The Hippie Couple~~

David and I have been called "hippies" before by our kids friends....only since we "dropped out" and moved down here though. I always just laughed it off because her generation doesn't really understand what that term really meant in the 1960's. There are some similarities I suppose....we have gone "back to nature" in a lot of ways and we do some unusual things...like shower outside in the warm months where we can see the stars or the sunrise or the sunset instead of tile and wall board. Maybe its my Greek husband's hair....almost waist length when wet, its wild and curly and Au natuaral..reminiscent of the male hair of the hippie movement.....and in the ever increasing likelihood that I didn't spend an hour with the dryer and the straightener, mine is just as wild looking... I don't really know...and I really didn't spend much time thinking about it until recently....

A few weeks ago, we dropped into the local music shop for a lesson book or fiddle string or trumpet valve oil or something...we hadn't been in there for several months....anyway, we were greeted by a huge grin and an exuberant..."well, its the hippie couple".

As we got back in the car, I looked at David and he looked at me and we both said "the hippie couple?"......and then I heard it again a few weeks after that! So, we're the "hippie couple" round here.

I think it may have to do with the fact that we're considered city folk to the locals....baby boomers (just barely mind you~~) that have left the hectic life of the big bad corporate world to "get back to nature" growing veggies and living in "Rex's old house". Add it to the wild hair this family has (Nikki's co workers at Chilli's call us "the Hair Family") in a town where cowboy hats cover a short back and sides...and maybe the flip flops we favor where they wear cowboy boots.....I guess to the outsider, we are hippie like.....

There's a few misconceptions in there...we didn't leave the corporate world and a large house somewhere....David still has the same job he did when we came down here (with a nicer drive to it) and we didn't leave a huge house and mortgage somewhere in a big city...we left a smallish house in a crowded subdivision......communal living ( a staple of the hippie movement) would never be for us.... we're conservatives politically and God didn't die and Jesus didn't marry Mary Magdalene......and we don't hate the establishment...we don't always approve of it regardless of the party in power, but we don't "hate" it.....

Still, there were many good things about the hippies of the '60's.....they appreciated the idea of providing for yourself and sharing the overflow; they promoted "love thy neighbor" (although perhaps a little too much:); they believed in living with just what you need and were not into excess in personal possessions.....sometimes I think their ideals and motives were a bit distorted by the drug culture they surrounded themselves in ...but all in all, I find I don't really mind being considered a hippie couple......










#3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength. Thursday, January 10, 1963 [From "The Naked Communist," by Cleon Skousen] Congressional Record, Vol. 10988th Congress, 1st SessionAppendix Pages A1-A2842Jan. 9-May 7, 1963 (from the book)“The Naked Communist” by: W. Cleon SkousenSalt Lake City, Utah: Ensign Publishing Co.C. 1961 , 9th edition July 1961.