The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #90187 Message #1707673
Posted By: Don Firth
31-Mar-06 - 01:34 PM
Thread Name: BS: Mudcat's Old Hippies
Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat's Old Hippies
Listen to the pictures flow
Across the room into your mind they go.
Listen to the strings.
They jangle and dangle
While the old guitar rings.
That's a really beautiful piece of writing. Great images. Thanks, Gordon, for writing it in the first place, and thanks, Peace for posting the words. And thanks to the Minstrel of the Dawn for reminding us of it.
Well do I remember in the mid-Sixties, all those high school kids hanging around the coffeehouses trying to be cool and trying their damnedest to be hippies. Although most of the kids were nice enough, some of them were real pains in the ass. They were often disappointed because we weren't all sitting around smoking dope (that they could try to buy or bum). They were so incredibly clueless!
I never was a hippie, even though some of the kids thought I was because I played the guitar and sang folk songs. Being immature, they were given to thinking in stereotypes. I note that there are still a few of those kids (at least one of the pain-in-the-ass variety) still around these days. They're older now, but in all that time, they haven't grown up very much.
I was that awkward age. I was too young to be a Beatnik and too old to be a hippie. I never smoked dope, shot up, snorted coke, or dropped acid. I did drink unhealthy amounts of coffee. Also an occasional schooner of beer. I enjoyed a little good wine with dinner from time to time, and still do; and although I smoked like a chimney (tobacco), I quit twenty-eight years ago. I was all in favor of civil rights and took a dim view of the Vietnam War, but other than that, I was fairly conservative back then. I've seen a lot more of the world and I've matured a lot since those days.
Don Firth