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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Pretty Little Hippie Chicks Are Grandmas Now.
The Pretty Little Hippie Chicks Are Grandmas Now
I work side by side with three beautiful hippie chicks. I know DU explodes when the term chick is used and for this essay I am willing to stand up for the word. But I will also appease the anti-chick crowd by also calling them, simply, beatuful women. And for those who will be mad at me for objectifying women Ill also call them just simply beautiful people. But they were hippie chicks, fair and square.
These three ladies all came of age in the late 60s and their retirement is quickly approaching. It was the topic of conversation at breakfast the other day. And I find myself in mourning. I just love working with these ladies. They are strong, and committed and are always thinking of the next step, the next project, the next thing I should be getting ready for. Good Lord!at times it is like having three extra moms who are ready to chew you out or cheer you on-depending on the day and the situation. Sometimes they do both at the same time.
They entertain me with tales of their youth. Most often fashion related. One just described her favorite outfit her senior year. White go go boots and a wiglet were part of it. I gasped, "You were a hippie chick?!" "Oh Yes! I WAS a hippie chick!" Then they were all giggling and talking about their favorite outfits, their senior pictures, and suddenly there they were
the three grandmas were three 20 year olds talking about gogo boots, and ponchos and fringe, lime green coats, straight ironed hair, bare feet and wiglets! They were just lit up from the inside talking about that brief time of their life when they were young and carefree and barefoot and, seriously, I could suddenly see them as they were then. Young, with flowers in their hair. Knitting ponchos and being ever so groovy. They were beautiful hippy chicks.
And it was all just kind of shocking when that picture went away and I was looking at three grandmas who are about to retire. And I find myself feeling very sorry for myself this evening that soon enough they will not be part of my day. I miss my hippie chicks already.
CaliforniaPeggy
(149,580 posts)I'll just bet these three ladies will miss you too...
There is almost nothing like being appreciated!
Their retirement is approaching....so love them while you still have them...as you so very clearly do.
DonRedwood
(4,359 posts)Of course I treat them well!! But, no matter how many acts of kindness I throw their way, the three of them are always doing the same thing to me. It makes going to work a heck of a lot of fun!
Two of the guys in my room will be retiring as well. It is kind of scary to be facing the idea of a mostly new staff unknown to me in a few years. At least I have these seasoned pros training me. It is like being an intern with five of the most experienced people in the business over me!
Xipe Totec
(43,889 posts)CaliforniaPeggy
(149,580 posts)Warpy
(111,237 posts)"Hippy" means fat in the ass. You know, what most of us are now.
I never did the gogo boots thing. I was a beatnik until some joker in the press renamed us "hippies."
The stories I have that will curl your hair are of demonstrations, riots, politicking, and yes, drugs.
DonRedwood
(4,359 posts)!!!!! oops !!!!!
DonRedwood
(4,359 posts)they are the first to admit those were wild times
calimary
(81,194 posts)My friend Julie got sent home from cotillion one afternoon because she wore her white go-go boots and that was Just Not Done!
Go-go boots and empire-waist dresses and flowers in your hair and maybe a flower painted on your cheek. All girls' hair was long and parted down the middle. Guys' hair was mostly just long. Everybody wore beads and fringe. A very cool time. I fell in love with shawls then and still love them to this day.
Ahhh... those were the days. I got in on the very very tail-end of it. Just barely. Our kids often bragged to their friends - "yeah, my parents were hippies."
Warpy
(111,237 posts)and called it "that upper class marital slave auction." Then the family lost most of their money in the Depression.
When I came along, I was a country club kid but my mother knew better than to try to push me toward the cotillion circuit. I was as much of a rebel as she had been and for many of the same reasons.
RILib
(862 posts)Warpy
(111,237 posts)Last edited Sat Feb 23, 2013, 10:43 PM - Edit history (1)
but I'd gotten annoyed with all the self important jackasses strutting around and had left.
One of my roommates had the hell beaten out of him in one of those, made the front page of the paper. He turned out to be the most decorated Vietnam vet until that point. We knew he was a vet, he was missing appendages, and he'd talked to me about a lot of it, but he'd never mentioned all his medals. He hadn't even been anywhere near the demo.
He embarrassed the hell out of the worst of Cambridge's finest.
calimary
(81,194 posts)Glad you're here!
Sometimes I feel as though this whole site is an exultation of aging hippies! Or however you pluralize it.
Warpy
(111,237 posts)and found each other again. It's a gift to those of us with health issues who have felt increasingly isolated by health and by the country's seeming march into totalitarian bullshit.
It's just great to be around so many younger voices chiming in against the bullshit.
DonRedwood
(4,359 posts)And welcome to DU!
RILib
(862 posts)Protest is one thing, destroying people's property is another. Not decent behavior.
southernyankeebelle
(11,304 posts)and smell the roses. Time marches by so fast especially as you get older. Enjoy your youth. Nothing is so great that you can't solve and move on.
Granny M
(1,395 posts)I was looking through old pictures from 60's and 70's recently. Back then I sure didn't realise what a pretty little hippie chick I was. Now I'm going to make a special effort to love the hippie granny who's looking back at me in the mirror. Grateful for pretty good health and a lot of blessings.
southernyankeebelle
(11,304 posts)the ground is a good day". He was right. Every morning I thank god that am living another day.
DonRedwood
(4,359 posts)We need you here and are glad to have you! :0)
Granny M
(1,395 posts)I'm very happy to be here with all of you.
CrispyQ
(36,446 posts)Remember that old saying, "Youth is wasted on the young?" Did you ever see Six Feet Under? The dead father is a character & in one episode he stated, "Life is wasted on the living."
southernyankeebelle
(11,304 posts)Of course when it also comes to republicans they are like pigs. Did you know a Pig can't smell it's own hole.
DonRedwood
(4,359 posts)and so true!
TuxedoKat
(3,818 posts)It would probably really make their day if you gave them a copy of this message.
madokie
(51,076 posts)who was a hippie chick back then
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)DonRedwood
(4,359 posts)lucky fella
TexasProgresive
(12,157 posts)xtraxritical
(3,576 posts)I was in Chicago in 1968 during the "days of rage", the Chicago 7 and everything else. The LSD was the real thing and everything was groovy, can your dig it? Far out. Everything seems so lame these days. Cities were burning then. Occupy? Whoopdedo.
Contrary1
(12,629 posts)I was just telling someone a few days ago about how I was approached by the owner of a "go go bar" back in 1970. He wanted to hire me as a dancer in one of those elevated cages. I was all of 19. Hot pants, mini skirts, love beads...
When I informed him that I had a rather ugly chest scar from recent lung surgery, he replied that sequins would take care of that.
It would take a hell of a lot more sequins "to take care of that" these days.
DonRedwood
(4,359 posts)Contrary1
(12,629 posts)I did take it as a compliment though. I don't think it even mattered whether or not I could dance...which I couldn't.
calimary
(81,194 posts)Gman
(24,780 posts)and if someone wasn't there to understand the term "chick" or especially "hippie chick", they missed something.
The Wielding Truth
(11,415 posts)Gman
(24,780 posts)Some of the very best times of my life.
calimary
(81,194 posts)The Wielding Truth
(11,415 posts)feeling.
limpyhobbler
(8,244 posts)this is cool
Blue_In_AK
(46,436 posts)Thank you from another hippie chick grandma.
derby378
(30,252 posts)...and I'm sure she would have showed you a little for that lovely post.
DonRedwood
(4,359 posts):0)
gateley
(62,683 posts)DonRedwood
(4,359 posts)OKNancy
(41,832 posts)in a totally fringed-out dress with a local band. LOL
I'll never forget the dress I had with rings that kept the top and the bottom of the dress together ( on the midriff)...oh and it was the first time I didn't wear a bra.
dhol82
(9,352 posts)when i think of those days i always remember the pencil test.
was thrilled that i didn't have to wear a freaking bra until my mid 30's. now they hang down like the playboy granny.
Divernan
(15,480 posts)What fun recalling my great wardrobe from the 60's! Any my size 8 figure! Those were the days, my friends. Miniskirts, minidresses, hip hugger slacks, fringed vests, and for more formal occasions, Jackie Kennedy style suits and pillbox hats.
If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair . . . .The Mamas and the Papas.
Oh yeah, and we went everywhere in our red and white VW van.
DonRedwood
(4,359 posts)If you can keep it under certain body parts, it's time to wear a bra.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)Now, when are we going diving?
a kennedy
(29,644 posts)Sorry, don't mean to ruin this thread.
pinboy3niner
(53,339 posts)I met him at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial when he performed there for holiday ceremonies one year.
alfredo
(60,071 posts)nilram
(2,886 posts)It was a great blast from the past...
1) At 2:14, the guy seemed to be walking (and holding his coat) with a condition that was more common for me in the past...
2) Summertime... in San Francisco... is likely to be cloudy and cool. Maybe a good time for an indoor love-in...
alfredo
(60,071 posts)Gurney Norman.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)Sorry, wasn't born until 68.
Demobrat
(8,968 posts)if you needed a bra. You put a pencil underneath your breast. If it fell down you didn't need a bra. If your breast held it in place you did.
Laelth
(32,017 posts)-Laelth
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)calimary
(81,194 posts)Dear God, the pencil test. I remember that. I barely passed at that time. By the time I'd had babies, I was able to pass a whole-box-of-pencils test!!!
We had another one, too: the ruler test. That was in Catholic school, where the nuns made you kneel down and they'd measure from the floor to where your skirt hem hit you, and if there was more than a two-inch difference, you were in trouble! We were in uniforms when we weren't wearing our flowers and beads and fringe. I remember wearing a rosary around my neck one day and the nuns were horrified! One of them told my mother, in a hushed voice with ominous tones - "you know, she's a borderline hippie!"
Divernan
(15,480 posts)Our dates had to take us to the convent, ostensibly so the nuns could see how pretty we looked in our formal wear - but actually, to enforce a no-cleavage rule! A box of kleenex was handy to tuck into any offending gaps! And of course, no patent leather shoes, which could reflect a view up our skirts! And no matter how slim we were, we had to wear these goddamned panty girdles to keep our nylons up (pre-pantyhose).
By the end of the 60's, I was flying coast to coast every year with 2 little kids (the first year, one was a babe-in-arms) to visit Grandma. I wore a skirted suit, silk blouse, high heels, and the aforesaid girdle. LA or San Francisco to BWI, changing planes in Atlanta. Carryons did not have rolling wheels; there were no baggage carts or moving walkways in the airports back then. Now I'm a senior citizen and I travel in a sweat suit with a backpack!
DonRedwood
(4,359 posts)i'm sorry but that cracked me up!
dhol82
(9,352 posts)Man, those were the days.
Remember going to the CYO dances? The boys were on one side of the hall, the girls on the other. If, by chance you did get a boy to dance with you, the priests were on patrol on the floor to make sure you weren't too close together. That was in the days of the 'grinder.'
Remember my gf putting kleenex on her head because she had forgotten her hat.
I started out as a beatnik. Coffee houses, long straight hair, dressed in black. Soooooo Bohemian!
ohheckyeah
(9,314 posts)and even though I fail that test now, I still seldom wear a bra.
Granny M
(1,395 posts)and now, horrors!
calimary
(81,194 posts)DonRedwood
(4,359 posts):0) I remember my mom had these crazy flared pants that laced up the side. She'd wear them with her gogo boots.
Sounds like they might have come from the same store as your dress!
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)in OKC right? vaguely
Oldfolkie
(51 posts)I see a lot of derisive comment on the Net and TV about grumpy old white men being reactionary. Well, like the hippie chicks in question, I and my friends supported JFK, joined the Civil Rights movement, sang the folk songs, fought the War On Poverty, organized unions, did our military tours, fought a war, fought against a war and finally dethroned a President.
Now that I am age 76, I find myself just as involved and progressive as ever. Possibly more outraged at the Right than ever.
I am still in touch with hippie chick friends, lovers, one an ex-wife, and love them all. I'd do it all again in a flash.
ChazInAz
(2,564 posts)Like you I was one of the last of the Beats that came to be called Hippies. Still in contact with some of the Hippie Chicks of my youth...loved them (And everyone) madly and still do. Still politically and socially active.
And I, too, would do it all over again!
Peace and love.
DonRedwood
(4,359 posts)Glad to have you here!
regnaD kciN
(26,044 posts)countmyvote4real
(4,023 posts)SammyWinstonJack
(44,130 posts)RILib
(862 posts)don't have a clue, or have swallowed the age class warfare Republican crap. Many do have a clue, though.
calimary
(81,194 posts)DEFINITELY more outraged at the so-called "Right" than ever, too.
And I wonder about those old angry white dudes who are always shown at teabagger rallies or town hall meetings, yelling and ranting about this or that - mainly something extremely NON-hippie. I find myself wondering if they were once more mellow and got mentally hijacked through the years, or were always that ill-behaved, cold-hearted, mean-spirited, and sometimes just plain scary.
My boyfriend back then made the jump to lightspeed a few years ago. We'd long since lost touch. But I used to be fascinated by stuff he'd say. He was very political back then. I didn't know most of the stuff he knew about, and I always wanted to hear more. VERY political. Read a lot - mainly the alternative press which I had yet to discover. Made a serious ongoing study of it. He knew a lot, and he always used to know or have an understanding of whatever it was - three or four layers deep. I LOVED listening to him talk and rant about it. Spoke a lot about the war, the fiends and fiendishness behind it, Nixon, and the system. GOD he hated Nixon. Most of us did but he did with fire in his belly. Used to say that's how he prolonged not having an orgasm too soon. He'd try to think about Nixon.
At his service, one of his friends from later in life told me he spoke to her about me quite a few times, and evidently had found my blogs online when I used to write political opinion stuff every week. She said he liked what I wrote - and BTW - a lot of it was stuff I learned or began to research via DU, btw. Made me feel like I'd arrived as a political analyst. I think he'd have been be proud of me!
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)Goddess bless their large hearts and those like my wife that no longer brighten this ugly world with love and thoughts of peace.
K&R for recognizing their beauty and many positive accomplishments, they did much more in reality than all of us high maintenance hippy guys that wouldn't have lasted a week without them.
Lifelong Protester
(8,421 posts)(From a former "hippie chick" who had a fringed poncho...and, a wiglet)
lib2DaBone
(8,124 posts)I went to the super market in Florida yesterday.
There, in the parking lot.. was an old school bus... all painted up with love flowers and peace signs.... with Vermont License Plates.
My heart skipped a beat.. could it be? Are there still real Hippies out there?
In a few minutes a nice lady and her son came out of the super market. They had their hair braided in dread-locks, and were wearing Dashikis , sandals, and tie-die. I couldn't believe my eyes? Yes... They do live.
We had a nice conversation, and she told me she and her son came from Vermont, and were headed to Key West for Spring Break.
It was so nice to see her.. just when I was about to give up hope. I gave her a bag of fresh apples that I had just bought and wished her well on her cruise to Key West.
She reminded me of Janis Joplin, who painted love flowers on her Porsche in 1967. (That car, BTW, is on display at the Rock Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.)
I remember seeing Janis Joplin and Big Brother at the Monterey Pop Festival in Monterey,California. Oh where art thou these days? Where did they go? Five years here, five years there, and before you know it.. you are 65 years old and posting on DU? . lol
I had birthday #65 yesterday.. and it hit me very hard. I realized that we are living in times more stressful than any before. Even the Chinese proverb...."May you live in interesting times", has hit home more than usual.
So my point? I guess I don't have a very complex point. to make. My friends sent me a birthday card that said, "Remember when Joints were something you enjoyed"? LOL Yes.. I remember...
All we can do is keep-on-keeping on.. and fighting the machine... until the day we die. At least we know we had friends and good times along the way. We may well end up fighting until the day we die.
God Bless to all....
DonRedwood
(4,359 posts)And thank you for sharing so much. You got to see Janis Joplin...wow. I'll bet you can close your eyes and sill watch that show over and over in your mind.
namaste2
(74 posts)I grew up in Pacific Grove and was at the Monterey Jazz Festival. I also saw Janis' last concert performed at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco several years later. Spent a lot of time in Big Sur and coastal communities, big folk festivals in Nepenthe, Crosby, Stills, & Nash, Joan Baez, etc.,,
It is hard to wrap my mind around being 65 even though my body is a believer! Still have retained the attitude of brotherhood, fairness, protection of our environment, and being very politically aware and active.
Just wanted to reach out and send peace your way fellow traveler.
Thanks DonRedwood for the post!
happynewyear
(1,724 posts)namaste2
(74 posts)I appreciate it! Many decades ago at a wedding reception, a friend of mine pointed to my sister (not knowing she was my sister) and asked me who that "former hippie" was? I said she was my sister, but how did you know she was a former hippie? There wasn't anything about her current appearance that should have indicated that! He just said, you can just tell! I suspect he was right.
DonRedwood
(4,359 posts)A very hearty welcome to DU!
namaste2
(74 posts)I have enjoyed reading your posts. Curious if you have had a response yet from your friend's mother about receiving photos? That was a very touching post.
Thanks again.
Peace~
TexasProgresive
(12,157 posts)Thanks for that- I really love a good pun and hate abysmal ones. That is a great one.
Do you think enjoying a joint might make your joints happy?
a kennedy
(29,644 posts)"All we can do is keep-on-keeping on.. and fighting the machine... until the day we die. At least we know we had friends and good times along the way. We may well end up fighting until the day we die." and thank you for this. and happy Social Security birthday.
DonRedwood
(4,359 posts)so we are in good company.
maddiemom
(5,106 posts)Hippie Chicks, but for everyone who came of age in the sixties and seventies especially. Much more than just music memorabilia. Try to take a couple of days. BTW, Cleveland is one of the easiest cities to get around that I've ever visited by driving. Just take your bearings from the Lake and venture southward. The Hall of Fame is right on the Lake and impossible to miss.
calimary
(81,194 posts)That is a GREAT one!!!
RebelOne
(30,947 posts)but now I am a grandma and a great-grandma.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)DonRedwood
(4,359 posts)they still air it here on the weekend and, seriously, it is a total trip.
Morning Dew
(6,539 posts)truebluegreen
(9,033 posts)stlsaxman
(9,236 posts)Check the band playin' "Sister Ray"!
Nay
(12,051 posts)bet the kids running the show's lights and cameras were splitting their sides laughing!
valerief
(53,235 posts)We knew they had no clue what the name meant.
DonRedwood
(4,359 posts)wow
tpsbmam
(3,927 posts)Mike Brewer and Tom Shipley were Folk singers in Los Angeles. This was their only hit.
Brewer says of the song's origin: "We wrote that one night in the dressing room of a coffee house. We were literally just entertaining ourselves. The next day we got together to do some picking and said, 'What was that we were messing with last night?' We remembered it, and in about an hour, we'd written 'One Toke Over the Line.' Just making ourselves laugh, really. We had no idea that it would ever even be considered as a single, because it was just another song to us. Actually Tom and I always thought that our ballads were our forte." (quotes from brewerandshipley.com)
Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead was brought in to play played steel guitar on the Tarkio sessions. He didn't play on "One Toke Over The Line," but did appear on the B-side, "Oh Mommy' (I Ain't No Commie)."
Some radio stations refused to play this song because of the drug references, but not everyone got this meaning. In 1971 the song was performed on the Lawrence Welk Show by a wholesome looking couple Gail Farrell and Dick Dale, who clearly had NO clue what a toke was. Welk, at the conclusion of the performance of the song, remarked, without any hint of humor, "there you've heard a modern spiritual by Gail and Dale." Brewer & Shipley heard about the performance and searched for the footage, but didn't see it until the clip showed up on YouTube in 2007.
http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=2506
Thanks for posting....that was definitely a great laugh!
Divernan
(15,480 posts)I can remember some of my friends' parents always watching Lawrence Welk on Friday nights, when I'd stop by to pick up friends on our way to football games or sock hops, etc. I always though, EW! How square! (My parents were more into Les Brown/Mary Ford, Perry Como, Vaughn Monroe & The Lucky Strike Hit Parade with Snooky Lansen).
Earlier this year, I came across PBS's re-runs of Lawrence Welk, and I am positively GLUED to the set! Love when you see the audience members dancing - they are all so happy to be there and they look like my grandparents did in the 50's. The women singers' rigid hair styles, tons of eye makeup and fake expressions; and Bobby the former Mouseketeer & his amazing dancing feet and high kicks, and also frozen smile! It IS a trip! And now here's the wonderful Myron Floren and his accordian! And a one and a two and somebody turn on the bubble machine!
DonRedwood
(4,359 posts)there is nothing else on here at that time and I end up on lawrence welk...and it is fascinating!!! and freaky... and maybe one of the strangest things i've ever seen on tv.
DBoon
(22,354 posts)1950s jazz musicians and marijuana just go together
tavernier
(12,375 posts)was looking through old family albums and said to his mom, "Wow, Nonnie was hot!"
heh heh... no wonder I'm nuts for him.
CBHagman
(16,984 posts)My mother (Greatest Generation, not hippie chick) had one as well! It makes me smile even to see the word.
DonRedwood
(4,359 posts)wiglet just cracks me up.
Put some fake eyes on one, use some clear fishing line and you can scare the heck out of your mom!
NBachers
(17,098 posts)Every once in a while, I run into one of those women, and I can still tell they've still got it goin' on. And they're just as beautiful today as they were back then. Still tuned in.
Girl From The North Country (Johnny Cash & Bob Dylan)
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)Goose bumps. I can remember the day I first heard it as if it was yesterday and not sometime in Jan 1970. Thanks for posting it.
(And can still hear my dad plaintively pleading in the background "Can't you and yr friends play that stuff a little quieter?!?" )
NBachers
(17,098 posts)He built a speaker bigger than his kids, and wired up his own Heathkit amp, tuner, & pre-amp kits. He turned our old 1952 Philco TV cabinet upside down and installed a turntable and amps. In our house, it was the kids yelling at their parents to turn it down. Sure would like to have some of his old hardware now.
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)My mom insisted on a top of the line stereo radio, that played FM so she could hear her favorite soft and easy listening radio station in high audio.
I learned early on how to connect the old phonograph player to it, so my Jefferson Airplane could reverb through those speakers. That was not very appreciated by the folks.
And then what a thrill I had, one day about fifteen years ago, when I followed Marty Balin out of a theater and down the sidewalk past his home (Is that stalking?)
He never noticed, nor did the woman he was with... If he had noticed, and stopped to talk, I'd have mentioned how he had been the very bane of my dad's existence, all those many years before.
socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)back in the early 90s. I was divorced for the second time (she was also a "hippie chik" and tracked down this lady after having lost touch with her for 30 years or so. Surprisingly enough, I actually found her and she was just as beautiful as before. Older of course, but just as beautiful. We had a nice little fling worthy of our 60s background (albeit not as athletic) and parted as friends after a few months.
It was great to see that some of us are older and wiser, but still pretty much the same. Oh and a few years later, I remarried my second wife hippie chik a second time. We're still together. I just can't stay away from 'em.
femmocrat
(28,394 posts)Former "hippie chick" (no offense taken) and recent grandma of a Hippie Chick in Training.
Le Taz Hot
(22,271 posts)with the term. Nice read and thank you for your essay. I enjoyed it muchly.
WillyT
(72,631 posts)Rozlee
(2,529 posts)...too old to be a goth. I got trapped in the Big Hair 80s with leg warmers and raccoon eyes makeup. I am so desperately jealous of the hippie chicks.
DonRedwood
(4,359 posts)and just to top it off, a nice acrylic izod sweater in maize.
Born in the early '70s, but a hippie chick at heart.
DevonRex
(22,541 posts)But I got to enjoy some 70s stuff as a kid. So I've got a few years on you. My oldest sisters (big family) were old enough to be hippies but they were Jesus Freaks instead. Hell, even I knew they were missing out on a "thing." And I was the baby of the family. Yep, the only Democrat, too. I should have known way back then by my taste in music.
Curmudgeoness
(18,219 posts)and seeing us as we still remember ourselves. I still expect to look in the mirror as see my former self. I loved those days. Youth is great. And I am grateful to know that there is a young person who can appreciate us.
I even still have one of my hippie chick maxi-shirts, and since it is a wrap-around, I can still wear it.
DonRedwood
(4,359 posts)spry and strong still, that's for sure!
libodem
(19,288 posts)And dang proud of it.
Leslie Valley
(310 posts)Well, she's still alive and kickin'
?
calimary
(81,194 posts)Gracie Slick was THE BEST! I could only dream of being even a teeny bit as cool as she was/still is. Made each one of us want to be a singer in a rock 'n' roll band. She was so gorgeous, and look - she still is. Nice that some of the legends are still here!
DevonRex
(22,541 posts)She was a beautiful happy hippy chick!
MrMickeysMom
(20,453 posts)I wonder what country that was recorded in?
What a classic!
DevonRex
(22,541 posts)The Netherlands. They didn't know how to handle it at first, but couldn't resist in the end. When I was a little girl I wanted to be like her. I played guitar and sang from a very, very early age and started with hippie music. Outside church, of course. My parents were horrified. The older kids toed the line but the littlest one lugged around a guitar taller than she was and with her ear plastered to CSNY and Melanie and Dylan and Santana and it never got any better after that (for them). Matter of fact it got a whole lot worse when I discovered metal. Oh my! Haha.
MrMickeysMom
(20,453 posts)... Uh.... strictly chords that might have incorporated the occasion stretch across the frets. Geez... I still have a recently re-strung acoustic guitar (because my friend's son wanted to try to play). Well, he never followed through, so now I have this guitar that was tuned after being restrung neatly packed into it's case... I wonder if I'll get it out and play again.
Of course, I will! Eventually... and particularly when I see stuff like this and hear stories like yours!
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)I never thought of myself as a "hippie chick" but I am absolutely of that era.
Once in a while I'll tell some young person that I had the good fortune to be young after The Pill and before Herpes or AIDS were a problem. Those were the days, my friend, we thought they'd never end.
Nevernose
(13,081 posts)How to dance at a Dead concert
How to sneak into a truly underground rave
Never commit more than one crime at a time, especially felonies
How to make a drug deal
How to spot an undercover cop
How to treat a woman
Every woman is a princess
Work, and work hard, but there are more important things than work
LSD after a seven day meth binge is a terrible idea, and will end with the fire department putting you on a ladder in order to talk the last hippy off the roof, but the birds WILL look amazing; she was right about that.
Drugs are cool, but they're not for everyone, and even for people who loves drugs, sobriety is generally better
Love your kids more than you love yourself
Love yourself
Life is short: have fun, but be safe
Relax, because it'll all work out in the end, for good or for worse, and any control is just an illusion.
Sadly she died a few years ago, and I miss her terribly at times. I can still remember her laugh, though. Infectious and genuine. Her grand kids would be graduating high school about now.
Liberal In Texas
(13,542 posts)Live happens.
As they say today, It's all good.
ohheckyeah
(9,314 posts)here. Was the first to wear hot pants and jeans to school. Got called to the principal's office for it too, but the ACLU lawyer I contacted fixed that for me.
Moccasins, bell bottom jeans and halter tops. I was the first in my little town to wear a halter top and it was a scandal because I didn't have a bra on. LOL - I made the halter top myself because that little town had never seen them.
Ah, the good old days of hash and Pink Floyd.
calimary
(81,194 posts)Gave you some much-needed mass and volume at the bottom of the leg to counter-act what was always too much of a good thing up top. I had several pairs.
ohheckyeah
(9,314 posts)but I've never had a big butt. Didn't then and still don't. I always wished for some mass in that region....all of my weight is up top.
Anybody else remember roach clip heaven?
calimary
(81,194 posts)ohheckyeah
(9,314 posts)it would certainly make pants fit better and sitting more comfortable.
DonRedwood
(4,359 posts)lol...that's the sad truth about my generation.
ohheckyeah
(9,314 posts)I can honestly say that I have never, ever worn an Izod anything.
Nay
(12,051 posts)in downtown Sarasota -- no bra, obviously -- and honest to God, we stopped traffic. Stopped it dead. 1969. Loved those years.
ohheckyeah
(9,314 posts)In the 70s we lived in a little coal mining town. We had a bunch of friends come visit to go to the races in Bristol. The day before the races, the women went downtown in Richlands, VA and we had on halter tops, shorts, etc. and literally stopped traffic. I do believe we heard the words "damn hippies" more than once.
RILib
(862 posts)when I wore a mini skirt. Those were the days.
OldHippieChick
(2,434 posts)Hekate
(90,632 posts)We all have 'em, and it was ever so brief. Thanks for -- well -- thanks.
Hekate
840high
(17,196 posts)I remember those days.
slackmaster
(60,567 posts)murielm99
(30,730 posts)When my kids were small, they used to laugh at the pictures of me in my bell bottoms.
Those were such good days.
Zorra
(27,670 posts)Being a hippie chick doesn't mean, and never meant, walking the plastic fashion runway in go-go boots, wiglets and fringe in order to be hip. I'm sorry, Don, but it seems to me your whole conception of hippie chick appears to be based on some system created image.
This gnarly old hippie chick never wore go-go boots or wiglets, whatever the fuck wiglets are. I'm writing this (in bare feet) from a little cantina on a remote beach in Mexico. I just had dinner, beers, and tequila (in bare feet) with two old friends of Ken Kesey. I'm the only one left in the bar now; it's like 30 years ago here, the twilight zone.
Sorry to rain on your parade, but I'm feeling a bit insulted right now. I'm also sorry that you are going to lose your friends from your workplace, they sound very sweet.
Peace and Love and trying to end wars and making the world a better place, etc, is what we were/are all about.
Once a hippie chick, always a hippie chick.
Peace
dooner
(1,217 posts)Le Taz Hot
(22,271 posts)but I would like to think the OP is talking about what we got out of all of the social awareness movements at the time. I think it affected us profoundly and many/most of us have carried those moral imperatives with us throughout our lives. I know I certainly have. The wiglets (we used to call them "falls" and the go-go boots were just silly styles manufactured by Madison Avenue, but that doesn't negate the values we learned back then. Hell, as I'm typing this on my laptop I'm sitting in the floor, cross-legged, in my micro-macrame studio. (I'm not kidding.) I'm still a liberal (oftentimes WAY too liberal for DU), I still work on important causes (GMO's and fracking are my latest), I still protest, I keep myself informed and try to remain self-aware. Those were certainly lessons that weren't taught to me at home. These were things I learned about in the 60's and 70's. Anyway, just another perspective.
tilsammans
(2,549 posts)I still have all my hippie values intact, and then some.
Just could never understand the generalization that "people just naturally become more conservative as they age."
Ick! No way.
I've gotten more liberal. Way more liberal. Especially when I see what conservatism has brought us.
frazzled
(18,402 posts)That's what I wore in 1968. Mine was a lovely lilac color, with the tiny mirrors all over embroidered in darker purple. Never did wear Earth Shoes, because I didn't like being pitched backwards onto my heels. I did have a great pair of Frye boots, and am amused to see that these are back in style today.
I was thinking the same as you: go-go boots and wiglets were Mod, a British phenomenon (Mary Quant and all that).
But it was all about the peace, love, and happiness. Peace to you!
Beacool
(30,247 posts)They paved the way for all the women who came after them.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)I married for the first time outside under a weeping willow tree at sundown on the summer solstice of 1971. My hippie chick bride wore a white lace mini-dress and knee-high white gogo boots. I wore purple lace bell-bottoms, cowboy boots and a leather vest. Flowers in our hair, Kahlil Gibran, a Sufi prayer rug - the whole nine yards. We got an ounce of blonde Leb and a half dozen microdots as wedding gifts. She was amazing - one of a kind. She died 20 years ago and I still talk to her sometimes.
But life is really odd sometimes. I knew another woman back then, another hippie artist chick, and she and I were very good friends for the decade of the 70s. Then we lost each other for 30 years, until we suddenly re-connected three years ago. And you know what? She's who I should have been with all the time. Being with her is like coming home to myself. In some ways we're not 20 any more, but in all the ways that count - we are I will now draw a veil of propriety across the remainder of this tale.
What a time to be alive, then - and now. Let's hear it for hippie chicks from the Age of Aquarius - and of any age at all. Years are but moments in our lives - suck the juice out of each and every one.
DonRedwood
(4,359 posts)cliffordu
(30,994 posts)I miss you, each and every one.....And those days.
Hippy chicks showed this idiot how to make love, in every sense of the word.
They healed scars that ran deep beyond all reason or understanding.
Saved my life.
Peace.
pinboy3niner
(53,339 posts)And I even watched Dobie Gillis!
But I went in in '67, and when you finally got a pass into town your low quarters gave you away and the hippie chicks wouldn't touch you.
Had a nice interlude with a Colombian nightclub singer in Panama, but she was only after my GI life insurance, knowing I was headed to VN...
But more power to you, Brother!
P.S.--I did get to meet Scott McKenzie at the Wall...
pinboy3niner
(53,339 posts)They were a one-hit wonder, which was at least one good thing for him because when he left to join the Army he was given $15,000 cash and a brand new Chevy to buy out his rights. The group later plummeted, and I think Danny commited suicide by jumping out of a Vegas hotel room window.
My friend went into SF and JFK personally handed him his green beret...which he left, many years later, at his brother's panel on the Wall.
At a party at my place one year, I surprised my friend by playing a recording of "At the Hop." When I asked him which part he had, I think he said he was the third or fourth "ba."
dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)I remember that being released and its still played at R & R dance venues here in the UK.
btw- they were not just one hit wonders in the UK.
pinboy3niner
(53,339 posts)They have a home here locally, and one in Vietnam near her family. Bill and his lovely wife, Hoi, are involved with our local Vietnam Veterans of America chapter.
Next time I see them I'll tell Bill you said he wasn't a one-hit wonder.
Are_grits_groceries
(17,111 posts)Wouldn't mind that as an epitaph.
struggle4progress
(118,273 posts)FailureToCommunicate
(14,012 posts)after a Big Sur Folk festival. She is still going, still singing, and still a lovely soul...
Music was everywhere then! (and I don't mean in ipod earphones)
?w=500&h=348
pecwae
(8,021 posts)I loved my homemade bell bottoms, handsewn bandana tie tops and fringed swede jacket.
anAustralianobserver
(633 posts)Le Taz Hot
(22,271 posts)We have a snail problem at our house (bear with me here) and when I find them I put them on the cinderblock fence and refer to it as "birdie num-nums."
anAustralianobserver
(633 posts)Well that's horrifying Yes it's one of those movies that triggers long-lost childhood nostalgia when I see the decor, cars and even the colour of the film.
hobbit709
(41,694 posts)TexasProgresive
(12,157 posts)Thanks for sharing about your Grandma Hippy Chicks. Try to keep them in your life post retirement. I'll bet they would appreciate it. Your post and this thread gave a nice start to my day.
Our generation (boomers) certainly have different nostalgia than our parents!
dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)To some extent its though time has stood still.
pecwae
(8,021 posts)I haven't been there or even thought about it in years. We used to go up regularly in the late 60s, early 70s for reasons I won't go into here The college and most of the town had community bikes that one would use and leave it for the next person needing a ride.
RKP5637
(67,102 posts)we can do it
(12,180 posts)MadHound
(34,179 posts)However your epiphany about elderly people is one I discovered decades ago talking to women who were born around the turn of the twentieth century and later. Flappers, suffragettes, on and on. I've always found it interesting talking to older folks, to hear the tales they tell of their youth. My grandfather apparently was a wild child when he was young, playing the fiddle at dances in little Ozark backwoods dances and such, where they served bootleg alcohol and once in while had to deal with the "revenooers". My grandmother went to the St. Louis World's Fair, and had one of the first ice cream cones. My neighbor, way back when I was a small child, worked in the women's suffrage movement at the turn of the century, and had actually met Susan B. Anthony a few years before she died.
It is always cool to talk with older people, because they have wisdom and stories to pass on, and yes, as they talk, the years fall from them and you can see the young people that they once were.
Greybnk48
(10,167 posts)I did the mini's and Go Go boots, ironed my hair, set it in soup cans, had a fringed poncho and a little black cap. I went from that to flannel shits, patched Levis, beads and sandals in the 70's. It was fun buying clothes at Goodwill--used Levis for $.50!!
My escapades are another matter.
marlakay
(11,447 posts)Hair down to my bum, 94 lbs macramé head band, long skirts flowing and backless tops. Hanging out in Berkeley with my cousins buying homemade candles and sandals.
Loving nature and the mountains...I haven't changed that part. Still have long hair but not that long.
Still want peace and love.
It's hard to lose people at work that make your work place a happy environment. I hope you find some new peeps to inspire your day!
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)Thanks!
LWolf
(46,179 posts)except for physically. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
H2O Man
(73,528 posts)"You are what you eat."
DonRedwood
(4,359 posts)ok...that almost made me shoot coffee out my nose.
tblue37
(65,290 posts)Best time of my life!
We were so sure we were going to change the world--for the better.
Sigh.
RoccoR5955
(12,471 posts)Blue4Texas
(437 posts)My boots are black now and my hair is long and carefree or polished while I vacillate between hip and hippie in my 60's returned to braless of those years and peace and love flow freely as right as it was back then. I'm glad I have a place in memory to close my years ahead, the best of thoughts were nurtured there, returned.
alfredo
(60,071 posts)On the Road
(20,783 posts)rhiannon55
(2,671 posts)they made my short legs seem long and dancerly. I also had a pair of red hiphuggers that made me feel hot! I was a hippie chick at heart, but never made it to San Francisco--loved the song, though. I lived in rural Missouri, but loved anti-war songs. When I was a young mother, my favorite song to sing to my babies was "Blowin' in the Wind". I have been protesting war ever since I moved to the city (in my 20s) and found other protesters. I was at the big march on Washington in DC on January 18, 2003. I really thought we could stop the invasion of Iraq...sigh.
I retired awhile back and ditched my bras. My hair is getting really long, too. I've been a grandma for several years now, but I'll always be a hippie chick.
DonRedwood
(4,359 posts)I was a kid in Alaska and new plenty!
calimary
(81,194 posts)But I'm reading back through this thread and just savoring every little bite!
I was pretty much on the far end of it, but I loved the free-thinking and the whole idea of a counter-culture - especially as I was starting to wake up and to become more and more uncomfortable with what our leaders and the older generation were doing. I found myself wanting to stand with the protesters and marchers in the streets rather than the politicians and "respectable" elders (mainly men) with their wide-lapels and double-breasted suits and "long" sideburns so they'd look younger, even though their policies weren't.
I was in all-girl Catholic school clear through til my high school graduation. You can just imagine the repression! MAN did some of my classmates come out of there mixed up. Me, too, I must say. But I think I'd found which way I was instinctively leaning. I had to wear a panty girdle too. DEAR GOD - I can personally understand torture! I was somewhat plump, so my mother insisted on my wearing one. At school we wore uniforms so eight hours of the day (and sometimes more), that was my mode of dress. I think because I was heavier that made me gravitate toward somewhat flamboyant personal adornment as far as things like shawls and capes and scarves that would cover some of my figure failures. I looked for, and found, all sorts of creative ways to hide. Dressing that way enabled me to hide the bad parts of me, and they were something of a statement piece anyway - so they weren't just seen as fat cover-ups. I still collect them to this day.
And that was just one way. I hid under my hair, too. Hated my face and my big nose and the fact that I needed small tiles of glass to be able to see through, so I grew my bangs down as far as I could get away with, and let everything else grow too. Sometimes I'd let everything grow and part my hair in the middle, but it'd still hang down in my face. There were aspects of the "hippie chick" style that seemed to speak for me in ways I didn't feel confident to say for myself. It encouraged me to - well, maybe rebel, but mainly to look differently from my always-well-dressed mom who cared deeply about people's physical looks. She'd never adopt that style, and I found it extremely comfortable. And I could be creative and fancy, too. I could overdress if I wanted to.
I was enthralled by that photo of Janis Joplin, nude, her long wavy wild hair cascading down over her shoulders and down her back, her bare front covered with long beaded necklaces. Those necklaces! Every so often you'd spot a nipple. But those many necklaces. I was ENTHRALLED! And sometimes she'd have feathers (or was it a feather boa) hanging down through her hair. INTOXICATING! And she adorned herself that way because she was asserting her individuality and her creativity, her own personhood of her own design, defining and expressing her own uniqueness, and I was just intoxicated by what that said to me.
And if you feel moved to look and present yourself differently, then maybe what it does is free you, or give you permission, to explore other ways in which you might be different from those sharing your space. It helped to underscore how else I was different from my parents and friends and some of my school mates and other peers. In catechism class, I felt free to meditate on these alternative feelings I was having while listening to the visiting priest or one of the nuns expound on life for the rest of us. How they'd lecture and scold about morality and marriage and parenthood and sex and one's already-assigned sexual roles and behaviors, when they personally knew and could relate to NONE of those things. It made me feel free to begin to embrace a political leaning different from my parents. My dad was a Republican. Wasn't so in love with the Vietnam War, but voted for them because he was a business man and hated paying taxes. I found I kept gravitating over to the Democratic Party ideas instead. Not just to rebel but because that was already in me and I was just starting to recognize it.
The whole "hippie chick" thing helped me, I guess, to free me to figure out a little bit of who I was. Not just whose daughter I was or whose grade in school I was or anything like that. And I kept gravitating away from what that "establishment" was and stood for and dictated from.
Funny - you know the old cliche - "clothes make the man"? You know how actors sometimes talk about the costumes they wear in their roles, and how putting on those clothes actually helps them feel more like the characters they're playing? While I was still working, I interviewed so many actors who'd inevitably talk about that. How putting that suit or that gown on suddenly made you walk differently or your posture became different or you suddenly felt like adopting some affectation or way of speaking etc etc. Dressing like a "hippie chick" was one way in for me, into that whole greater mindset of those just a few years older than I was. To reach it, somehow, and connect with it, and eventually meld with it. It started with beads and shawls and long heavy hair, and went straight to my head. And my heart. And my me.
llmart
(15,536 posts)I always felt sorry for the people our age who were brought up Catholic. My parents were nonreligious (thank you for that, Mom and Dad), but the few Catholics I knew seemed so devoid of the fun loving spirit. They were so repressed. Hell, I married one, so I know whereof I speak
MineralMan
(146,284 posts)used by a member of the previous generation was in 1970. My wife and I, both of us 20-something "dope-smoking hippies," were living in a little rented house in small-town California. Our septic tank backed up, so we called our landlord, who gave us the name of a septic tank pumping service. We called, and a man in his late 50s or early 60s showed up with his pumping truck. I had agreed to dig above the septic tank to expose its lid, so there was a huge hole in the front yard.
So, my wife and I, along with the septic tank guy, were all standing around the hole, looking. The guy pulled off the lid, exposing the contents of the tank. Neither of us had ever seen such a thing, and the septic tank guy was describing, in far too much detail, what we were looking at. In the meantime, the guy, wearing big rubber gloves that looked as though they had never been washed, was smoking a cigarette, making me wonder if a person developed immunity to whatever noxious microorganisms were in there.
"So, girlie," he said, "You one of those loose-titty hippie chicks?"
Both of us simply dissolved into uncontrollable laughter at that question. Eventually, my wife said, "Yeah, I guess I am." For some reason, she took no offense from his question - just humor. After that, we watched the whole process of having our septic tank pumped.
HockeyMom
(14,337 posts)The Mod years were inspired by London; GoGo boots, mini skirts, British Rock Invasion, Shindig, Raving, etc. The Hippie years came from America inspired by Haight Asbury, love beads,(very)long hair, long dresses, California bands, protests against the War, drugs, Woodstock, etc. These are two totally separate times. You cannot lump them together.
Edit: 1967 was the transitional year. I had been out of HS for a year and went to London. Carnaby Street was dying out and the club scene in London was not what it had been I was told. In America the (my) younger generation was changing and SF was replacing London for both clothes, styles, music, and priorities. The people across the pond eventually adopted what was going on in America. While SF was the epicenter of the change, I lived in Greenwich Village and could see the changes there too very early on. GoGo Boots by 1967? No, way for young people. to
Apart from my 9 to 5 job office job during the week, I worked dancing in the coffee houses (Night Owl and Cafe Whaa) on weekends. I wore either mini skirts or jeans when I danced. No gogo boots, or long skirts or dresses. I couldn't dance in that, and mangement wouldn't have liked that either. The customers had no idea that we were PAID dancers. lol
calimary
(81,194 posts)Took lots of looks from both. In turn. The Mod years came from the Mods and Rockers in London during the beginning of the British Invasion that the Beatles started in America in early 1964 - when they first appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show," and were introduced to most of America for the first time.And that whole mini-skirt and go-go boots and Mary Quant (who designed this leather cap that John Lennon always wore) and Yardley of London makeup and Jean Shrimpton and the era of Twiggy happened then, too. Remember Patti Boyd on the cover of the "Birds of Britain" book? "Birds" was another word for girl.
1967 WAS a transitional year. Go-go boots didn't last, although minis sure did. The Beatles had discovered drugs by then and their music had changed. And they'd stopped touring and stayed home more, or traveled only where they chose. George Harrison went to India and brought the Maharishi and Transcendental Meditation into the pop culture. And suddenly Indian garb and fabrics and designs and patterns were everywhere. Maybe that helped influence the more hippie-esque style of clothing, too. For me, it was simple - I didn't have the figure to carry off Twiggy-wear, and the longer flowing robes that came with the hippie era were a good reason not to wear that damn girdle anymore!!!!!
HockeyMom
(14,337 posts)and yes, I did both also.
SoCalDem
(103,856 posts)My friend and I wore "Granny dresses" to school and were sent home.. Someone took a photo (for the yearbook), and it ended up in the newspapers as a "dress code protest ".
llmart
(15,536 posts)Graduated in '67 but I had a lot of responsibility and had to take care of myself at 17, so I held down a full time job. I had long, straight hair and distinctly remember a faux suede purple mini skirt and tight sweater that used to set the older married guys I worked with on edge every time I walked by! The supervisor of the typing pool called me and another young hippie chick over to talk to us about how our clothes were very distracting to the men in the office. I told her I didn't have any other outfits but mini skirts and they would just have to live with it. I also drove a VW Beetle with flower decals on the hood.
Honestly, I can't think of a better time to come of age as the saying goes. I also can't think of another generation of music that was so powerful. Say what you want about us first wave baby boomers, but we certainly did make a lasting mark on society.
Recently went to an outdoor concert of the Guess Who and Doobie Brothers and you wouldn't believe how many of us oldsters were still rockin' it (well, and still tokin' a doobie). The music of the Guess Who makes me feel like I'm 18 again and not 63!
This thread has been so much fun to read.
Little Star
(17,055 posts)This was a beautifully written essay. It warmed my heart.
nolabear
(41,959 posts)We turned into some damn fine womenfolk.
DonRedwood
(4,359 posts)love_katz
(2,578 posts)Thanks for the walks down memory lane.
Those were the best of times, and also occasionally the worst of times.
I miss them terribly, especially the sense of hope that we had (however naive it may have been) that we really COULD change the world.
My hair is still long...down to my bum or hip length, depending on whether or not I have trimmed it.
I feel glad to know that you will miss those old hippie chicks when they retire.
There is too much bashing of boomers, both in the press and sometimes on DU.
The bashers don't seem to realize that we could not stop many of the unpleasant changes to our society which began in the late 1970's.
We scared the he!! out of the greedaholics....and they have fought against the changes we were trying to make, ever since.
ohheckyeah
(9,314 posts)most enjoyable for me in a long time. A trip down memory lane is sometimes good for the soul.
calimary
(81,194 posts)And thank you DonRedwood - look what you started!!!
I will be revisiting and enjoying this thread many times, I suspect.
Kicked, Rec'd, and Bookmarked!
ohheckyeah
(9,314 posts)DonRedwood
(4,359 posts)The comments have been very sweet to read.
tpsbmam
(3,927 posts)anyone else here remember going up the creaky stairs to Different Drummer? Ah, those were the days!
Thanks, Don, for a great thread and so many memories!
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Back then, it was revolutionary.
America had just entered an era where everything was being questioned. Women were finally realizing they had a choice in their life and the prime goal was NOT to find a provider. They were able to be free and independent.
Response to Spitfire of ATJ (Reply #185)
Warren DeMontague This message was self-deleted by its author.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)They were the ones who came to California,...and settled in Orange County....
JI7
(89,244 posts)HockeyMom
(14,337 posts)jeans, tie dyed tshirts or dashiki, fringe vest or jacket, "Jesus" sandals or boots, and of course the love beads. Look at old pictures of the Beatles from that time period.
Lone_Star_Dem
(28,158 posts)She is one of those "hippie chicks" and I know she's going to love this discussion.
Thanks for the OP and the smiles. It's nice to know my mom was in such good company.
CrispyQ
(36,446 posts)I consider myself a hippie chick, even though I am a few years younger than your friends. I got my go-go boots in 7th grade & my favorite outfit was my boots with a denim mini-skirt & a blue poncho my grandmother knitted for me. No kidding! Actually, she knitted a green one for me & a blue one for my cousin & we swapped. I'd put my Yardley lip gloss on & I felt on top of the world.
Hugs to you & your hippie chicks.
pengillian101
(2,351 posts)Thanks all for the memories and a delightful read. Made my day.
ohheckyeah
(9,314 posts)If youre a regular reader of this blog, its not news to you that Prevention believes that ones beauty and image can often come into fullest bloom past the age of 40 or 50 (just read Preventions February 2012 story, I Look My Best Ever). But who doesnt love seeing that the rest of the world seems to be catching up? Maybe its the fact that Boomer women control 70% of the disposable income in this country according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey. Any advertiser worth her Mad Men DVD collection knows exactly which audience she should be targeting. Or, as our CEO Maria Rodale said to the Prevention team last week: Boomer women have redefined every other stage of life as theyve passed through it, why wouldnt they be doing the same with their 50s, 60s, 70s, and beyond?
http://www.prevention.com/your-beauty/blog/are-older-women-suddenly-trendy
calimary
(81,194 posts)Every increasingly older decade is being redefined as "the new __", example: "60 is the new 50 (or even 40-45)" or "40 is the new 30." And every one of those older decades has been the leading edge of the increasing age that we boomers are reaching. The sheer numbers of us moving upward through the demographic divides have determined that social clout.
All in all, it's pretty damn fascinating to watch, particularly as one IN that boomer wave. It's humbling, and even a little unsettling, to think - "sheesh - we are LIVING this. This is US."
ohheckyeah
(9,314 posts)of disposable income is controlled by female baby boomers.
DonRedwood
(4,359 posts)does now and my mom is 75!