Greg...man

 Greg...man

      There was a dilemna we faced living through the later1960's where we wanted to be identified with the hippies and had disdain for the squares or plastic people but liked comfort. Problem was the adults in our lives wanted nothing to do with raggedy looking kids who rejected the depression generation morals, disliked work and wanted to be "free." Even we drew the line and did not want to be the pretentious hippies of Easy Rider who lived on communes, ate brown rice, and stunk like BO tinged with patchouoli. Any gatherings, like the "Be Ins" at Griffith Park were a mixed bag of earnest kids who wanted social change and downright bums who wanted no part of any responsibility. While I grew long hair, I did bathe and had no intention of ever being separated from TV or my Mom's home cooked meals. BC was not ready to house hippies and when I finally was able to grow a beard Grace Sheehy took a look and said "yeccchhh!" Yet, deep down we liked Rock music, smoked the weed of love, found hippie chicks the sexiest and heaped abuse on straight society who we called "the Plastic People. Somehow Greg grew his abundant curly, dark hair long but not shoulder length while being a true child of the sixties without looking like a member of the Grateful Dead. He loved the Doors, the Who, the Stones and even Frank Zappa but always worked and maintained a great relationship with his Mom and Dad. Jack never moved toward the hippy side and remained a straight man in a straight world. Greg used recreational drugs and surprisingly was not much of a drinker until his times in the desert. When he and Bobcat lived in harmony on Saturn they smoked many a joint but drank unfiltered apple juice. The point here is that Greg had a linguistic shortcut to his referral of anything hip or hippie by waiting a beat and throwing in a "man" at the end of the sentence. Musically this would not include his enjoyment of newer rock bands like the Doobies or even Steely Dan but only those considered psychedelic. I might remind him of  the old German Ford my Dad bought me at Al Siegel that I hipped up by painting an American flag on the dashboard. I would remind him of the lead pipe that served as a shift in my faux-hippy days and he would affrim the memory by saying "yes...man"