"Today is the first day of the rest of your life."

[katernater]

I just finished writing my second-to-last paper of the semester and it went better than the one I tried writing at the beginning of the week. I was more into the topic this time (Abbie Hoffman, the Yippies, and the 1968 Democratic National Convention) but, overall, I think I'm done with the counterculture. I used to think that I would have had fun participating in the Hippie movement -- all that free love and those questionable fashion statements -- but after studying them for a semester, I wonder how any of them made it out of the '60s in one piece. That goes for most of the other counterculture movements of the time, too: you're either chopping wood so you don't freeze to death during winters at the commune, or you're chaining yourself to a tank and screaming obscenities at a government that won't let you carry your stash around in your pocket. Don't get me wrong, the Sixties were a critical period in American history and the counterculture was an incredible machine for change and social justice, but it seems to me that a lot of the so-called revolutionaries of the period were more interested in instant gratification and media attention than in long-term commitments to change. That's not any different than today, I suppose, with all the radio and television pundits doing their saber rattling. The rest of us are just trying to survive the day-to-day battles.

I still maintain that, if I were to disengage completely from mainstream society that I would want to do it on a lobster boat up in Maine. Or tending alpacas in South America.

BECAUSE SOMEDAY, SOMETHING LIKE THIS MIGHT HAPPEN:



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