Went to a “49ers” party” the other night, the honored host being one born that year and turning 60 a few weeks back. Seems like that’s nice way of casting that milestone event.
The party was also a reunion of sorts, gathering of locals and a coming home for many people who used to call this area home, and retain some nostalgic attachment to the area. A few guests traveled a long ways to be here.
Back in the early 1970s this area, which had remained pretty true to its Appalachian roots, saw the beginnings of a wave of immigration unlike anything that could have been expected or seen before.
Young kids with long hair and a heartfelt commitment to live a more independent lifestyle than what they’d brought up in, close to the land, started buying up old farms to make their homes. The honored guest of the party and his wife were among the very first, if not the original of what became know as the Dry Creek hippies. And whether or not young people who moved to the area through the rest of the decade were truly hippies, they were regarded as such.
When we arrived here in 1977 from NYC, I remember how startled I was when somebody asked me if I was one of “them hippies”: To him, I fit the part: long hair and a beard, young wife in tow, her long blond hair parted down the middle, with fashion sense leaning toward blue jeans and overalls, flannel and L’il Abner boots..
But when the question was putto me, I had to ask “What’s a hippie?” to find out what he meant. To me, from NYC, the hippies were a fad and fashion which had run its course years earlier.
”You know, one of them people that all lives in the same house, none of them takes no baths nor goes to work.” the old man explained.
That’s the idea some people had about hippies—any young person who came here with a bit of an education, it seems— for a while, And some still use the term, sometimes with implied derision.
Had they looked at crowd gathered at this party, though, they would discover those same kids have grown into outstanding citizens who have enriched the area in many ways. Many are involved in the arts, all work and are responsible citizens, They take great pride in their children and if they’re lucky enough yet, grandchildren, and the wonderful part of Tennessee where we’ve made our homes and lives.
And forget all the free love stuff: at one point I was standing with two other guys, including the host, and collectively we had more than 100 years of married life, each with his wife more than 30 years.
We’re all part of the landscape now.
