Make Love Not War...with the letter H

I’m a hippie. I always have been.


I believe in peace, love and happiness. I flash peace signs. I listen to rock n roll from long ago. I am obsessed with The Beatles. I relate and feel something in their music. Paul Simon can send me into a trance.

I love everything about the 60s and 70s. The bell bottom jeans, the revolution, the freedom. I would have given anything to be at Woodstock.

I wasn’t even born then.

I have always had this idealistic point of view, like it was this carefree time. I know I would have been a hippie, riding around the country on a bus, protesting the war.

That’s the problem. War. It wasn’t an ideal time. It was scary. Every day, someone was dying. Every day, someone was killed for a cause of some kind. Every day, there was turmoil. It was a time filled with fear-based action driven by reality. It was a new reality, television brought the war and the riots into homes for the first time.

Now, I’m not saying that what is going on today is any less fearful. I think we are a little immune based on having television, radio and internet. We are information driven, and need it now. We have the ability to know what happens all the time, everywhere in the world.

I think maybe, in addition to the music and the hippie lifestyle, I am drawn to the simplicity of the time. As much as I thrive on technology and am a computer-geek, there are times when I wish I had the ability to turn off the phone, the computer, the television. It is a crutch I can’t quite live without, like so many of us.

I started this post thinking about how much I love being a hippie.  It took a weird little turn.  But that's what happens sometimes when we write, I suppose.

Peace, Love, and Music

A lot has been happening in my life. Not a lot of writing, but a lot of other stuff. Good stuff. I'd like to share it with you. Another day. Because I need to take a few moments and celebrate an anniversary.

Forty-one years ago today (and yesterday, and tomorrow), The Woodstock Festival took place. Was I there? *sigh*, no. I wasn't even born yet. Would I have been there had I been born then? Hell yes!

I know many things about this festival, probably more than many of the people who were actually there. The advantage, I suppose of being a product of the information age and a fanatic. I have the DVD, special edition of course, commentary and all. I have books about it. I have read as much as I possibly can on the internet. Last year, on the 40th anniversary, I spent the whole weekend on the couch, watching VH1 Classic and their tribute to all-things-Woodstock and the bands that were there.

What is it about these three days in my life? How does this effect me? Well, for one, I wasn't there. It is just one more thing on my list of born-too-late-for... But things tend to happen to me, both good and bad during these three days. It is the time when I hit the wall, so to speak, with a very bad behavior nine years ago, and turned my life around. I have gotten some of the best jobs I have had in August. I tend to move in August, once five years ago and again last weekend.

But most of all, it is what it is supposed to be. Music. It is another day (or three) that reminds me that peace and love is possible, if I strive for them. If I keep my mind focused and my side of the street clean, I can have peace and love with all of mankind. When I cannot find that focal point and my mind doesn't clear, I can listen to the music and figure it out. I want to always be of service to mankind for the greater good. Whether it be for a group of 2 or 400,000 to 500,000 (estimates vary on the actual number), I can practice love and tolerance, and spread love to those around me.

I would like to leave you with Creedence Clearwater Revival's John Fogerty's words on preforming at 3 a.m, 41 years ago today, at the Woodstock Festival:

"We were ready to rock out and we waited and waited and finally it was our turn... ...there were a half million people asleep. These people were out. It was sort of like a painting of a Dante scene, just bodies from hell, all intertwined and asleep, covered with mud.  And this is the moment I will never forget as long as I live: a quarter mile away in the darkness, on the other edge of this bowl, there was some guy flicking his Bic, and in the night I hear, "Don't worry about it John. We're with you." I played the rest of the show for that guy."