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Loading...Sex, Drugs and Free Love
- Janet Garey
- November 16, 2009
- 4:06 pm
- 153 comments
SEX! DRUGS! ROCK N ROLL!
Are you paying attention?
TUNE IN! TURN ON! DROP OUT!
Did these words catch your attention? How about…
MAKE LOVE, NOT WAR!
Welcome to the Love Generation, a time when we burned our bras and draft cards and were tear-gassed, shot and beaten, while demonstrating against a war that killed so many of our brothers and sisters. Innocent, gentle, idealistic romantics, we collectively believed in Flower Power, gathering with our guitar-strumming companions to sing folk songs and hand out daisies to bemused old people, which included anyone over the age of 30. We’d pass around a bottle of Annie Green Springs wine, share some weed, love each other A LOT, whine about “the Man,” and make big plans about how we would fix the world. Everything was far out and we were feelin’ groovy.
As a culture, we had extremes and evolutions. Some of us so feared the “military action” in Vietnam that we ran to Canada and other foreign shores to evade being drafted. Self-proclaimed peace-seeking pacifists turned malignantly militant and wreaked havoc on an already insecure and restless America. Soldiers returning from combat were met with general apathy or scorn, as if they were to blame for the country’s problems. Marijuana opened doors to mood-altering, narcotic and hallucinogenic drugs. Free love became increasingly freer, aided and abetted by the advent of THE PILL. Despite that medical marvel, the number of unplanned pregnancies, illegal abortions and sexually transmitted diseases exponentially rose.
On a lighter side, fashion trends kept up with the times – tattered bell-bottomed jeans, dashikis, granny dresses, peasant blouses, mini-skirts, midi-skirts, tube tops and butt-baring shorts – we wore them all. Our hair – from head to toes – went through stages of total absence to entirely au’ natural; every length and consistency from chemically-produced Afros to ankle-length locks painfully home-ironed into arrow straightness. Some of us bathed regularly, used cosmetics and paid attention to our personal hygiene; others, not so much.
As we aged chronologically, the world grew along with us. Events, both wonderful and heinous, occurred which impacted the entire global community. Social revolutions and evolutions took place that shaped and reshaped humanity and the known universe. Political regimes came and went. Wars were fought, battles won and lost; horrific diseases were obliterated until new, monstrously horrendous ones took their place. Countless animal and plant lives became extinct before mankind took heed of its inhumanity and launched an effort to cease and desist the decimation of Planet Earth.
Wait a minute…weren’t we taking about the 1960s?
Read more: Blogs, Dower Power, Family, Health, Peace, Spirit, 1960’s, anti-war, flower power, hippies, love generation, Vietnam
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may
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people are talking
Good points, thanks.
No, can't say that I do, sorry, but I think it's rather silly. Rather donate the money to a shelter.
I think it looks cheap.
Interesting idea. Thank you!
Nice
153 comments
+ add your ownmany many thanks to all who still read janet's stories and keep them alive [janet passed 3 years ago this month]
blessings to all
Thanks Janet. This article takes me back to early teens. I was going to a Jethro Tull concert one night and my sister called me a "Hippie." I thought it was because I had on hip hugger jeans (LOL)!!
Thanks, the beliefs can live on in these changed times(:
once a (true) Hippy, always a Hippy....in fundamental morals anyway....this was a time that marked us so much!
Thanks Janet!~
Thanks for the article.
the guys that went so loved their country that they gave their lives for it, they deserve more, they died or are living with pain we can never know.
I never thought this nation would go so far to the right and into the pocket of corporations as it has. I remember feeling so hopeful in the sixties. It seems so long ago, lost.
i caught the tail end of Nam, people still frequently ask me how bad it was over there. it sucked bad. i was just a scared kid watching my comrads die feet away from me. im still a believer in the flower power movment, my home is all organic and solar powered, i guess i was 1 of the lucky 1,s. i came home without a body bag, and did find my soulmate before i went. we have been married for over 40yrs. life is still good and so is freelove.LoL
Although I was born a little more than a month before Jimi Hendrix died in 1970, I was allowed to watch the news on a daily basis and discuss what was going on in the world with my parents. I remember watching the news and seeing the end of the Viet Nam war. More over, I remember having a teacher who was a hippie around 1980. She made certain that each of her students understood the impact that the Viet Nam war had on the world. Some of what we had to view was horrific, but I'm certain it was nothing compared to what the soldiers had to face on a daily basis. My teacher had us students do a lot of free thinking and gave each of us a better appreciation of our world.
The other thing I learned about during that time was my aunt by marriage was Vietnamese. Sadly, she's a product of the war and has had some times that have left her mentally scarred for life. Her eldest daughter was also a product of the time but has since ceased to live on due to her own doing.
It saddens me to think that anyone had to go through the horrors of war only to come back home to being ridiculed for what they were left without choice to do.
The 60's may have been an era of innocence that eventually was lost. However, even though I may have been too young at the time in the 70's to understand fully what was going on, the 60's has it's ups and it's downs just like any other era in time.
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