March 23, 2002
3:23 PM   Subscribe

What happened to the Hippies? Oregons' Takilma Commune find themselves part of the mainstream in the Illinois Valley. And Wavy Gravy is still out there doing good. Hippies on the Web is a good source for the music and culture and how the movement has aged. Peace, love, flowers, and Hippies.
posted by Mack Twain (8 comments total)
 
Those backgrounds could give you flashbacks. Geezz I am old. I remember so many things and have forgotten more.
posted by bjgeiger at 5:13 PM on March 23, 2002


The Takilma article was great, and gives me some hope, since I'm in the process of founding a (much more mainstream, but still) community. 29 years, wow.

Nice links.
posted by rodii at 8:16 PM on March 23, 2002


I work for the paper that ran the Takilma article (I guess our Web guys didn't like my print headline, "Standing out, fitting in"). A couple of years ago, a low-budget song called "Christmas in Takilma" made the rounds on the radio here. Its punchline went, "It's Christmas in Takilma, and all of the folks are stoned." That's the only line I remember of this pretty-funny song. Other than what's in our article, I know next to nothing about Takilma, except that it's fairly close geographically and agriculturally to Humboldt County, Calif., (home of the Arcata Eye) which is to marijuana what France is to cheese.
posted by diddlegnome at 8:58 PM on March 23, 2002


Wow - a collector's edition of the SF Oracle is $700. Or, if you're just a poor hippie, I suppose the library edition is a pinch at $175. Thanks for the linkies, Mack.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 9:13 PM on March 23, 2002


That was excellent, MT. Sure took me back. Nice linkage. Thanks.
posted by Lynsey at 11:23 PM on March 23, 2002


Emi's Online Anti-War Anthology
"The only way to uncover the real truth about the antiwar movement is for hundreds (or thousands) of people to come forward and contribute their recollections. That is why history needs your stories. Please submit them. I don't care how insignificant you think your story may be. Everybody's story is important. All relevant stories will be accepted. I will be happy to work with anyone who wants to prepare one."

"When the Free Clinic of Greater Cleveland opened its doors in a frame house on Cornell Road in 1970, it provided health care in a nonjudgmental manner to individuals outside of the mainstream ... Now, at the turn of the century, the Free Clinic is entering a new era with the construction of a new, state-of-the-art facility."

On Tuesday I had to give a speech at the local grammar school to nine-year-olds. I said, "Go ahead, pick any subject you want." They wanted to hear about hippies. My 16-year-old kid, America, heard me give this speech about how you can't have political and social change without cultural change as well, and he said, "Daddy, you're not gonna bring back the hippies, are you? The hippies go to Van Halen concerts, get drunk, throw up on their sweatshirts and beat up all the punks in town." I said, "Okay, no hippies." That was last year, this year he's changed his mind. His mother and I were activists in the sixties, and he heard all the anti-war stories over and over again, never believed any of it. Then one night last spring he saw the documentary "Twenty Years Ago Today" about the effect of the Beatles' Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band on us all. It's about the only thing I'm ever going to recommend to anybody about the sixties, a simply brilliant documentary. He sat there watching cops fight with young people in the streets, people put flowers at the Pentagon in the soldiers' bayonets, and the Pentagon rise in the air, he saw it move just like we said it did.

Tears came streaming out of his eyes, and he called up and said, "Daddy, why was I born now? I should have been a hippie." -- Abbie Hoffman, 1988

posted by sheauga at 10:16 AM on March 24, 2002




Great link and quote, sheauga...I did forget to mention that the Rainbow Family is still big and meets every year; A RF gathering is sort of like a time machine, but like Takilma and the Hog Farm, you'll meet real people who have put ideas into action in most unique and constructive ways.
posted by Mack Twain at 11:13 AM on March 24, 2002


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