I always thought that it would really suck if I end up in the old folks home and they pipe in classic rock thinking that's what us old codgers want to hear. Alice Cooper School's Out, and in the evening Bread.. I found her diary beneath a tree,.. and started reading about me.. Well Bread isn't that bad actually.. All I will be able to do is sit there and rattle my hospital bed frame. If I have the strength that is.
I pride myself in being able to relate to younger people, the music, well at least some of it, but more and more I see a divide growing. I'm not that hip on The Party President.. Saw him on MTV the other day. Thousands of kids in the crowed loving it. I just don't get it, but at least try and relate to some of the new trends and music.
The other day at work I was talking to one of the younger guys who had just returned from a trip to the bay area. I told him I went there when I was a kid back in the late 60s and saw "the hippies". And he was like yeah there are a lot of freaks down there. And I'm like no, the real hippies in Golden Gate Park. We drove down there when I was a kid and my Uncle took us in his car to see the hippies in Golden Gate Park...
After a few minutes of talking to him it was clear he had no idea what I was talking about. Don't they teach this in school I wondered? Like before these hippies, there weren't any hippies.. I tried to explain. These hippies were the first and real hippies. It's where we got the term "hippie". We were "squares" and we drove my uncle's car through the park with the windows rolled up to view "the hippies.. I wasn't getting through to him. I remember one of them ran at the car and made a thump and then went limping off. Eventually the party for the hippies ended. It just became too much of a drag man.
This guy didn't get it and I couldn't explain it to him. Maybe they did teach it in school and he just didn't get it then either I though. Well it left and impression on a little boy from Montana I can tell you that.. Back then, it was like regular people's kids would take a drug, and morph into some sort of beast like a werewolf. That's what I thought when I was a kid anyway. Like if you took drugs you would turn into a hippie and you'd have to live outside in the park. I would hear my parents talking about a neighbors kid. "He turned into a hippie! What a shame.." Just another lost sole gone over to the dark side.
And now I look at some of the young people, sort of going down the same path the hippies went down. Somewhat clueless. Just a new breed of hippie getting lost in the traps of youth. Their trip might be chemical or getting drunk enough to party with The Party President. Maybe their trip is the simple illusion of the constant video game, while other more direct forms of reality escape them. Maybe a future of consumerism is just too hard to face and unlikely to obtain, but somehow they are gonna have to pay for all of the data they are using or the party is going to come to an end. That's all I have to say about these new hippies.
And you will find me in the nursing home. I'm going to party like it's 1999!
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