two other thoughts

I don't believe openess to alternative lifestyles became more tolerated in the sixties, some very brave people might have become more open about alternative lifestyles in the 50's and 60's but to say there was more toleration, well?

and

I do remember fear, I remember the fear in my brothers eyes when he graduated from high school and contemplated the possibility of an all expense paid trip to Southeast Asia (a far cry from playing the bass in the Voids hoping chicks would come by). He did survive and he introduced the Bong to my Hometown. Remember the original Bong made of Bamboo. They would crack from expansion during use so you had to melt candles on them regularly to keep them operating. A foot long chunk of bamboo with multi colored candle wax dripped down the sides, far out! Spark that baby up 12 to 15 times and head down to seee the Grateful Dead, again hoping to find a chick, a hippy chick now (love those hippy chicks! they do the wild free form dance)

Remember Baba Ram Das The Only Dance There Is, or, Bucky Fuller Operating Manual For the Spaceship Earth, or the Whole Earth Catalog

It was fun to be a hippie and be cosmically aligned!
Bing Bong Billy Wong
Do what you like

I have a 45 of the Oh Mommie record & it is a real hoot. I bought it yrs ago cuz I liked One Toke Over The Line. Lol...

Lots of stuff to say, but so little time. Guess I'll try it in small increments. Jerry Garcia (on a Public TV thingy on the '60s) described the '60s like seeing a door open just a crack with a beautiful light shining through. He said you wanted to open that door to see what was on the other side. But just when your hand was about to grab the door knob to open it, "Wham!" The door slammed shut......"Sorry! That's all ya get!"

Things are still screwed up. Some things got better, some worse. The lyrics to "Eve of Destruction" only need a word or two changed to still be relevant (maybe, "You're old enough to kill...but not for...." drinkin'?). The eastern world is still explodin'. "Hate your next door neighbor but don't forget to say grace!"

Remember "The Doomsday Clock"? That imaginary clock that was one minute to midnight back in the '60s? One minute away from nuclear Armageddon? I think it may be even closer now with Iran & North Korea added to the mix.

I remember either hearing or seeing Arlo being interviewed about 15 or 20 years ago. The interviewer asked him if he thought things were getting better than they were in the '60s & early '70s or worse. Arlo said he thought that they were getting better. Well, ADG, though I may have agreed with you to an extent back then, it ain't hard to see we've started down the slippery slope again.

Back in the '60s we had a lot of heroes to look up to. MLK Jr., Rosa Parks, the Berrigan brothers (I bet The Church wishes more priests were like them these days!), the Chicago Seven, most all of the folk and rock performers of the day, just to name a very few. Today we have few that are obvious. Cindy Sheehan and...umm..ahhh...well, there's more but they're way in the background these days or ignored by the media. Nobody burning draft records (or whatever they have to burn these days), pouring blood on nuclear subs, no big rallies, sit-ins, protests. These are the times of mass ADD and "I don't care if it don't affect me, me, me."

Gotta go. To be continued.......

Capt'n Zap

psb, you mean you had a pair of jeans with mr natural patch(es) on them? so did i! (eventually)

and like i was trying to point out back there, i wasn't in a constant state of fear, or anxiety, or of being disturbed...after all, who could resist the allure of a dandelion gone to seed or the distractions of being mooned by somebody?

anyway, it just seemed like a lot a crazy things were happening all at once...and i didn't know what to make of it. it was disturbing!

then there were the street fights (knives, broken bottles, anything) in kingston, ja (apparently in a state of unrest) back in the early 70s i managed to bump into while staying with a jamaican friend of mine and her family.
that produced a different kind of anxiety..."what am i supposed to do now?" thankfully there was a whisper in my ear, "just keep going." "okay." it's not like i blended in very well either...

nice to hear from you captain zap! where you been?

I don't think that everybody was in a state of fear or anxiety, but when it came to the prime movers of the generation, I believe they feared. They just overcame it. Does anybody think that Rosa Parks did not suffer some moment of fear? How about those children in '57 during the desegration of Arkasas schools? Or how about having your number come up? Just to name a couple.


Back to an earlier comment regarding if people were more tolerant. I believe they were compared to the previous decade. When you are doing something, anything and you can look to your right or left and have a brother or partner on both sides, then you know you are not alone.
Change is slow, but tolerance is the first step.

ya zap, where you been?

Ummm.....here and there!

oh, good answer

I been around, round round round round

he has been out lookin for hippie chicks

say no more...please!

i was kidding!

Tom

There were moments of fear as I said, there is always fear and uncertainty. i don't think it overwhelmed though. There is something that happens to a person when they think they are right (in the cosmic sense) and fear doesn't enter the picture. In fact, they are shocked and surprised when violence results. It is a funny psychology i suppose but i have felt it a few times, fear is there but it is hidden away, i guess it is unexplanable but fear happens when you think about it. My confrontations were race riots, people died, rocks and insults were hurled, the funny thing is the only time I got the shit kicked out of me it was by blacks when i turned the corner at the wrong time. I was a f'in hippie for cryin out loud who had probably been to see sonny and brownie the night before at a Woody Guthrie festival, who can figure??????????? That just goes to show how stupid violence can be!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and when you say prime movers

THEY WERE JUST PEOPLE IN A STRANGE AND BIZARRE SITUATION THAT DID WHAT NEEDED TO BE DONE. There were and are many who do things every day that that are just as potent and long lasting as the "movers" The only unique thing (and this is not to take nothin away from anybody at any time who did what had to be done) is that they were the focus of an event. There were thousands of Rosa Parks, she could not do it alone and there was not a camera there every time it happened and in fact, when there was a camera there, it was probably safer.... THAT IS LIFE!

I wonder who they are
the men who really run this land
I wonder why the run it
with such a thoughtless hand
what are their names
and on what street do they live
i would like to ride right over
this afternoon and give
them a piece of my mind
about peace for mankind
Peace is not an aweful lot
to ask

David Crosby circa 1971

as i have thought about it i think maybe your answer between then and now is it was obvious what needed to be done to affect some change then, it might have taken some guts to do it (or as I would argue after awhile people just did it without thinking and in the Ghandian conception, for the most part, people realized how stupid it was to counter most of these actions with violence or whatever). Now, what do you do? How do you make Israel and Bin laden and North Korea or Pat Robertson or GW change their minds about whatever it is they think the world should? I can't sit in front of a bus or burn a draft card or get busted for civil disobediance and do the Hokey Pokey to change the rising temperature of the ocean or the death of the coral or the burning of the rain forest or the stupidity in the Congo or the Aids virus in Africa or multi-drug resistant tuberculosis in Russia or the next building, train or check point that is going to blow up and kill innocent people in the name of some religious or political jihad cause.

I can sit around and dream and sing my silly songs abouts dreams and swords and guns and uniforms scattered all around though and work to the best of my ability to change the health issue of the world or change the forms of energy we use (I made my decision to do these things as a microbiologist about 30 years ago and I have contributions in both areas, it may be a little but i do what i can and I can point and say how stupid it all is as Israel invades lebanon again and the Muslims rocket Israel again (I had a brother off the cost of Beirut in a Navy Vessel in 1975, remember that little conflict?)

pay no attention to the man behind the curtain

so did you rock the house zap?

Well, this is a study for me and I can only relay what I have learned.

Being a study, I concentraiting on the most well known people of the Sixties. This maybe unfortunate, but that is what history records.

I guess my closing thought for the day is; fear is not a bad thing, unless you choose to do nothing about it.