One Of Us

Growing up in the mountains of Colorado, I was afforded a great deal of fresh air, freedom, and opportunities to meet hippies. This was the way things were in the late sixties and early seventies. The argument could be made that my parents were hippies. They certainly found themselves living among them, all those years ago. Initially, the property on which we built our cabin was an investment encouraged by our uncle who was anything but a hippie. When Uncle Marvin came by for a visit, we would drive into Nederland and get a table at the Branding Iron in The Redneck Room. It may be an unfair label to slap on Marv, but it seemed like a pretty safe assumption that he wouldn't be comfortable rubbing elbows with all that denim and hair out front. The Redneck Room was where my parents entertained their guests from "downtown." When it was just us, we were just as happy to be hanging with the locals, most of whom were familiar with the ways of macrame and herbs of all kinds.
We watched as construction began up and down the dirt road where we walked and played. There was a geodesic dome attempted and abandoned, and the original buildings that were erected as vacation homes by suburbanites became year-round dwellings for the shaggy set. Just over the hill we were amazed to discover a house made of sprayed Styrofoam. The future was coming, and it smelled faintly of patchouli.
It was during those summers that our own haircuts evolved. Even my mother got into the spirit one year when she opted for a pixie cut that was both practical and forward thinking. No more trips to the hairdresser for this pioneer woman. My father, who made the commute each weekday morning down the winding road to his job in the city let his sideburns grow, and the weekends he preferred his red,white and blue striped jeans to anything more subtle.
It was cabin in the woods where I read all about Watergate, and listened to the hearings on the radio. The night that Nixon resigned, we drove into Nederland and wedged ourselves into a packed Branding Iron to watch Tricky Dick ring down the curtain on his political career. There may have been tears somewhere, but there were only cheers of joy and lustful epithets thrown in the direction of the only TV we needed to see. That night, it seemed like we won. The hippies. That night, we were all hippies.