What do you think of hippies? Were you one, Eldergays? We're your parents hippies, li'l gayling?

My parents were way too young to have been hippies as they were born in the late 60’s.

But I did have friends who’s parents were hippies. They were (white) Buddhists because their parents converted in the 80’s when it was a fad.

I imagine hippies were seen as obnoxious to the common person back then just as I have found emo people and non-binaries / lgtbtrs people obnoxious in my generation.

Weren’t hippies basically like the Manson family without the murders? Grimy people who grifted constantly. I’m sure there were lots of poseurs too.

In 1969 I was in the 3rd grade and saw for the first time on my life a phenomenon in the form of a male hippy shopping at a department store called Trademart. I was fascinated by this long haired of a human beast doing the samething normal everyday people did. I had heard about hippies but had NO IDEA that hippies went shopping too! The next day at school I announced over and over, "I saw a Hippy at Trademart!" Russell, the class clown, kept repeating that back to me in a form of mockery. Russell let me know for days on end how obsurd I sounded by my hippy sighting. Russell was well on his way to eventually becoming a great DL'er!

Did people Find hippies sexy?

My sister was a hippie. I was a bit to young to be one but always wanted to be. I did wear love beads.

My mother was a third-generation trustafarian bohemian/hippie/whatever who financed her and my father's worldwide #vanlife adventures. He got sick of it and thought it was time to settle down. She told him that he could stay or go, but if he stayed, he needed to understand that she was the one with the money and power in the relationship, and that she wasn't going to change her lifestyle for any man. He crawled back home to Boston and started carving ornate canes.

She, conveniently, also ended up in Boston for law school and they began round two of their relationship. When I was conceived, she insisted that she was going to give birth at the White Spring in Glastonbury. My dad's family (his father was a pediatrician) begged her to have me in a hospital. She told all of them to fuck off and hopped on a plane.

My father met and married a young Mormon widow with kids, moved to Utah, and converted. My mom came back, finished law school, and started a defense practice out of our house. That was in addition to the yoga teachers, macrobiotic chefs, Reiki practitioners, stained-glass artists, etc. she would allow to set up shop on a whim. She then married another defense attorney who moved [italic]his[/italic] practice into the house, so now we had double the murderers and rapists coming and going.

And that's how moving to Utah and joining a cult seemed like a great idea to me. That, and the bribe of a very fast go-cart.

They were unconventional, to say the least. But they had their own rules and conventions, like being far out man, not being a square, being cool with free love and drugs. Sounds just as oppressive really.

I’m free and spiritual but I also shower.

I was nearing 40 back in the 60s, and I was a little old for the “long hairs” (as my sister would say, also in her late 30s then). I was a little past that time. I didn’t have much opinion on them. My sister and I were just talking about the Kent State and Jackson State massacres.

I thought Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings were hippies.

And that's the sum of "what I thought of hippies".

My parents were about 10 years too old to be hippies. They were very straight-laced and I only knew "hippieness" from TV shows. There was a little town nearby (next to Montecito!) called Summerland and it was an all-hippie community back then (early 70s). The houses all had giant flowers painted on them. It was also home to the area's only nude beach. I'm sure it's all well out of a hippie's price-range these days.

[quote] I was nearing 40 back in the 60s,

Wow. How old are you r10?

How important were hippies in the formation of the counterculture and youth generation of the 60s?

I'm a hippy and we created this flag—

Well, thank you Mr. Hippy for your service to our cause! Always found the flag rather obvious but I'm glad we have it.

My parents were squares. I was born in 1966 and I remember being terrified of hippies.

Remember the little books of lick-on tattoos you could get at carnivals and gumball machines at the supermarket? We were never allowed to get them because my mother was afraid a hippie would try to give us LSD and we’d take it thinking it was a fake tattoo.

When I was 4 or 5, I had a nightmare that I remember vividly. A long haired, shirtless, shoeless, strung out hippie stuffed me into the oven of my sister’s play kitchen set and said he was going to make goulash out of me. I woke up screaming.

Like r6, (much) older sister. Remember being taken to visit her at college where she stayed in a ‘group’ house in town. Lots of long-haired smiling people, with lean physiques, wearing hipster jeans and bulky afghan coats. The air was heavy with what I learned was burning incense. Posters and brightly coloured fabric hangings decorated the walls Everyone sat on rugs on the floor, in a circle, grinning widely as they shared plates of food. It felt welcoming and inclusive. Didn’t want to go home.

Gracious, R17, a long-remembered dream!

I have memories of a similar vintage-- but they're memories of nightmarish occurrences from my waking hours.

I discovered macramé!

Love 'em!

R19 if that dream didn’t become family lore I am sure today I would think it really happened because it’s such a vivid memory. For years my older brothers and sisters would say the word goulash to scare or upset me but now it’s a family joke and if we see a modern day hippie while we’re together one of us will inevitably say “Goulash!”

Speaking of hippies, Mansonites, and the horror of it all, Watch The Fields, a 2011 movie with Cloris Leachman as the grandmother. A wonderful movie semi autobiographical, taking place in rural Pennsylvania Don’t remember if I saw it on Amazon or Netflix

[quote] if that dream didn’t become family lore I am sure today I would think it really happened

I believe that human memory is quite fragile. Even though I do hold on to 'nightmarish memories' I give more credence to written documents.

Some of the old original hippies are still going strong where they all started -- CA.