Flower Child Hippie

Recently an old friend and one-time workmate of mine posted some photographs of his past memories. Weddings, dating, etc. and one picture was of him in bell bottom trousers, a vest, and a shirt with puffy sleeves. Someone commented about the era in which he grew up and his comment was that he had been a hippie in his younger days. I couldn’t quite imagine him as a flower child, but if he said so I have to believe him. I’m not sure that flower in his hair suited him, but because of the photograph, but I could see that he had longer hair and wire rimmed glasses.

Today as I mowed my yard, those thoughts came back. I was changed into a person with flowers in my hair. I have a snowball bush behind my house. This year the branches were overly full with those puffy white blossoms. One limb was so heavy that with the last rain storm, the branch broke. I had to saw it off, then remove it before I could mow. As I whirled around the lawn on my riding mower, I had to circle the snowball bush several times. The blades of the mower spit out blossoms that were already on the ground, blowing white rows of them on the green grass. Circling closer, my body, shoulders, and head brushed against the branches, causing an avalanche of the loose white blooms to cover me and the memory of my friend as a hippie returned. Although most fell from me as I mowed, I still had a few that fell from me inside.

When I was in the United States Navy, I met several people who were unhappy that they were in Uncle Sam’s employment and wanted desperately to be hippies. Several were into save-the-planet even that long ago to the point they refused to use colored toilet paper, yet smoked cigarettes like the fumes weren’t a pollutant. A few used drugs. They smoked marijuana or hashish. My knowledge of their habit almost got me killed. Someone saw the Naval Intelligence list of people who were druggies. I didn’t use drugs and my name wasn’t on it, even though I would hang out with them. They thought that I was a snitch. Later they told me if I would have been in the barracks, they would have killed me. After they thought about it, they reasoned because I wasn’t a user, my name shouldn’t be on the list.