‘BE PRESENT,’ SAYS YOUNG BOOMER HIPPIE

“Be present, be in the moment.”

What’s that supposed to mean?

You’re here, I’m here. That’s not enough?

Do you remember the first time you heard it, a reminder, an order, to ‘be present?’

The hippie era was before my time, though I get called on it.

Graduating high school in 1973 wasn’t the same as graduating, or dropping out, in 1966.

It seems like a lifetime, another generation, between those dates.

Some will disagree by saying that small town nobodies never saw the beauty of the times like big city people.

They might take it even further with, “Hippies are still being born today. It’s a lifestyle, an attitude, and it’s ageless.”

Ageless? Did your hear ageless? It’s a nice idea when you’re twenty-three, but more a reality to avoid after piling on forty years and more.

Be Present, Sunshine

What did hippies have to worry about the first time around?

Getting drafted into the military and sent to Vietnam to draw fire stands out.

If that happened, freedom of choice ended.

“Get in here, boy, and take a seat. What are you, some kind of hippie? Well, today we cut the hair and ditch the rags you call clothes and suit up with the varsity in a new uniform.”

You thought mom and dad were tough and unforgiving so you took off to find ‘your people?’

But, their people found you first. And away you went.

One man said he moved often enough for his diet to kick in so that when the draft board finally caught up with him he was too malnourished for the Army.

Another man moved to Canada. When he came back he was a military authority who marched around in surplus European army remnants, wore tiny wireframe glasses on his squinty face, and spoke in the gruff tones of a Master Sergeant.

It wasn’t stolen valor but misguided self-awareness of a draft dodger.

These people know all about how to be present, just not for themselves.

People born in the early boomer class between 1946-1952 are the frontline of former hippies, and current elders.

Asking them to be present might be a big ask. Be present for cancer, heart disease, mental illness, the death of loved ones, money worries, retirement anxiety.

Is that enough?

Be present for marriages, divorces, lawsuits, mortgages, pandemics, booster shots, kids, grandkids, and time together.

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Let’s focus on those last three: kids, grandkids, and time together.

Get in there with grandkids to give your kids a break. They say they don’t need a break the same way you said you didn’t need a break.

The difference is no one asked you if you needed a break. But you did. So don’t ask, just volunteer.

While you’re there, give the grandkids your full attention. Walk with them, talk with them, listen to their voice, their ideas, and remember it will all change.

But, if you can be present, it’s just you and them in a moment in time where everything looks possible.

Remember how you felt when everything was possible?

Baby boomers saw the beginning of space exploration, saw man land on the moon. They saw it all way before Kevin Garnett told them anything is possible.

The youngest among us deserve to grow up in an environment of possibilities.

Look where you started and where you are. Have you left markers for others to follow?

Start now if you’re not sure.

Boomer Hippie Roll Call: Be Present

Stephen Gaskin: Not present.

Those following Stephen Gaskin to the ends of the earth found it in Tennessee.

Gaskin’s death at age 79 explains much about the counter-culture of the Sixties in general and hippies in particular.

A mobile society means moving away from your roots, leaving town.

Hippies were a mobile group, traveling in vans to protests, hitch hiking to concerts.

Complain all you want about no one staying in one place any more, but maybe it’s a good thing.

Like Oregon’s Ken Kesey, Gaskin was born in 1935. Too old to be a hippie and too young for the beatnik life, both men were just right to engage the youth.

As thirty year olds in 1965, they pulled a strong crowd of baby boomers looking for answers. Any answers.

In 1970 thousands of people listened to Gaskin link psychedelic drugs to religion in San Francisco.

When he took his show on the road his students followed.

The road trip continued until the group decided to buy land and create their own culture on The Farm.

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Ken Kesey: Not present.

I’m a fan of literary travel. My biggest scores are Shakespeare’s Stratford-upon-Avon, and Thomas Wolfe’s Asheville, North Carolina.

And Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello.

Why not celebrate the Big Writers, and by some accounts Kesey is one of them.

Initial reviews of the book ran to both extremes, but its reputation has aged well. Charles Bowden calls it “one of the few essential books written by an American in the last half century.” In 1997, a panel of Northwest writers voted it number one in a list of “12 Essential Northwest Works”. One book critic has described it as “what may well be the quintessential Northwest novel”.

Sometimes A Great Notion may not have it’s own museum, Ken Kesey may not have a lavish memorial, but Kernville has the house.

A shattered image of social change forced on the Old Guard by their baby boomer kids?

Lifetime friends on the wrong side of a changing economy turn their backs?

The Kernville house is a reminder to “Never Give a Inch” even when you know better.

And a symbol of persistence.

Be Present For You

Why? Because you’re worth it.

Caring about people you don’t know is hard. But that’s the work of humanity, caring enough.

In spite of doubts, personal doubts, you’re strong enough to care about people you don’t know.

Social media makes it hard with disasters and doom on every scroll. 

People drop off when it gets too much. And they should. Otherwise they might start donating uncontrollable to every pitch, every go fund me, every call out.

Balancing Home Shopping Network buys with an open ended contribution to end world hunger, support world peace, and housing the homelessness make it more difficult.

You want to do something and end up doing nothing because you don’t know where your money will end up. But you do know what you get spending money on QVC: Holiday specials.

Do you know what doesn’t cost a thing? Holding a door open for a stranger, asking someone how they’re doing, making a phone call.

For your peace of mind, find a place where you can be present.

How’s it feeling so far?