Hippie Chick

My daughter asked me the other day if I was a hippie when I was younger having just looked at some very old pics of me.... No, but yes. I tried to explain. Waaay back in the summer of 1969, I was 14 and 1/2. When your young like that you always state the half or quarter or three quarter mark because you just can't wait to get older. The summer of 69 was a memorable one for me because it was the summer I was to travel to upstate New York and partake in a little know rock concert by the name of Woodstock. No, I didn't have a ticket or even an invitation, heck I didn't even know how I was gonna get there living all the way on this side of the country, but, we planned it. My girlfriend Diane and I actually talked, very matter of factually I might add, about going. Oh man, we were excited. We were gonna perhaps hitchhike or maybe one of our relatives could take us, you know, because they took us everywhere anyways, so why not? We just assumed we were gonna go and that was it. We talked about the people who were to perform and their music and the more we talked about it the more excited we got. Remember, I was 14 and Diane was 15 already...we were practically grown up. I don't know what the heck we were thinking. Did we seriously think that was gonna happen? In 1969 not only were there "hippies", but the "hippie" culture found it's way into the main stream of USA, especially young teens, like us. So, it's no wonder we assimilated into that way of life or at least tried. The clothes we wore, the words we said, how we carried ourselves and most importantly the music. I remember being in the back of a truck going down the highway (that's when you could do that, now it's against the law) with Diane and her family on the way to Ensenada Mexico and a group of Hell's Angles were coming up behind us. Needless to say, us two girls in the back were ecstatic to see such a sight...there must of been 25 or 30 of them coming up all around us with all those wonderful shiny motorcycles totally chopped. What did we do? We thrust our right hands out of the back of the truck, held them high in the air and flashed them the peace sign and most of them flashed it back. That gesture was a direct influence from that era and that event will stay with me for the rest of my life.

We never did get to Woodstock, I guess reality hit us and we decided paper dresses and window pane stockings were as far as we would go in terms of living on the edge, but you can say a lot about the 60's, good and bad, but when I threw them guys the peace sign, I meant it and I still do. Peace Out ~