The window for becoming a hippie was closing by the time I got to Vashon in 1972.  At home in Sioux City a few years before, I'd read about the hippies in The Des Moines Register and longed to travel west and join in that rock 'n roll band. Hair, the musical, played one show at the Sioux City Auditorium but most of the audience left after the first utterance of the F word. The good stuff—nudity, protest songs, and anti-war rants—-would come later to those who stayed.

Anyways, in the late 60s and early 70s, Vashon was as close to a commune as I'd ever been. The Smith family reigned, too cool for words: Mr. Smith, a professor at the U of WA and Mrs. Smith, queen of all alternative women: beautiful, strong, earth mother, gardener extraordinaire, quilter, and bread baker. The Smiths served several stints in the Peace Corps, were involved in a domestic three-person relationship, lived in a rambley farm west of town, and kept a big red and blue talking parrot acquired during a stay in the Amazon. Drop in any time and there would likely be a salon-type gathering of locals, exotic visitors, and extended family members, usually smoking pot and playing music.

I aspired to be a hippie, but was hopelessly middle-class and employed, not even a feminist or a bra burner. Oh I got rid of my bra, but I certainly wouldn't be burning it. In the early 70s, I lived on 5-acres in a suburban-style, two story house that wasn't particularly charming—-"a good investment", my husband said. I occasionally found myself in the Smith circle but always felt like an interloper—a tourist watching the local culture from the outside, not quite cool enough to live there.

All of those relics of the Vashon hippie era are gone. I don't know what happened to the Smiths, their house, or their parrot; today John Kennedy's Peace Corp seems to be more a goal for the socially-committed retired (who probably already served in the 70s) than the young; and no one walked out when Hair played at the Sioux City Auditorium in 2009. The 60s icons may be gone but the early hippies permanently changed American culture. As far as I remember, no one hugged in the 50s (certainly not men);  there were no tie-dyed T shirts; no one ate tofu, granola, Tabouley, hummus, Indian food, natural food, whole-grained bread, lentils or drank soy milk; birthing rooms, natural childbirth, and midwives were unheard of and new fathers did not cut the cord; most people viewed alternative medicine with distain; children were seldom home-schooled and stayed home with a babysitter when their parents went out; dogs lived outdoors, either roaming free or chained in the backyard; farmers routinely sprayed crops with DDT, fertilizers, and pest/weed preventatives; Gerber casually added salt and artifical flavoring to baby food; adults who weren't farming or working construction seldom wore jeans; nobody admitted to shopping at the Goodwill; and the majority of people knew little about Buddhism and other Asian-based religions. Hippies also played a major part in the Jesus revival which fueled the expansion of many Baptist and fundamentalist churches. Who could deny the everlasting value of "Another Roadside Attraction", "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail", "Be Here Now", "If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him", "The Politics of Ecstasy", "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test", "Seth Speaks",  or "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" and let's not even get started about the music.

Altamont marked the end of the dream as the summer of love turned to violence but the hippie movement affected the future in so many ways that it's difficult to see it as simply a failed experiment. I never joined up and I missed the fun and I also missed the misery of voluntary poverty, the oftentimes harmful effects of hallucinogenic drugs, and not the least—lentil loaf for Thanksgiving dinner.

Here are links to a few items always found on a hippie Thanksgiving table:

Parsley Tofu Spread, Tofu Marinade, Lentil Dal



And here are a few familiar faces from back in the day.

"Kathy,

Enjoyed your hippie blog, we saw a hippie store in downtown Lawrence today and thought your might enjoy these pictures. The Marijuana poster caption says "its just not that funny."

Far out, 

Bwana and Virg