@Melanie H wrote:
@Pandora H wrote:I'm originally from NorCal....and yes, I promise to resist all snark about our 2 countries
I left in 1999, but before that, anytime I went to Berkely, hippies were very evident. As well as in San Fran....I went to San Diego around 1993 and saw hippies along the coast.
Maybe yours turned into hipSTERs? Cause that has happend up to a point in my home town.
Maybe.
Maybe it was the Great -Ster Exodus of 2000.
Haha I would not know, I was goth until 1997, and the last 2 years I barely rember, mostly because they were BORING.
@Jennifer D wrote:
@Melanie H wrote:Where ARE all these hippies, anyway???
I live in SoCal but I never see anybody who doesn't wear shoes, at least nobody who isn't sprawled next to Ralph's wearing a giant coat.
Now hipSTERS, those I see.
There's plenty of people with no shoes and no shirt here on the Gold Coast but they're usually surfers, not hippies.
The hippies are pretty much gone, but the spirit is still alive. 
@Ravindra B wrote:
@Jennifer D wrote:
@Melanie H wrote:Where ARE all these hippies, anyway???
I live in SoCal but I never see anybody who doesn't wear shoes, at least nobody who isn't sprawled next to Ralph's wearing a giant coat.
Now hipSTERS, those I see.
There's plenty of people with no shoes and no shirt here on the Gold Coast but they're usually surfers, not hippies.
The hippies are pretty much gone, but the spirit is still alive.
Lifting my glass to you Ravindra!
There were plenty of reasons for the hippy movement. It wasn't just a case of rebelling against one's parents - and you would have had to live through it to understand. Also not everyone was a hippy (although it may have been a secret wish for some!)
So...
Why is it that my posts keep disappearing?
Anyway, to make things brief(er), as someone born in 1967, the world today is VASTLY more gentle than it was then. I grew up in a spanking generation, one where teachers and kids alike were allowed to bully and even encouraged to do so (after all, our parents frequently argued, how else were we going to learn to "get along"?), where counterculture that was more sort of self-isolated was cool but the rest of the world was harsh.
Today is far more gentle than it was then, and we do owe that to the initiatives of (mostly) the 60s and 70s, but to say there's some need to keep the hippie movement alive is to overlook the fact that overall acceptance really is at an all-time high. Not just for hippies specifically but for everybody.
To me, that's progress.
With all that said, the nostalgic pictures are fun. I remember most of what's being posted here. There were some good times for sure.
ETA: Holy cow, that sounded snarky and dismissive! Hopefully it made some sort of sense. Not dismissing "the hippie movement," as I said, that's where it all started, after all, but having lived through both time periods...well, to dismiss today as not keeping the spirit alive is so weird to me since today we're SEEING it, in action, not just in a commune or an apartment overloaded with toking teens. (I lived across from one of those in 1974...nice guys, actually...)
@Ravindra B wrote:
Those were the days, my friend. Peace 
Virginia, you're still beautiful; now with absolutely gorgeous white hair instead of dark. Here's one of my photos from the era.
