Built For Comfort, Not For Speed

I saw the young men walking toward me from a block away. Their long hair was blowing in the afternoon breeze. Their tie-dye shirts lit up the last few hours of daylight. As we walked toward each other, the holes in their jeans became more apparent, as did the sandals on the one on the right. There was a time when I knew exactly what I was seeing: Hippies. Here in the Bay Area, it was an easy conclusion at which to arrive. Young men breezily waltzing around without a care in the world, save for being put down by the man.
And before I passed them, it occurred to me: This is 2017. They have to know that they are two generations removed from the summer of love, and the tie-dye they were wearing came from a manufacturer, not somebody's bathtub in the Haight. The notion that they were carefree passed quickly when I realized that to achieve the look of a pair of hippies straight out of 1967, they would have to have knowledge of the past and chose to land there.
Knowing that the tie-dye and torn jeans of the sixties gave way somewhat easily if not sadly to the leisure suits of the seventies. And  the power ties of the nineties. The comfort of the uniforms worn in each decade gave way to a reaction. There was no actual leisure to those suits. That was how they were sold. Like the ties. Nothing magical there, either. What possible advantage could be gained in a negotiation from the color or width of the strip of cloth one chose to tie around their neck?
Then, suddenly, as I went by these after-market hippies, I tried to imagine their late twenties. And thirties. Would they follow the path of least resistance, and let themselves be caught up in the uniform of the day, or would they cling desperately to the look of a counterculture that has become more of a costume than a badge of non-conformity?
Of course, that's when I had to spin that mirror back to me and wonder if shaving my head and wearing that same ratty T-shirt when I run made the same kind of loud pronouncement about my culture. Or lack thereof. I don't think much about the width of my lapels since I don't own many. As for the ties, I have a few, but they are kept save in a closet on a rack that spins. When I go to look for the Spider Man tie on the rare occasion that I need power. Super Power.
That and my extraordinary powers of judgement.