Where have all the hippies gone?

 I was born in 1957 and basically just missed the "hippie times".  I was a wanna be hippie wearing jeans and my Pat Paulsen for President sweatshirt practically every day.  

I believe the world needs hippies right now because they embodied a spirit of radical generosity, community and environmental consciousness. 

Hippies taught us the importance of living in harmony with nature and the planet, advocating for nonviolence and promoted LOVE AND PEACE.  

What happened - where is that generation?  We need you now.  

"Blowin' in the Wind" is a song written by Bob Dylan in 1962 and released as a single and on his album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan in 1963. It has been described as a protest song, and poses a series of rhetorical questions about peace, war, and freedom. The refrain "The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind" has been described as "impenetrably ambiguous: either the answer is so obvious it is right in your face, or the answer is as intangible as the wind". In 1994, the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. 

How many roads must a man walk down

Before you call him a man
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand
Yes, 'n' how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind

Yes, 'n' how many years can a mountain exist
Before it's washed to the sea
Yes, 'n' how many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free
Yes, 'n' how many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn't see
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind

Yes, 'n' how many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky
Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry
Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind

_____________________________________________________

How many deaths will it take till he knows that too many people have died. Wow, that hits hard now, with useless assassinations and school shootings.

I remember -

Bomb threats in school as a way of getting out of class - there were no bombs, and it was usually done close to the big Thanksgiving Day football game.

Hands Across America - May 25, 1986 - it was a way to raise money for the hungry, homeless and poor population.

Woodstock - celebrated peace, love and music in 1969

The counterculture movement of the 1960s and ‘70s was arguably one of the most influential time periods in modern American history. A more individualized identity was sought after by coming-of-age outsiders that took over the nation due to the baby boom. Nonconformists emerged and publicly rejected traditional social norms. The anti-war perspective encouraged an idealistic peace and love movement that made the decades somewhat euphoric.

Maybe social media has ruined that all - or maybe the next generation can use it to create something even greater.  To unite people, to end wars, end hunger, end the destroying of our earth and to stop us from destroying ourselves.  

The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind.

and that another day,  inside my head, in Catasauqua.