Where Have All of the Flower Children Gone?

"If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair... you're going to meet some gentle people there." - Scott McKenzie.

For those of us old enough to remember the sixties, it was the Woodstock Generation. It was a time of "make love, not war" and "tune in, turn on, drop out" at least it was told by Timothy Leary. It was a time of acid, the Vietnam War, Tie-dyed T-Shirts, and bell bottom jeans. It was also the era of some of the greatest rock songs ever and the great unwashed Hippies.

There were iconic heroes of the period like Timothy Leary, Wavy Gravy and the Hog Farm, Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, and the immortal Hunter S. Thompson. The nation was divided back then as it is now. We were right in the middle of the Vietnam War, a war that eventually claimed my brother's life. Young people burned their draft cards and shouted "h*** no, we won't go."

It was also the age of Nixon, Watergate, civil rights, and social turmoil. The National Guard came out and shot three students at Kent State. Soldiers came home from the war, wounded both mentally and physically, and for the first time in history, were treated as outcasts instead of heroes.

But change was blowing in the wind and the students, many of them Hippies, actually made society change and probably put an end to the war. For a brief period of time we got a slight glimpse of that brighter tomorrow of peace and love that lay over the hill before it all came tumbling down again in the late seventies and eighties.

I remember the first "Hippie" in our neighborhood. He kind of sneaked in under the radar. His name was Ronnie Fernandez and he had long hair and bell bottom jeans instead of the greaser look, aka "the Fonz" that all the rest of us had.

Ronnie had a set of Ludwig drums in his basement, the same kind that belonged to Ringo of the Beatles. He played them late into the night sometimes, driving his parents out onto the front porch and attracting the younger kids in the neighborhood such as me like flies to honey.

One time, me and a few of my pals were somehow invited into the basement sanctuary of Ronnie Fernandez. He had a few of his hippie friends there as well. There was an odd smell in the air that I had never encountered before. The smell of some kind of plant material. One of his friends came over to me and started painting some kind of psychedelic image on my arm.

So Ronnie was the first in my old-fashioned, conservative neighborhood to become a hippie. More soon followed.

According to the Healthy Planet Magazine:

"... I pondered as we drove, "Where have all the flower children gone?" Are they still feeling the vibes and following their innate spirit, intermingled in the mix of baby boomers, are they hiding out?"

Actually flower children are still with us, even though some of them may be hiding. They are seen wherever you have "artists, creativity, meditation, yoga, and healing." You see them dressed up in corporate uniforms, trading on Wall Street, and in the Pagan communities. You see them running the food co-ops and helping the environment. Yes, they are still with us and we are the better for it. The New Age is old again.

Source: http://www.thehealthyplanet.com/june2011_where.htm