ALIENATED BOOMERS VS MODERN HIPPIE

Take a good look at the next Millennial hippie.

A twenty-something in tie dye, hygiene averse, stands next to their custom made bicycle at a happening brew pub.

This isn’t a Halloween costume, it’s their outfit of choice.

Call it lifestyle for lack of a better term. Just don’t call it throwback.

Their choice of lifestyle might look the same at 1967 in the Haight, but don’t remind them.

They want to be original and get upset when you remind them of living a recycled life.

These are baby boomer kids raised by soccer moms and guilt-fevered dads who covered all the bases because they didn’t want their kid’s picture showing up on a milk carton.

Boomer parents lived with the responsibility of being super parents because no one thought a screwed up generation could do anything but screw up another generation.

How’s it going so far?

The colorful little freak in tie dye is probably carrying more debt at a younger age than either of their parents and all they hear about is what a lousy deal going to college was.

They could be downing six dollar pints but opt for the PBR pounder in protest.

Online articles damn their parents for raising kids with a heightened sense of entitlement and everyone agrees. Millennials want it all and they want it now. Why? Because they deserve it.

A juice box and a trophy won’t cut it this time.

It’s a different message than the one Dr. Leary gave boomer parents at a similar age. Tune in, turn on, drop out sounded good to kids raised by the Greatest Generation.

Millennials ought to ask their grandparents what they did when their kid said, “Hey Pop, I’m going to grow long hair, smoke weed and drop acid, and hitch hike around America for a few years. Maybe join a commune, raise a crop of dental floss like Frank Zappa. What do you think?”

The 60’s gurus knew their audience. It didn’t take much to break the lock-step suburban monotony of the 50’s and early 60’s.

Trade a room in a suburban ranch house for a flea bag floor mattress? Where do I sign up.

Leave college for lessons of higher learning from a loaded coffee house mumbler? Oh hell yeah.

Dump little Susie the homecoming queen for a liberated woman who broke up with her last boyfriend this morning, pledges true love to you over a macro-biotic lunch, then finds their next man-god that evening?

What? Hold on. Is this Crocodile Rock?

Vintage hippies had older mentors plowing the road for them. If Ken Kesey was the life of the party for the ’60’s, he was a thirty-something celebrity author life of the party.

Like Tim Leary and Kesey, older men guided the young bucks through the maze of do’s and don’t’s associated with the freedom they claimed.

The Who got it right when they sang, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

Big daddies with control issues aren’t always the best mentors, but at least you know where they stand.

With the proper guidance as youngsters, boomers grew up, started their own tribes, and now suffer the consequences.

Boomers are the worst generation; we’re robbing everyone blind; we’ve ruined the economy; we suck, all according to reputable sources who’s links I no longer post for fear of the dreaded infection.

The good news is we don’t blame our parents like we get blamed. Anyone looking for a scapegoat for the shape their lives need look no further than the mirror.

If, like this BoomerPDX blogger, you’re as surprised as anyone to land where you are, share the wonderment with those pesky Millennials.

Did you plan your life to the last second of every day? Have you scheduled your life five years out? Are you currently trending?

These things are important, but not to everyone. Sometimes it’s best to kick back and reflect, which is what our tie dyed, PBR chugging, bike rider is working on; working on a chill, getting their swerve on.

Millennials may not be modern hippies, not with so many boomers around explaining how they stood up to the man and burned their draft cards, bras, and ditch weed.

One of the more poignant sayings of the day was, “Don’t trust anyone over thirty.”

Apparently boomer hippies didn’t check ID on the leaders of the pack.

With the kids hitting thirty, their fun is just beginning.

Leave comments if you’re living the dream.