In article , "Kim"
writes:

"N2EY" wrote in message
...
In article , "Kim"
writes:

(lotta snippage)

But you're still planting flowers, and liking jewelry. Same difference.

Yeah, but I like to think that I'm being a bit of a renegade. Actually,
I
don't like things all the same. Remember the good 'ol "Neighborhood
Association" debates that have come and gone here? I'm against them, for
whatever purpose; and would be so very, very depressed if I ever have to
live "in" one.

Same here. But the reason those associations exist is fear - fear that
folks
won't keep up their properties in a reasonable manner if there is no
mechanism to force them.

Paranoia will destroy ya. Fear is a strong emotion.

"Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
Step outa line, the men come and take you away..."

I'm not so attached to
my property that I'd let fear determine where I live and worry about what
someone else does on theirs. But, I also don't buy my place for
investment--so to speak. I bought my place (with my hubby of course) to
stay. This is the first land and home I've had, and no doubt will be the
last. I plant roots...spent too much time being a Navy brat.

If that works for you, great!

My point is that the driving force behind HOAs and CC&Rs and such is often a
really bad experience. Or fear of same. All it takes is one bad tenant or
property owner to start a downward trend in a neighborhood. If you ever had to
sell your place for much less than you paid for it because of what your
neighbors did, you might feel a bit different.

Some years back I lived near a street where there was one family who let their
property go to heck. Paint peeling, stucco falling off, grass and weeds all
over the place. The garage roof caved in. Kids running wild at all hours of the
night, loud music and louder cars. Vandalism that could not be proved to be
their doing. Police called on a regular basis.

That family simply didn't care, and there was not much anyone could do until
they actually broke a law. Which they carefully avoided doing when the police
were anywhere near.

Some folks moved away, but many could not, because their mortgages were bigger
than their property values. (Their properties were devalued because of that one
family).

Then, fortunately, the wild kids began to grow up. They began to realize that
they could actually live like civilized human beings if they put forth a little
effort. They began to keep regular hours, and to repair the house they'd spent
their youth trashing. Property values promptly reached the level of similar
neighborhoods in the area.

We were lucky. Many people aren't so lucky.

The idea of HOAs is threefold: First, to spell out in detail what it means to
keep a property in shape. Second, to see that it gets done. Third, to keep out
people who won't play by the rules.

I never got into the beatniky-hippie kind of
lingo. Heck, I don't think I could even be classified as a true
hippie--I am just a couple of years too late fer it.

So am I.

Most people like to romanticize about that period in this country's history.

Some do. I don't.

I don't know how it was here in the Dallas TX area--most people I've talked
to who were around my age and a little older were too busy going to drive-in
movies, necking, getting pregnant and getting married.

In that order!

And doing the first three at the drive in....

Not very many
politically motivated debates down here, 'least not the way we used to have
'em at the drop of a hat up there!

But, what little we could do in our little town up north to protest the war,
we did. We had a black arm-band day at high school; we had our graffiti on
our bookcovers, etc. Not much to do in a little town. I don't remember,
though, many folks who were "for" the war--other than our parents.

In suburban Philly we had all types. Kids who enlisted and kids who went to
Canada and everything in between. Often in the same family.

Most of
the guys I knew got drafted; most of the gals I knew were saying buy to
their guys most of the time. And, the country was in upheaval. I'd not
like to go back to those days at all. It was NOT a peaceful time in our
history.

Exactly. Things were far more polarized than today.

The Yippies (now the Yuppies and everyone gets them confused as old hippies;
they are not, they were Yippies) dragged the whole thing into violent
protests.

"Steal This Book".

A true hippie would no more pick up a rock or spit at a cop than
the man in the moon. The Yippies were extremists. Now, they're a bunch of
pussy sell-outs who bought lock, stock, and barrel into the system they used
to say they "hated."

We had Ira Einhorn. Asshole extraordinaire. Finally brought to justice.

The whole "hippie" movement was paradoxical in that it was brought about by the
very affluence it rejected. See below.

Some folks can be no other way.

Naw, I think Dan can be a real up guy most of the time. Cool dude.

I'd thrive at the opportunity to drive past him in a time of need, and I
would drive right on by. People like him aren't worth my time, good or bad
time at that.

I would help Dan out if I saw him stuck by the side of the road.

Woodstock? Let's see, that was late summer 1969, when Kim was 15 if
memory
serves. I don't think a responsible parent would let their 15-year-old
go to such a "happening".

Yep, 14 though.

All the more reason.

And, you're right. I had friends whose parents were much
more lenient than mine who went.

I'd call it "irresponsible" rather than "lenient".

Naw, most of us were pretty grown up in our town.

You (plural collective, not just you personally, Kim) thought you were, anyway.
If you weren't paying your own way 100%, you weren't grown up.

They'd been just as well
going at 18 as 14-15. And they were. Most of them had a great time. Then,
later, that concert happened up in...where was it--the race track (?) up in
NY...OH YEAH, Glen something? Is that it?

Watkins Glen. Beautiful place.

Well, anyway, by then I had my kids and wouldn't have gone for the best of
times.

A lot of us were mad that the clueless promoters had ruined the whole
festival
scene by their incompetence. Even 30 years later there were problems doing
another one.

Give me the Philadelphia Folk Festival any day. Well managed, excellent
acts,
good sound and video, well behaved crowd and it's been held every year
since
long before that place in NY. People take their kids and grandkids. No
visible booze or drugs.

I have a cousin in music that I bet you've seen if you went there. For the
sake of her sanity, I'll private email you on that, if you'd like.

Please do. I'll not repeat what you send. Old folkies like me respect such
privacies.

I'm sure
there's some jerk in here that would be incessant toward her if they knew
who she was.

Not me.

btw, I once performed live on stage with Christine Lavin at the Keswick
Theatre.

I think there was more than talk. Did Yeager/Yager/Yeger (however his
name
is spelled) think there was loads to be had in a suit and begin the
process
until it was explained to him the debaucle of the whole thing?

Max Yasgur, now dead, I think. I'm sure he got a piece of the pie. Point
was, they made a mint from the whole "counterculture" aspect of it.

Yeah, he did, as I recall. And, they did too.

So much for counterculture.

Yeah, Summer 1970 saw the tragedy at Kent State...the beginning of the
end.

End of what? Looking back, I'm amazed only four died in the Kent State
mess.
Days of near-riot conditions, kids throwing rocks and teargas canisters
back at
National Guardsmen (who were untrained in riot control)? KS was not a
nonviolent demonstration.

I think that was when "we" as a counter-culture began realizing that we and
"they" had limits and that we had to start growing up with our approach to
democracy. The unfortunate thing that happened out of the 60's is that on
all campuses today, one must have a "stamp of approval" to organize and post
things on the wall. While I'd not like to see the mob mentality as it was,
it's a pity that our youth aren't exposed to true, true democracy in action,
which, in my opinion, does involve activism. I applaud the TX Democrats who
wouldn't give in to the pressures of an immature jerk here, who is called
the Governor of this state.

There's a big difference between activism and violence. Groups like the
Weathermen and SDS actually worked against the counterculture movement,
ultimately killing it.

By the way, I'd have guessed you were an old hippie, Jim.

Not me. I could never afford it.

Wow, wonder what part you're speaking of. We all lived with our holey
jeans, drove clunkers for cars, partied in fields, etc. LOL Nothing about
afording anything with these guys. Let's see, our "swell" of hippies was
aged from about 12 to 23-4. We lived in a small town, so big brothers and
sisters always had little brothers and sisters with them; and every darned
one of us was friends--I do miss that. Heck, my little guy--first born--was
at more field parties as a baby than he's ever been to the rest of his life!
First day out of the hospital we landed at a celebration near Hedges Lake,
in a great big field to welcome Fall and have our last bash before Winter.
Oct. 20, 1974. Guess what else we were just getting the chance to
celebrate!?

Getting hitched? Turning 20? End of the draft?

The bit about "couldn't afford it" was no joke.

What made the hippie movement possible in the '60s was an economy that offered
lots of basic jobs which required little skill, education or experience. Almost
every business had lots of labor-intensive stuff from file clerking to pumping
gas to manually pricing every can of beans at the Acme. There was little
foreign competition, and the labor unions were so strong that almost all
working people benefited, either directly (by being in a union) or indirectly
(the nonunion shops had to keep the workers happy enough that they wouldn't
unionize). College tuitions back then were dirt cheap, particularly at state
schools. The necessities of life were very inexpensive of you didn't go in for
the fancy stuff.

All that changed in the 1970s. In many ways the '70s had more long-lasting
changes than the '60s.

Most of your classic hippies were kids born during and immediately after WW2.
(The kids who were in their teens and early 20s in the 1960s were born from
1940 to 1950). They were the leading edge of the baby boom, getting everything
new and not having to compete as much as those who came later. The "hippest"
ones were almost invariably those who had grown up in comfortable, secure
surroundings. They were not worried about the future at all - they were
confident that they would be taken care of.

Working class kids rarely became hippies; they were too busy working and/or
going to school. They *were* worried about the future, and they had no
illusions about being taken care of.

I went to engineering school, remember? I
always thought that to build a better world, one had to know how to build
things in the first place. So I learned how to do electrical engineering.
And I'm still at it.

Well, we had guys who went out of High School into Physics, Liberal Arts,
and other Sciences.

Bah!

Physics is a true science. Liberal Arts isn't. Engineering is about really
doing stuff, not just talking about it. "Rocket scientists" did not put men on
the moon - rocket engineers did.

"Scientists dream of doing great things. Engineers do them." - Wehrner Von
Braun

We loved for them to come home and tell us the tales of
college life. Heh heh, my biggest kick back then was seeing Alice Cooper at
a Hall on the campus of Plattsburgh, NY.

We had the Main Point and the Spectrum and the Electric Factory. Gene Shay on
Sunday night. Warren Zevon recording at Sigma Sound. The Philadelphia Orchestra
and TLA.

We also had professors of rare talent and ability.

And I had the unique experience, in 1976, of seeing parts of the world's first
true electronic digital computer (ENIAC) returned to the place where they had
benn built.

There's no substitute for actually knowing how to do things, and doing
them.
Remember the movies "The Magnificent Seven" (actually a remake of "The
Seven
Samurai"? The farmers (productive people) does not need the bandits
(moochers). But the bandits sure need the farmers!

Some good things came out of those times. Those are the things to
remember.

At least there's still a few left upholding the original ideals.

Yeah, baby!

Actually, you might be surprised at how simple my "ideals" really are.

I gave up.

Not me.

I don't think I'd be surprised at your ideals at all, Jim.

I think you might be.....but then again, maybe not.

It takes an awful lot to surprise me these days...

What matters is our enjoyment.

73 de Jim, N2EY