It seemed we were the pioneers of the future, living in communes, eating organic food, going back to the land to live as independently as possible. Was it our imagination or were we having more fun than any of the other people we saw around us? The hippie movement was more than just a simple retreat from the modern world -- it also changed society in many ways, small and large. People who had been determinedly climbing the corporate ladder suddenly quit their jobs, grew long hair and sought other ways to fulfill their dreams. Every aspect of life was questioned. Women nor longer automatically went to hospitals to have their babies. Home births became the norm among hippies, with Midwives attending the births accompanied by doctors who embraced the philosophy of letting nature do its work unassisted whenever possible. (One reason home births were popular was that hippies didn't want the government to get information from hospitals about their babies, so later they might be drafted, or forced to go to a non-alternative school.)
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With the baby boomers in their late teens and early twenties – peak years of physical beauty – the hippie era became one of unabashed sexuality. The advent of the birth control pill, and other widely available birth control devices, freed young people from their fear of pregnancy, adding fuel to the fire of the sexual revolution. Although it’s hard to believe now, sexually transmitted diseases were not then a big problem: the plague of AIDS had yet to emerge, and herpes remained rare. The diseases of the time, syphilis and gonorrhea, were easily treated with antibiotics. Many of us suffered the vexations of crabs or scabies, of course, but these could be remedied with over-the-counter medications, followed by the cleansing ritual of boiling our clothes. All in all, this seemed a small enough price to pay for participating in the sexual revolution, probably the greatest times for sex the world has ever known.
People had many responses to this sexual revolution. Some remained monogamous to a steady boyfriend or girlfriend, and eventually married. Many of these unions are still together. Others, more sexually adventuresome, enjoyed both male and female partners, and attended orgies and wild parties. Some hippies took this new sexual freedom to impressive heights: I remember one female roommate who was “saving me for number one hundred”. This unique combination of youth, the sexual revolution, and a lack of serious consequences helped fire the passions of hippies.
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We liked to go camping in the national parks, and many kids met up in Yosemite around a campfire; perhaps their first summer away from home. The vehicles cars of choice for these trips were converted school buses, Volkswagen vans and “bugs”, or classic American junkers, proudly painted in wild colors. We tore out the seats and put in blankets, foam pads and Indian fabrics.
Drugs were another defining part of being a hippie. First we tried marijuana while we were in school, and it seemed a very wicked and illegal act. For me, there were minute amounts available. I remember taking the tiny end of a joint, and lighting it (while my head was inside a paper bag) to try to get high. Being stoned was a learned experience. For the neophyte, the effects of marijuana are very subtle, and many people could barely feel it. It is a drug that raises one’s awareness but smoking too much can lead to a stupor or sleep.
LSD was the drug that really changed things. Just writing the initials on this typewriter seems dangerous. It is a very powerful drug. Mere micrograms -- an infinitesimal amount -- were enough to send a healthy person on an amazing, wild, and occasionally terrifying trip. Depending on the dose, the effects of LSD can last from eight to twelve hours. I believe that it breaks down the normal ability of the brain to keep non-survival perceptions and thoughts from overwhelming normal consciousness. To survive, animals must be totally aware of their environment; must be on the lookout for predators, must be alert for danger. Human’s large brains need to be controlled, so there are built-in defenses against tripping out. One can’t live in a constant state of profound revelations, while experiencing amazing patterns and combinations of color, sound, and smells, when the main task is to survive. But in the post-industrial world, where much former work is now mechanized or computerized, and most wild predatory animals sadly confined to zoos, many hippies attempted to live stoned on acid (LSD) a great deal of the time. This stoned world meant the end of normal living in society. One could smoke the occasional joint and still go to school or hold down a job, but the all encompassing effect of LSD was to live in a more spiritual, more loving world, without the trappings of conforming to a workday world. It seemed like a vast opening up, where the younger generation, with the wildness of youth, could totally re-invent the world and leave regular society ‘behind’.
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Not everyone who took acid could handle its power. People who were on the edge of mental illness could get worse, and the nightmares that everyone gets might become all too real – a terrifying experience. We were intrepid explorers, with the brazen courage of youth. Once, while tripping on acid, I was riding in a car on the way to Big Sur. I noticed that the breaking waves, seen from Highway One, had incredible rainbows. I remember trying to eat a turkey leg, left over from a Thanksgiving Dinner. Suddenly I became aware that it was an actual creature’s legs, and instead of looking like meat, it was a turkey’s walking equipment. I remember thinking, if I am eating his leg, shouldn’t I try and use his energy, indeed his life, for some higher purpose? So I resolved to shoot some really good pictures of Big Sur.
I needed a drink to get the taste of this poor bird out of my mouth, so we stopped at a gas station on the intersection of Highway One and 101 near Castroville. I managed, somehow, to get lost at the coke machine while my travel companions forgot all about me and went off to get some artichoke hearts. Every direction I looked was a freeway, and after a while I gave up trying to deal with it. I just sat down on a curb, figuring that I’d be arrested. In the midst of this confusion, my friends pulled up to retrieve me and off we went!
I took some beautiful images of Point Lobos, a park near Carmel, only to leave my Hasselblad (one of the world’s most expensive cameras) on a rock at Point Lobos. Hours later, by some miracle, we found it, still there. I remember rubbing against some poison oak with my belly for the fun of it. By yet another miracle, I escaped the itch.
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It was a wild and crazy time, with no going back. People who didn’t become hippies seemed resentful, jealous or horrified by our lovemaking and drugs. Later, some became revisionists, using the media to portray us as losers, drug-dealing pushers. Uptight and angry history is now rewritten so our giant experiment in communal living, free love, and dropping out, is seen as criminal activity. Writing truthfully about this time is dangerous because it scared the hell out of many people. When I see teenagers encumbered with shopping bags, going to malls for designer clothing, I think that these kids are perfect corporate robots, who live only to shop.
Communal living suffered no such hang-ups.. Why work too much, when one could hang out with friends, saving money and sharing resources? Vegetarianism got a boost. Protein substitutes were developed by combining various grains, like beans and rice. People took turns cooking and folks were always welcome to “crash”, staying at each other’s houses. Hitchhiking was the normal way to get round, and long hair and tie-dyed clothing were a passport to instant acceptance at parties, on the road, or at concerts. These hippie skills are much needed, because the earth can’t support even today’s population if everyone has every material thing they lust after. The future, whether we like it or not is a choice between a hippie culture or a war culture.
Concerts! Wow, what a great time! Working as a rock and roll photographer, I went to many shows: free concerts in Golden Gate Park, Bill Graham productions at Winterland and the Fillmore West, plus the Family Dog on the Great Highway in San Francisco. The music was amazing, the air heavy with marijuana smoke and incense, and the dancers were spinning visions of beauty. Light shows projected mystical, colored patterns moving in time with the music, enhancing the effect of everything. Afterwards, many people went home with each other for more personal lovemaking. San Francisco bands were in the forefront of the world music scene. Groups such as The Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, the Jefferson Airplane, (my fave) cross-pollinated with British bands like the Stones and Beatles, and for the first time a large white audience embraced the great blues figures like B.B. King. Record companies suddenly began to recognize the vast buying power of the youth culture, as money flowed like great waterfalls of cash.
Hippie poster art was a visual interpretation of the psychedelic era. Hand lettered and hard-to-decipher, this amazing artwork helped foster a secret and inclusive experience of truly belonging to another culture increasingly apart from the mainstream. The growing schism between “normal” society and this suddenly rebellious youth movement was made all the worse by increasingly oppressive drug laws passed by a government desperate to stem the tide of the hippie revolution. The lethal escalation of the Vietnam War furthered the profound disconnect between the hippies and regular society. The result is pictured in the next chapter, Counterculture, a reaction to the Vietnam war, the McCarthyism of the fifties and early sixties, the conformist corporate culture, and the environmental destruction of California and the world by development, pollution and greed.
In the end, the hippie vision of a pure and simple life was no match for the forces of ambition, conservatism, and the almighty dollar. The world seemed clear to the hippies: either people were hip, and thus fully tuned in to reality itself, or they were pigs. This may seem a very blunt and simplistic assessment, but when we look at our leaders today and their endless oil wars, then think back to the motivations that led to the quagmire of Vietnam, perhaps the hippies, acting so instinctively and innocently, offered some answers that the world could use to be a more sharing and peaceful civilization.
By Richard Blair, Inverness, CA ©2006 My homepage Please send your comments? email me!
Comment by Andrea,
– Hi! I just thought I'd let you know that I enjoyed your article, and to tell you and all the old-time hippies out there that, despite this being the time of close-minded conservatism and corporate greed and mind-games, there are members of the youth out there that believe in peace and unity, and that all hope is not lost. There are still some who care about the well-being of the world and who intend to do something about it rather than just sit back and watch the delapidation of the planet. Despite the current presidential administration's denial of global warming, refusal to allow stem-cell research, and close-minded views on cultural expression, most of the youth I know are not, and can think very well on their own. Once again, I enjoyed your article. Thanks for listening, and have an awesome day. Peace,
Comment by Claire
–i read an article you wrote about hippies .. i wouldnt usually get on the computer and read a passage on something so controversial .. i have to say you did an exceptional job .. i love everything about that era .. i couldnt imagine what id be like without it .. probably another material idiot who wastes their lives away .. but thanks for being intelligent
