When I was starting out in my career and sitting at the edge of the semi-circular copy desk, one broad story I kept seeing in the headlines didn’t reflect what I was finding in daily life. It was the hippie experience, told one the public side as drug busts, antiwar protests, and rock concerts, while the personal side I sensed something much broader and transformative, which was largely ignored.
Tom Wolfe, who had come to prominence as a newspaper columnist, was right in saying that the great hippie-era novel needed to be written, though he was wrong in thinking a single book could cover it.
From my perspective, a traditional facts-and-quotes approach couldn’t touch the emotional reality, pro or con. Interviewing celebrities posing as leaders wouldn’t work, either – they largely betrayed us, maybe like never-a-hippie Trump would do later. Hippie was a grassroots movement on many fronts, many of them outside of the big media headquarters in the biggest cities.
In previous Red Barn posts, I’ve touched on many of the hippie movement’s continuing influences, things our kids and grandkids take for granted, but so much – especially of the broadest nature – remains to be examined and presented. I’ll leave that to someone else who can give it full and fresh attention.
For my part, I leave four novels as foundations for others to build on.
I’ve looked hard for work by others but found little yet faithfully left reviews online where I’ve could. Those works are, alas, slowly vanishing. Yes, we are passing.
I am haunted by a definitely hippie copy editor from the year I interned as what we called the rim, but he was gone when I returned a year later, perhaps after pressing for union organization. A lot had changed in those nine months. I wish I knew more about him, other than the ticket for Woodstock that I couldn’t accept, considering the scheduling and my bicycle as my only transportation.
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The core of my perceptions remains in four novels to my credit.
Daffodil Uprising: I was on campus when the repressive constraints of institutional America blew apart in the late 1960s. Crucially, many of the radical currents emerging on both coasts began connecting in academic nerve centers in the Midwest – places like Daffodil, Indiana, where furious confrontations exposed positions that later generations now take for granted. My novel revisits the upheaval and challenge, both personal and public, triumphant and tragic. As I still humbly proclaim.
Pit-a-Pat High Jinks: The hippie movement that is usually thought of as the Sixties actually appeared most fully during the Nixon administration, 1969-74, and brought changes that younger generations now take for granted. Yes, the ‘70s. In my case, that was Upstate New York where I lived in bohemian circles near the downtown and then on a rundown farm out in the hills where a grubby assembly split the rent and a bit more. My, we were so green and so wild-eyed.
Subway Visions: There were good reasons so many of my freaky housemates and new friends came from the Big Apple. My jaunts to The City, as they called it, provided high-voltage flashes of inspiration that ranged from grubby to psychedelic. It was a whole new world to me, even as a frequent visitor.
What’s Left: So much remained unvoiced and unexamined in the aftermath. I drafted a series of essays that came together as a creative non-fiction volume, but that went nowhere. But then I had the flash to reshape it from the encounters of the hippie protagonist of the previous three books but explored by his curious and snarky daughter. My intention for a big book about the revolution of peace and love turned into one asking what is family, primarily. Hers was quite the colorful circus.
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I still believe there’s much in these that’s “still news” despite the dated surfaces that usually pass for the era.
This year, though, I’m finally saying good-bye to maintaining an effort to engage in an awareness. It’s ultimately in others’ hands.
You can find my novels in the digital platform of your choice at Smashwords, the Apple Store, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Scribd, Sony’s Kobo, and other fine ebook retailers. They’re also available in paper and Kindle at Amazon, or you can ask your local library to obtain them.
Jnana's Red Barn 