i sometimes feel like i should be living in a hut on the beach in mexico growing my own weed and dancing around a campfire at night and never selling myself to make my boss happy. i don't want to live like this for another ten years then half a mid life crisis cuz i dont want to fit it anymore. but i feel like there is no other way sometimes i want a home and the basics like a home and all that shit. i am not materialistic in any way but seriously you cant live off selling shit at flea markets these days.

 

Thank you for saying that. I really wanted kids, and had them, and have been a corporate slave for too many years to support my family, but never lost the ideals I had in my youth. I've just redirected my energy in some ways, and hope to get back to fulltime radicalism here in a few years when I can "retire". I'm thankful for my kids, because in a lot of ways they've become who I was 20-25 years ago, and showed me the path back. Don't know why I thought way back when that I had to "grow up" and conform, trying to unlearn that shit, but it's been a learning path, as everything is in the end.

 

We all have to do what we have to, to get to where we feel comfortable and reach our goals.

There certainly is nothing wrong with finding your own way to make it happen.
I worked for many years in all kinds of jobs, some great,some not, but I think the key to all of that working stuff is ...balance.
Alot of us get caught up in the rigidity of having to have alot of things scheduled around our "work time" that other things get put off or lowered on the list.

When I was in the work force I really made an effort to have time for things that were important to me and quiet time for myself and time for my children.
We had a family night and for a long time it was on Friday nights. We would have dinner in and make individual pizza's, with bought dough or if I was up to it,homemade and we would chop up alot of different stuff and each of us would top our own and I would bake.
Then we would play a game together or dance.
Some Fridays we would go out to eat and play putt-putt. Or see a play.
The main thing was it had to involve interacting with each other, no TV or movies.
My kids loved it and it made the rest of the week easier to cope with.

Can't forget yourself either, quiet time is so important, for reflection or just to do nothing or just doing something for yourself.

Also I think alot of people forget their own passion when they go to work, if its possible to get a job that is connected in a way to something you like to do anyway, it makes it easier. I love to garden and one of my favorite jobs was when I worked at a greenhouse.
Now I like to paint so I'm finding ways to make money doing that.
If you like to read...library or bookstore.
If you really like your job then making the bigbucks doesn't seem that important, it can be rewarding in other ways.

teepi

 

I worked for wages for 15 yrs till the house/land and vehicials were all paid and now with the kids grown and I have the house to myself(n my hubby).. I retired and am trying to live a little..without thinking I have to do this or that for so n so..it's a great time in my life..I'm thankful I made it this far..and as making it this far, which I never thought I would.. I feel blessed for that.. I need the rest for a bit.. when my power is up...look the hell out cuz this woman is gonna be heard..

 

I remember (barely) back on 19 hundred and 70. It was teh dawn of the new year – January 1st to be exact…. I was whobblin' down a dusty NC road at sunrise with a half drunk "fifth" of “Happy New Year” brown liquor in my grip trying to keep my shit together long enough to make my way to my friends trailer for some seriously needed crash time.



A young flower child approached me (heck, I was only 19 myself at the time) and showed me her brass bracelet sponsoring a MIA and I remember how I felt at the time. I remember her telling me how she’d never remove the bracelet until the fate of the Vietnam soldier was known. The memory haunts me this evening.



Anywho, from January 1st, 1970 through at least the next six months, I was on a constant LSD25 high. A dude goes though a lot of changes during such times, and it certainly casts the mold that becomes part of the rest of his life.



I guess, from a hippie’s standpoint, it’s kinda the essence of it all.



A year or so ago, I responded to an email message or forum post from someone…… maybe it was UPR (UnionPacificRailroad). It really doesn’t matter who it was. But I remember saying that I had seen a TV essay on this Japanese dude who had been staring at this stone in front of him for 30 years. Yep, that was his thing. He was trying to come to terms with the magnitude of this fucking rock. He had more respect and admiration for this fucking rock that he could contemplate. The more he studied it, the more humble he became.



That hippie chick back in 1970 was kinda like that rock. The more I thought about our encounter – the more magnificent she became and the less important and more insignificant I became.



Take heart young hippies. You are the future.



imhip

 

on Jan. oneth, 1970, I was sitting in front of a bass amp on the stage of the Filmore East, tripping my ass off, listening to Hendrix. I interviewed him after the show... and the trip hasn't slowed down since.

Folks keep telling me that I have to behave myself... Still! At age 58! I say; "Aw right. What do I get if I behave myself? Nothing. I just get to behave myself some more. That's no fun!

Retirement is only 6 years away... knock on wood... and me and the Ole Man are looking forward to really bein' BAD. Use it, or lose it. That's what it's there for.

 

Yeah Sometimes I dream of being really old and walking around freaking younggins out by saying things like....WHAT THE FUCK???????..lol

I LOVE to hear really old people cuss!!!

 

Yeah, I like to freak the youngsters out myself. "Jesus Motherfucking Christ!", ususally does the trick. Only thing is, they don't seem to have a sense of humor... always got to explain the joke to them. Hell's Bells, that ain't no fun.

I know a fella who was the Captain of a Aircraft Carrier during Nam. He once fined two guys $20 a word for saying Motherfucker. One guy petitioned superiors, and won, because he said motherfucker was one word. I always athought that it was two words... found out I was wrong when I came across it in the dictionary the other day.

Take Care, Teepi

 

In 1970 I was a dumbass working for the post office, in 34st and not having time for anything;
but one year was all I could take.

What's weird is that I used to live same block of the Fillmore east and I went to only one concert that was Roy Buchanan.


My life began when I quit the job
and trusted life would continue, and it did, even after unemployment ran out. If my friends could do it, I could too.

It's good to have someone around to show you and guide you till you can stand up for yourself,
but it was a mutual exchange of everything.

 

I've just re-read this thread from begining to end, and I have to say that there are some truly "Nice" folks out there.
Something always makes me come back to the "Hip Planet" forums, and now I know why....

Love you all too guy's...

strawpuppy

 

Thanks PUP,assuming I am one of the "Nice" ones you refer to?????...lol

When I was younger I would hear older folk talk of changes that had occured since "back in my day"...and I thought it must be rough to see things disappear that were special to you, and see changes occuring at a fast pace with things that seemed so foreign.
Now I am starting to know how they felt......"Motherfucker" in the dictionary???!!!!!!!!!

Alright already...now its all getting just plain creepy.

 

"Ditto" Tepee....

By the way...I have been trying to add to your reputation on here, BUT, seem to be having a few technological problems with "how the hec do you do it?"...

I think your great anyway...

Here's for strawpuppy's fight to the death to "above all things know this, to your own self be true"..

Hooray for HIPPIES !...yeah man ! lol

thought hard when my grandparents said the same thing...wierd, cause, if they thought it was getting worse, and I think it is worse than my day....then just how much of "thismotherfuckingshit" are we loosing as the generations roll by ?

 

I believe that too aboutyour path, you have a path but it is up to you to find it and live it. And to use your free will wisely.

 

Thanks for the rep anyway.
I think you're a mighty fine one also.

Larry and I talk about the loss of quality all the time..shame it is.

 

Hello God! I'm a 59 y/o retiree who has seen it all. 3 tours in Nam Many drugs and addicted to coke & booze. I'm clean & sober now. I live each day as a gift. I enjoy the simple things like good music, good friends & my family. I will always be young at heart I remember the good things and the bad things I've done. I refuse to grow into a Grumpy Old Man!! lol


I Wish You The Best!!

Lottrek59

 

God..

back in my mid twenties i encountered the
imaginations of edgar allan poe..alan parsons..dylan thomas..
john lennon...I ate magic mushrooms direct from the cow manure..I heard the music of the spheres..i experienced astral projection..
had lucid dreams..watched sunsets while high..felt the wind on my face
while walking on the beach..fell in love with a special person who
baked me bread and took acid with me and made love to me..
but somewhere along the way the poetry turned sour and i did become a
wage slave..i've raised one family and am working on a second..my second
wife is a little younger and can't relate..she came along too late after our
hippie generation zenith..she just doesn't get it..so i live that life of
quiet desperation..longing for that beautiful earth woman who made me
bread, smoked pot with me, made love with me and agreed with my liberal leanings.

I love my children and they are either already very accomplished in their
own right, or on the way to becomming...still i dream of the future when
i can return to the dreams of my youth..and be true to the free spirit
inside me that never died..that still gets excited by pink floyd and led zep
and jimi and jim and being high for the purpose of appreciating god's
wonderful creation..someday..maybe someday..

Woodstock Boy

 

I can relate...I too went for many years after my commune living,falling in love with a man who opened myself to me,freedom of mind and spirit time, into living a life where I didn't FEEL right.

No matter who I was with or what I was doing, I knew it wasn't what was meant for me. I found myself holding onto anger and it was coming out in horrible ways against myself and my children and friends.
I seemed to never be truly happy, only going through the motions to carry me from one day to the next.
I gained a bunch of weight, did alot of crappy drugs, treating myself terrible.
Stayed in a loveless, abusive relationship for way too many years.Went into a 7 year relationship for ALL the wrong reasons......

Then one day,I started to remember...the life I had all those years ago...the life that was joyful.
I never forgot my first and only love, I had not seen him for many years and I always had kept him in my heart and always wanted to be with him, so I put in motion the things I needed to live a happy life.

Everyday I started living happy, it wasn't a destination, it became a way of life.
I started living for ME.Other things in my life started to all fall into place.

Then I got the chance of my lifetime...to go back to Vermont where I lived all those years before.....found people who knew other people who might know where my first love might be......

Short story long....after 27 years we got back together, and now 34 years after first meeting him...we are married.

Point is...if you are not living a happy life....start right now to.
Be open and honest with yourself and your partner and see if you are moving in the same direction. If not, work something out for you both, maybe neither one of you is where you want to be...

Even small steps toward your dream are steps.
teepi

 

man i like older people like you. haha. i met someone on a train not too long ago who was pretty damn cool for someone who is past 30. oh yea, my room mate is 29, and he's the maddest of them all. also the suavest of them all, too.

 

JEEEEZ God! Whatever you do don't read my post about hating life! Guarenteed to bring you right down. I wish I would have read this thread first. Should've posted it here. Oh well, reading all this did pick up my spirits a bit, thank you very much.
P.S. If you see a black Miniature Schnauzer running around, her name is Missy. Tell her I said hi.