Contributor to book about Woodstock describes the hippie lifestyle of the 1960s.
Daily Pilot - Serving Newport Beach & Costa Mesa, California
By Michael Miller
Updated: Thursday, June 11, 2009 9:53 PM PDT
Ask any number of Boomers around Huntington Beach
about the 1960s, and they’ll probably give you plenty of
recollections. But among local historians, Dixon Hearne is a
standout. The 61-year-old, who formerly taught at Chapman University
and has published both fiction and nonfiction, recently contributed
the final chapter to the book “Woodstock Revisited: 50 Far Out,
Groovy, Peace-Loving, Flashback-Inducing Stories From Those Who Were
There.”
Hearne, a Huntington Beach resident since 1978, didn’t actually
attend the legendary rock festival, but the publisher asked him to
cap the collection with an essay about how the Woodstock generation
transformed American culture. Shortly after the book’s release,
Hearne spoke to the Independent about how the world has changed in
the last 40 years — and how it hasn’t.
This book commemorates the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, and a
lot of people reading it are probably going to be young people who
weren’t around at the time. Is there anything about the ’60s that’s
hard to explain to someone who wasn’t there?
There was general feeling among youth that the world was on the
brink of a new age and we were the catalysts, the heralds. It spread
quickly and cut deep into the American psyche — indeed, the world’s.
America had never experienced such a threat to its core values and
lifestyle — and taking root in every corner of the nation.
Post-Boomers have a difficult time in their struggle for some
cultural legitimacy in the wake of their grandparents and parents,
who were the original counterculture prototype.
You say there was a general feeling at the time that your
generation was going to change the world. In hindsight, looking back
40 years later, was that feeling accurate?
Post-Woodstock, we found ourselves thrust upon a world that still
did not understand us or our struggle to be differently alike, an
adult world where survival of the fittest was skewed heavily toward
the opposing team. The Woodstock generation went kicking and
screaming, but we survived, even thrived, and lived to realize the
glorious fruits of the last children’s crusade. Girls, we now know,
can study and learn just as well in pants, long hair is not a
predictor of success (or lack thereof), rock ’n’ roll has never been
unquestionably linked to cancer, and the nation’s churches have not
closed up shop.
Did you consider yourself a hippie back then?
Where I went to college, we were basically weekend hippies and
hippies a la carte. Drugs were popular, even with fraternities and
sororities. I teetered on the edge of dropping out and becoming a
street urchin in ’Frisco till I realized this meant no car, no food,
no privacy and poor hygiene. We all dressed and talked the part —
right down to our jeans and sandals and ponchos and our toked,
pie-eyed conversations. And, of course, we all wanted to be on the
cover of Rolling Stone.
Given how few hippies there are nowadays, it seems like most
other people valued privacy and hygiene, too.
Yes. Few do communes anymore, or crash on pallets 10 abreast or in
cramped Volkswagens or city parks. We do not down a fifth of Jack
Daniels or chug a pitcher of Bud in 60 seconds, or otherwise drink
ourselves under a table on a dare or fry what’s left of our brains
with recreational drugs. Nor do most picket or protest in freezing
rains or sweltering heat — we’ve passed the torch, the signs, the
banners and the microphones to our kids. We’ve learned to fit in, to
find our place in the bigger picture.
When Barack Obama was elected last year, some people said the
excitement surrounding his victory had an echo of the 1960s. Do you
agree, or will we never see anything like the ’60s again?
It’s an awkward comparison indeed. While the Woodstock generation
represented a departure from the status quo sociopolitical picture
of the day, Barack Obama seems to rise more on a platform of
political expediency. The election seems to reflect an angst to
distance ourselves from President Bush — total and absolute change,
and the more different the better. It’s too soon to know if anything
from his tenure will make its way into the very fabric of everyday
American life. Today, we see strong and tangible evidence of the
Woodstock generation’s presence everywhere.
Give me an example of where we can see it.
In our dress, we’ve become a nation of primarily “casual” dressers —
even corporate offices have casual Fridays. Check our nurses and
public workers. In our laws, ACLU watchdogs and Boomer types are
still on the beat to assure equal pay, equal rights, desegregation
and human rights. In our social mores, public celebration of the
human body burst out of the closet with the Woodstock generation.
Witness the acceptance and extent of public nudity today — TV,
movies, rock concerts, art, etc. Prior to the late ’60s, Americans
had to hanker after stars fully clothed on their TV sets or
magazines with brown wrappers.
What do you think kids of the Woodstock generation would have
thought of today’s Huntington Beach?
Cool, dude! You can just, like, hang out every day after graduation
and still live at home? Surf’s up! What happened to the Golden Bear?
Who’s rockin’ at House of Blues tonight? Can I really roll one right
here on the street?
Of course, that was before they wised up and became lecturers at
Chapman.
Most, I’m sure, chased their ambitions to their logical ends. I
wanted to teach. I spent years watching our culture change before my
very eyes in classrooms, elementary through college. I noted that
students never really expressed a challenge to the day’s dress or
language or music — fewer rallying points of contention after the
Woodstock generation moved the bars.
How To Get It
“Woodstock Revisited: 50 Far Out, Groovy, Peace-Loving,
Flashback-Inducing Stories From Those Who Were There” came out this
month from Adams Media. To learn more about the book, visit
www.literarycottage.com/woodstock.html