Tag: Hippies

On an Old Hippie

The fact that the word “hippie” is in the title of this story instantly marks me as being old. No one uses that word anymore, and anyone who knows it was from the period 50+ years ago when it was part of the cultural and social landscape. The word came from the idea of someone who was “hip” or “hep,” as in someone who was “in the know” and “wise” as opposed to someone who had no idea about what was cool or popular or “in.” In the 1960s and ’70s, a hippie was someone who was on the side of the anti-war, pro-drug legalization, anti-establishment youth movement. The opposite of a hippie would be a “square,” someone who supported the traditional values and power structure in the western world. You could tell which side someone was on based on how they dressed, what hairstyle they wore, and the language they used as well as how they voted and what issues they supported. And, while the overwhelming majority of hippies were young, this story is about one such hippie who was older.

In many ways, this old hippie was against type for many reasons besides his age. He was from the American south, from a traditional background, and had, as a younger man, indeed supported the establishment. But, as he aged, his politics changed. There’s an old saying that someone is more liberal in politics as a youth and more conservative as they age. So, this older man went against this trope. He had seen the effects of the American policy of the Vietnam War, for example, and he became horrified by how morally wrong it was. He became an anti-war supporter. Also, he began to wear his hair longer, much longer than what traditional society would say was acceptable for a man in his 60s. Remember, during that time, men who supported the establishment would not consider having long hair. Yet, this man wore his almost shoulder length. He would decry traditionalist men as “short hairs” because they cut their hair so short like the establishment was used to.

And the music he liked went against type as well. His favorite group was Simon and Garfunkel, and the song by this duo that was his favorite was Bridge over Troubled Water. He would listen to that record over and over for hours at a time. At that time Simon and Garfunkel’s reputation was more anti-establishment and anti-war, and this man embraced those sentiments as well. Finally, his dress also mirrored that of the younger, hippie group. He wore pants that slightly flared at the bottoms, a style known at the time as “bell bottoms.” Instead of wearing a tie and dress shirt as he did when he was in his working years, he wore a loose-fitting shirt and kept it unbuttoned low on his chest. At times, he would run around his property dressed only in shorts with no shoes or shirt, his long hair flowing behind him.

That property was a farm he’d purchased a few years before. In his retirement, he worked to make it more self-sufficient, less dependent on things like chemicals and pesticides. That emphasis on environmentalism was also a mark of the hippie, and this old man saw the wisdom of embracing those concepts in an effort to get closer to the land. Ideas like this meant more to him as he grew older, because his health wasn’t good. He had a bad heart, you see, and he knew that he didn’t have much time to live. The men in his family died young, he said, and he had wasted so much time going for money and position and power instead of working to seek happiness in himself rather in the things he owned or the position he held. That, too, was a mark of a hippie–the rejection of what the establishment considered to be the important things in life. Friends from his old life would stop by to say hello, and they often left complaining about that old hippie who wasn’t the man they knew years before. “I wanted to talk business,” one old acquaintance said after leaving the farm, “and all he was interested in was how many eggs his hens were laying.”

He died of a massive heart attack at age 64, at his farm. He said that he wanted to live to see the Vietnam War end. And that’s what happened. He received a call a few days before his death telling him that the war was over. On the other end of the call, the voice of Richard Nixon said, “We’ve negotiated a peace with North Vietnam. The war’s over. I wanted you to know.”

Lyndon Johnson, the old hippie, could rest, now.

On A Farming Commune

The hippies of the 1960s and early ’70s were wildly idealistic youth by and large. However, the emphasis on “getting back to the land” by some of them–a rejection of an urban or suburban, consumerist society–is laudable to me. Almost 60 years later, there are still some vestiges of that movement in the form of communes in various parts of the United States and Britain (The Farm in Summertown, Tennessee, comes to mind). The idea of people sharing common ground and working for the betterment of the group isn’t new, of course. In fact, another group tried remarkably similar experiments in communal living back in the ’40s.

That group was in England. It was during the war, and prices for food were high; harvests and weather had also been poor. So, a group in Surrey decided to band together to, in their words, provide food and sustenance to any and all who wanted to help them. They found some empty land on a hillside, and they cleared it and began planting on what they said was common cropland. They collectively built storage sheds and even some houses in which they could stay while they worked. The spirit among those who worked was one of great comraderie and cooperation. Their numbers grew quickly. People were excited to have land on which to grow fresh, well, whatever they could get their hands on. The members of the group reported no infighting, no jealousies, and no rancor. Everyone was happy and willing to share.

Well, as you can imagine, some people outside of the commune, specifically people who owned some of the land this growing group was “borrowing,” began to complain. And it’s not that the landowners wanted to use the land. It was going mostly unused. But it seems that the major objection to the group was that they had decided to collaborate. And any time the people in power feel even an iota of a fraction of a micron of loss of power–real or imagined–they usually react negatively. That seems to be what happened here. And part of it was that people in power often want to be the source of things like food and sustenance for people who are needy; they don’t want the people to help themselves. So, the people who owned the land and had money and power began a systematic reprisal against the members of the group–at least the ones they could identify. Some of the group were attacked and beaten. One case of arson was reported in one of the communal storage sheds.

Finally, one of the landowners took the group to court claiming that their free gardening commune was a encroachment on private land and amounted to theft. At the trial, the group was not allowed to mount a defense. They were found guilty in what amounted to a kangaroo court and ordered to destroy their buildings and remove all trace of their communal garden. If they failed to comply, the court said that the landowners could use the army–the army–to forcibly remove the group. Luckily but also sadly, the the commune peacefully abandoned the land. They indeed removed the building they’d erected, and they pulled up all their crops.

But today, the members of the commune–which came to be known as The Diggers–are considered to be the forebears of the modern agrarian socialism movement that influenced generations to come. Indeed, the hippies of the 1960s certainly found inspiration in that group of intrepid communal farmers.

After all, who could have guessed that a group from the 1640s would cast such a large shadow?