HIPPY DIPPY
HIPPY DIPPY
“It’s a poor map of the world that doesn’t have room for an
When I was young, hippies were a fact of life. They wore loose fitting clothing of African or Indian origin. They got seriously concerned about things that the rest of us ignored. They liked nature a lot and quite literately hugged trees.
No one I knew actually wanted to be a hippy. My friends at school who were afflicted with parents of this type suffered teasing on level that would be hard to bear even now as an adult. To have a parent who referred to the world as ‘mother earth’, filled the home with joss sticks and wind chimes, and drove a VW camper with flowers hand painted on the side was social suicide. Quite clearly people of this ilk were mad they believed we could all achieve a Utopia by learning to love our planet more. They were drug-addled from having far too good a time in the late 60’s and were given to making ridiculous pronouncements:
“Plastic ain’t fantastic – get natural”
“We’re killing the planet man – reuse your trash”
“The juice from the fossils are running out – use the sun and the wind”
“We should all be one family and look after each other man – tear down the borders”
And so the kaftan wearing loonies continued – there was much talk of the ‘Revenge of Gaia’. They woofed on about some goddess called Gaia heating the whole planet up and unless we changed our ways we would explode or something! So they lived their funny little alternative lives– they really thought that they were right, we were misguided and that they were leading by example. We found them mildly annoying but endlessly amusing.
My friend Moonflower Camomile was thus afflicted parent wise. They lived in Blackheath in a home run on solar energy. They claimed the heat form the sun was a gift from Gaia and would satisfy all their needs. (All we noticed was that they were still having power blackouts long after the winter of discontent). Her ungroomed mother was an organic gardener and grew a lot of what I then thought were tomato plants. Her bearded father was a botanist and was campaigning to stop a motorway being driven though an 8000 year old wood. Their house tinkled with the sound of the many wind chimes, picked up from all around the world. I never saw her Dad wear a pair of trousers… the whole family seemed to drift about in floaty full length smocks. Moonflower Camomile insisted we all called her Karen and absolutely HATED her parents and wished they were normal. Then one day her wish came true… after watching Charlie Sheen in Wall Street, her parents got proper jobs and made heaps of money and bought a cottage in
I haven’t seen a hippy for years.
Funny how things change. We now buy natural fabrics as much as possible and see plastic as the enemy of a biodegradable future. We recycle our used bottles, tins, cardboard even dinner scraps. We acknowledge that oil, natural gas and coal will run out in approximately half a century and are actively generating fuel from renewable sources. We have had to appreciate that geographical borders are becoming meaningless as our fates are dictated by the global economy and the World Bank. We acknowledge that trees sustain our planet and are concerned to protect the great forests of the world. We take it as a fact that we are “killing the planet man”.
How is it that a marginal group of festival goers could see this YEARS ago while we main-streamers missed it? I wonder if Karen would be as embarrassed of her parents if she was at school now. I wonder if we would have bullied Moonflower Camomile so mercilessly if we were in THIS decade? I doubt it.
Turns out all the hippies had to do was re-brand.
Like my marathon bar becoming a snicker bar… the tree-hugging hippy is now a Green Politician! And with this master stroke of rebranding… ‘cause lets face facts they sure ain’t changed the message… what was once an alternative lifestyle for freaks is now something we all embrace.
There is not anyone who has not been touched in someway by the environmental and ecological issues that the Green movement have pushed up the agenda.
In my borough the effects of Green Politics can be seen in the multitude of wheelie bins. No one can escape! Currently we have a green one for general rubbish, a brown one for garden waste, a maroon box for cans and plastic bottles, a black box for glass and jars. Food waste must be wrapped in newspaper and put in the brown wheelie bin which we are instructed must be shaded from direct sunlight. All I can say is thank the heavens I have a large garden – where on earth do the flat dwellers put all this stuff!
For us super-shoppers, Green Politics is right there! Once upon a time, the only person who asked me if I wanted something with my order was the server at McD’s… Now I go to Mark’s do the weekly shop and get…”Do you need a bag with that?” Plastic bags are a thing of the past. Once only nutty old ladies went shopping stuffed with bags that had been used before… now there is a television campaign telling us BYOB (bring your own bag). To not do so makes you an instant social pariah. I remember when shopping WAS all about getting as many bags as possible!
Have you noticed how many super-stars proudly tell the world they drive the most hideous cars – just because they use less fuel? Celebrity after celebrity rolls up to the valet stand in small, snub-nosed, rather drab little cars. Ask them and you get some diatribe about global warming and their industry to educate and inform the public about environmental issues. It seems the days of the Beemer, Rolls and Jag are numbered! Let us not forget the hammering one of our own high ranking politicians got when people realised he owned not one but TWO Jaguars!
It’s not just the super-rich who have to rethink transportation. Our petrol stations offer greener fuels and our cheaper flight vendors ask us to pay a surcharge to off-set the damage the plane will do to ‘mother- earth’ by jetting us to the sun. Double glazing once used to be about keeping the noise out now it’s all about being fuel efficient. Wind farms are a common sight and they’ve sort out the kinks with solar power… it actually works!
It’s beyond just fuel though – suddenly our dinner plates have changed, exotic foods are now a no-no and we prefer to purchase locally produced, seasonal fare. Once it was just Felicity Kendal and Richard Briars making the nation laugh growing their own on ‘The Good Life’… but who now doesn’t think organic food is a good idea?
Even fashion finally moved away from the polyester, rayon, plastic embossed frenzy of my youth to the cotton and the natural fabrics I used to see Moonflower Camomile’s parents float around in. Suddenly being bohemian is chique.
I wonder if Moonflower Camomile’s parents regret their morphing to the main-stream after all? I wonder if, in their upwardly mobile move to
Funny how the people you once laughed at become the people who you listen to isn’t it? Today we depend on those aging hippies to show us the way forward.
Turns out that the bearded tree-huggers were right all along.
I guess... if we were back at school now….we would have been nicer to Moonflower Camomile after all.
I quite liked this... thought provoking how yesterdays freaks are todays messiahs!!! Nice one
ReplyDeleteI liked this! If a good blog makes you think - THIS is a good blog.
ReplyDeleteBrought back memories of our schools freak - he became a dot com millionaire, so I guess he was right about computers and we were wrong!
Goog Blog!