Yes indeed-lol. I was managing a six Plex in San Jose. And I only rented to hippies, because they had a hard time finding places to rent. I never had a bit of trouble and never lost a month's rent. I made my living in those days selling pot and playing poker, lowball, at the local cardrooms and had a job teaching kids to climb in the high Sierra.
I had an epiphany in my junior year at San Jose State, realizing I not only didn't know the answers, I didn't even know the questions. I didn't really understand why Plato was so important. I had a large white couch in my front room and during the afternoons for two years, I would lie on that couch with the door cracked, listening to country Joe and the fish, Charlie Musselwhite and other great 60s musicians and read every great thinker in the world I could think of.
I knew there was something out there that I needed to understand, but I had no idea what it was. I started with the great writers in this country, but they mostly seemed just storytellers. Steinbeck, Hemingway, F Scott Fitzgerald, etc.
Then I jumped the Atlantic Ocean to the Europeans and I ran into the existentialists, Camus, Sartre and found my place in the world. I found what I was looking for. I was an existentialist.
During the evenings, we would go from house to house and visit. Most people had a coffee table in the front room with candles, pot and incense. We would all sit around and get stoned and listen to all the great musicians. The who, velvet underground, doors, Jefferson airplane, Buffalo Springfield, canned heat, Paul Butterfield and Charlie Musselwhite, and of course the King Bob Dylan.
I had a work-study program, where I worked out of the Alum Rock Park science center taking kids into the high Sierra and teaching them to climb and ecology. Great job-lol. We had a bus just like the bus the Merry pranksters had in the electric Kool-Aid acid test by Tom Wolfe. The boss only hired hippies, so we were of one mind.
I was lucky to have that wonderful time in my life. And yes lots of beautiful chicks. The straight guys women wouldn't sleep with them, so they were always trying to hustle our women. But our women, were hippies to and that was an intellectual commitment, so they seldom strayed, but stayed with us. Just as liberal women today seldom hook up with conservative men. |
