Woodstock and the hippie nation

I am a hippie. I don't apologize for that fact. Today is my 61st birthday. Forty years ago, I had the chance to be at Max Yazgur's farm in upstate NY. David Nonnemaker, one of my roommates at the house on North West St., had heard about the concert and wanted me to go with him. We would hitchhike. It had been a little more than a month since we had returned from the Atlanta Pops festival. I had two jobs and, much to my chagrin, decided not to go. The trip would have probably taken four or five days each way, depending on how long it took us to catch rides. I would have been gone for two weeks or more. I needed money. In retrospect, it was a good decision. Atlanta was much closer and the Pops Festival had been over the July 4th holiday.
I wish I had been there to witness and partake in the happening. People were there from Thursday through Monday. No fights. People sharing everything they had with total strangers. The citizens of Bethel feeding the concert attendees and telling the national news outlets how well-behaved the hippies were throughout the weekend. This is the "hippiedom" to which I ascribe. Not the crap that emanated from San Francisco during the "Summer of Love". Those 10,000 were mostly Manson (Charlie not Marilyn). They were street people, much as you would find in any large city today. Unwashed. Thieving. Belligerent. Confrontational. NOT hippies. They were more like a mob of freeloaders who converged on the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood and became freeloaders.
A true hippie is one who practices ideals. Look for the best in everyone. Help those in need. Make love; not war. It's not about a style of dress, although I still love the tie-died T-shirts, no underwear, no socks, shorts and my long hair. Buffett and his parrotheads are hippies. You don't have to be poor. You don't have to give away all your possessions or wealth. You do need to take a shower at least once a day! And don't be a poseur. Like Abbie Hoffman. The way Pete Townshend bitch-slapped Hoffman around on the stage at Woodstock is a thing of beauty. I just wish someone had film. And, in that vein: Does anyone even remember John Sinclair? Not many folks. But most remember Pete threatening Abbie Hoffman (and EVERYONE at the festival) with a sound thrashing if they interrupted The Who again. Still hilarious stuff.
Hippies are misunderstood. Those who flaunt their hippiness are similar to flaming queen gays. One of the tenets of being a hippie is doing good deeds without any fanfare or expectation of any reward. We work every day. We pay our taxes and raise our children. Many of us are conservative. Some even go to church. We laugh at the derisive attitude that many people take of us. We were the campus rebels who sat in with our friends from Jackson State on the day after the Gibbs and Green shootings. We were peaceful. But we were upset and angry. Only ten days prior to these shootings, the Kent State massacre took place. Yes, we were naive. We wanted to change the world. Our black friends at Millsaps were headed to Lynch St. to meet with their friends. Some of us were asked to accompany them because they felt that some white kids in the mix might cause the Jackson police and Mississippi National Guard to act in a restrained manner. Some of us were Lynch St. regulars because of the Paradise Club and Percy, the proprietor. We used to go there on Sundays because you could sit and watch a football game and drink beer. You could not do that in the white neighborhoods. Our sit-in had no purpose other than to show the world that we cared. We were still pretty raw from Kent State. To this day, I am still terribly bothered by Kent State.
We protested the war. But, when it was our time to go, most of us went. I did. I was married, a father, and a college graduate. But I served my time honorably. We were also more rounded than our parents. I was an athlete and a thespian and a hippie. I saw no contradiction. I still don't. I'm still a hippie and I will be until I die. I am an organ donor. I was a bone marrow donor volunteer until age 55, when I was drummed out of the program due to my age. I gave blood. Upon my death, I have donated my body to UMC. I pay my bills. I am fiscally conservative. I don't believe in Iraq and Afghanistan, just like I did not believe in Vietnam. But I support every one of our troops with no hesitation. We need to keep our money at home and let these religious factions fight it out with each other, just as they have been doing for a few thousand years. I don't believe in god or religion, but I'm not bothered by those who promulgate on TV and radio.
I am terrified by Obama and Pelosi and what they can do to our country. But I support human rights. I don't care if some guy wants to parade around town with a blow-up alligator impaled on his tallywacker. He's not hurting me. I don't like radicals of any style. I quit watching and listening to idiots like Limbaugh and Olbermann and O'Reilly and Coulter. They raise my blood pressure.
I fish and hunt, but wish Vick had been put in a ring with a dozen of his own pit bulls, after he had been drenched in fresh blood. I play golf but don't like watching it on TV because it's so boring to watch. I can't stand opera, but I love most types of rock, soul and reggae. I raise some of my own vegetables, but am not adverse to consuming something that is not "free-range" or "all natural" or "heart healthy". I don't believe in global warming...or Al Gore!
In summation, being a hippie is a good thing. It's a lifestyle that can't be defined, but you know it when you meet one of us. And, chances are, you won't know it when you DO meet one of us. That's the way we like it.