July 26, 2010

It was Spring of 1969, my last year at Guilford College, in North Carolina. My freind Gene Massey (later of the great Gene’s Books in King of Prussia, PA) and I went into a curb market nearby to get some beer. There we ran into Wayne, a huge former football player at the school, who apparently hung out there, and was drunk. As we walked up to the counter, Wayne approached both of us in a daze, said “Two hippies!” and planted one punch each, a right and a left, into our middles. We were more shocked than hurt. “Wayne,” I said. “Back off, man. We’re just a couple guys from Guilford!” Wayne blinked, squinted and seemed to wake up. “Aw shit! I didn’t know ya’ll boys were from Guilford! Damn. I’m sorry. I thought ya’ll was a couple of hippies.”

In fact Wayne was right. The label applied. Gene’s hair was long to his shoulders. Mine hadn’t seen a scissors in many months and was bushed out. But we were hippies in far more than looks alone. We really thought we were in the midst of a revolution.

Are we again? I hope so, which is why I shouldn’t be surprised to see a post called Hippie 2.0 that seems to be right up, or down, my current alleys.