Saturday, February 25, 2017

Remembering

Thinking, for all sorts of reasons, of old hippie days tonight.
It was such a time.
Perhaps it's because a couple I knew then who were sort of Mom and Dad to so many of us young Tallahassee freaks are celebrating their fiftieth wedding anniversary today.
Good Lord.
I remember when I met them and found out that they'd been married for seven years. Seven years! And they had two beautiful daughters and became a very important part of my life.

Or maybe it's because I'm listening to a book by TC Boyle and in it he described a guy who kept a bottle of vodka in his freezer and it flashed me back to when I was with my first husband before we were married and we lived in a predominantly black neighborhood (which is now High Dollar White People World) and rented a little Jim Walters home from a lady named Willie May. Her son, Ben, lived across the road and he was the first person I ever met who kept a bottle of vodka in the freezer.
He told me that when he got home from work, he loved to smell whatever it was I was cooking that night. Black-eyed peas, greens, corn bread...
I was a southern hippie girl.

We lived two doors down from a juke joint called Muzzes'. Muzz, real name Mabel, made the best fried chicken sandwich you'd ever want to eat. She was grace and kindness incarnate.

We had a bulldog named Beck, we hunted mushrooms in the acres and acres and miles of cow pasture behind us. We tripped a lot.

This was all before I had children, but not long before.

It was a time, y'all.

It was a different time and I swear to you, I never gave the least thought to living to the age of 62 in the 21st century and I certainly never thought there would be a president worse than Richard Nixon.

Well. My friends are still married and he's still a musician. My ex-husband is still a musician too.
I don't have a bulldog.
I don't keep my vodka in the freezer.
I don't hunt mushrooms.

But I still cook greens and beans and cornbread and the cornbread is cooked in the same skillet I had then.

I still live in a very mixed neighborhood but goddam it, there's no juke joint in Lloyd at all.

I'm still a hippie in my heart, true to the blood.

And that's what I'm thinking about this Saturday night as greens simmer on my stove.
What a long, strange trip it's been.

Love...Ms. Moon



16 comments:

  1. You were a tiny hippy. I can't get over how young you looked with Jesse as a baby. You've lived a wonderful life (except for the childhood shit). I admire you so much.❤

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    1. Oh, Joanne. You are eternally sweet. I have just gone along as everyone does, you know? But I have had had so much to be grateful for in my life. It's the damn truth.

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  2. I made my husband read this....he's a 58 year old ex musician (drummer) who grew up in the Sout htoo. He chuckled and said..."She's got insight!" :) We both enjoyed this post.

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    1. Haha! Yeah. I know whereof I speak when it comes to certain things.

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  3. Sweetpea (I hope you pardon the term and take no offense) I'm ten years older, and my wife you remind me of Cary, my wife, died in '96. We had our adventures with the various accouterments of our period too...the local mushroom that grew in the spring in the rain in the Willamette Valley, the odd other things that made their way up from Mexico, etc.

    A time like no other, nor will it be repeated. We are fortunate, we few, we band of brothers and sisters. May we live long, and remember.
    Cheers
    Mike

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    1. You may call me sweetpea anytime. It is one of my own favorite endearments. I am so sorry that your wife is no longer with you. I am sure you carry her in your heart every minute.
      And yes- we ARE fortunate! We remember when the Beatles had new albums coming out! And so much more. We were a band of brothers and sisters, weren't we? Damn.

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  4. I like you post. It made me reminisce, too. Our anniversary will be next June – 50 year, but my husband won’t know because of his illness. We were married in June 1967, the year of love in San Francisco. I had been living in San Francisco for 6 years then. We were almost hippies, but not quite because we both worked. But my hair was long and he placed flowers in it. For our honeymoon we went to the Monterey International Pop Festival and saw Jimi Hendrix burn his guitar, The Mamas and Papas were there , Ravi Shankar and Big Brother and the Holding Company (my husband knew Janis Joplin, she was there too.) Then there were free concerts in Golden Gate Park and in Berkeley. But after that the scene changed and the hippy wannabe came over, and it was never the same. I went back to San Francisco 2 years ago and to the Haight-Ashbury, it is commercialized but the hippy wannabe are still coming, behind all the tourists. The early 60s in SF – these were the days for sure and I am pleased I was there (lived in SF almost 10 years, or the whole decade.)

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    1. Wow. You have the bonafides, lady! Seriously and for real.
      The memories you have are amazing. What experiences! I am sorry to hear about your husband. I wish you peace. I wish you love.

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  5. I love hearing about your colorful past! It's funny (and sad) to think back to that time when Richard Nixon seemed like the worst possible presidency. I never did mushrooms! I consider it a serious lapse in my southern upbringing.

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  6. Funny to look back on the people that were around, and how they've changed. I am usually rather surprised. Think I must have been a bad judge of character or something because they never have turned out like I expect!

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    1. Well, 'tis true, dear Jenny that some people definitely did not turn out like we thought but some turned out far better than I thought they would and that is a lovely thing.

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  7. Similarly, would you have ever believed this back then?: The Colorado Department of Revenue just released its final statistics for 2016, the state’s third year of recreational marijuana sales — and MMJ and recreational marijuana sales combined totaled $1.3 billion in sales. Strange trip, indeed.

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    1. NO! I wouldn't have believed it. Well, maybe I would have believed that more than some of the things I've seen happen in my lifetime, some horrible and some incredibly wonderful.
      Good on Colorado, eh?

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  8. So many things I would not have believed. Among them that such a place as the blogosphere would exist.

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