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.
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