My Hipi Herstory

I didn’t know I was a hipi until my store-bought smelling BlackWomen co-workers at the nursing home discovered that I didn’t shave my legs or pits, accused me of being one, and not understanding my feminist reasoning, beat me up for being queer. My fault, I guess, for never having told them that I was sleeping with THEIR men.

During my 30’s in the 1980s inner-city WestcottNation, of the SyracuseNY street-scene, I was the only single, straight woman with a steady job and housing, in a tight community of starving artists, poets, and musicians.
I fancied myself another George Sand, and maintained a Parisian-style Salon as a haven for my stable of menfolk, who fed my ego with regular massage-as-foreplay/therapy that kept me functional at the nursing home, and putty in their hands. But when 10 years of pot parties and keggers at my house, became alcoholic rescue and trauma recovery after crack parties I wouldn’t go to, and after I got fired and blackballed for union organizing, I closed up shop and escaped with my dog to the nearest Rainbow Gathering, to hang out with the garlic-breathed. I was already 40, so the sex-card didn’t play so well with the high holy male peerage, who could only get it on with emancipated teenie-boppers, but my younger brothers were more kind and feminist, so my broken ego was restored.
My only problem that summer was that the “older establishment” owned most of the transportation to the next gathering, and there was never enough “room on the bus” for me and my dog, so we were always left behind when the youngsters trolloped off to set up the next venue. It was a blessing, really, because I was drafted by my Vietnam Veteran Brothers to the clean-up crews, and they always gave, or found us a lift, no stings attached, but for True Love.

By early fall, my dog and I hitched a trucker who carried us to within spitting distance of the already frozen-out gathering at Granby Lake, so we hitched to Yuma to mend fences with my parents, but they were horrified that I’d gone native, so after a very uncomfortable Christmas season, during which my Rambling Rose got road-killed on the freeway, I limped home to the ‘Cuse, went to truck-driving school, hit the road again looking for a job, and made it all the way back to the west coast to visit my Grandmother, who emptied her savings account to buy me a 1970 v-dub transporter and another dog because she didn’t want me driving truck. And then she died, leaving me to live the life of an aesthetic for 8 years on Hipi Road.
Eventually, I found my way to Humboldt County, fell in love with the Redwoods and Julia Butterfly, and discovered that the Uzi’s in the woods were mostly just rumors. Spent three years looking for level parking and a job, but never found either. All the paid employment opportunities were reserved for the children of the yuppified growers, and the community’s elitists governed volunteer labor, so Emily and I ended up living at the curb next to the food bank, dodging speed freaks who wanted in from the rain. Social Services finally provided me with a psychiatrist and a lawyer who qualified me for a nut check, so that I could give away the no longer roadworthy Creampuff VW to the homeless for housing, and exit stage south with my dog in a $100 Cadillac, to retirement in Death Valley’s hot springs to recover from tick-induced lyme’s disease and unheated winters’ arthritis, add another dog to the family, have puppies together, and smoke compassionate herb.
Like Janis said at the end of Mercedes Benz….that’s it!!!!