Long Time Passing

[image error] Here is what you remember from the 60′s:

1. Some of the high schoolers, who were huge and terrifying to the elementary- school you, wore black armbands.

2. At the yearly high school talent show, something you lived for because you idolized those huge and terrifying high schoolers, a girl with long dark hair and a muslin granny dress sat in the center of the stage with a spotlight shining down on her head and played a guitar and sang "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"

3. At night the news had a running count of how many soldiers had died in the Vietnam War. Note: you think you remember this, but it's possible that you don't – it's possible that you read about that somewhere and turned it into a semi-memory, which seems to be the case with much of what you think you remember.

4. Drawing peace signs and writing LOVE and LUV in big squishy letters in your notebooks. Note: This might actually have happened in the 70′s. You just can't be sure.

5. An organic farm commune a few miles away from your home, named "Earthdance." You and your family had your own giant, mostly-organic vegetable garden, but you sometimes went to Earthdance to buy homemade bread. This was in the days before Sister #2 set out on her quest to become the New York State Bread Baking Champion and began filling the house with homemade bread.

Here is what you do not remember about the 60′s:

1. The day that JFK was shot.

2. Peace marches.

3. A sense of anger on the part of youth against their elders.

It all went right over your head, pretty much, the entire decade of the 60′s. And then one day the 60′s were over, and it was the 70′s, and you were in middle school. You were growing wildly, so fast that your bones literally hurt. You lay curled in bed at night, holding your thighs and knees, which sparked with pain. You lost weight because you were growing so fast.



Here is what you remember from the 70′s:

The 60′s were just past. It was the bare beginning of the 70′s. But you knew that you had missed out, and you wanted what you had missed. It was your goal to be a hippie. You decoupaged Desiderata and hung it in your room. You tie-dyed some clothes, including a yellow hat which your sisters scoffed at mercilessly. You tried to teach yourself how to play the recorder, the better to sit in a field of daisies playing  "Blowin' In the Wind" and "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"

Hippies sat in fields of daisies, living in the moment and playing the recorder, didn't they? They did. Surely they did. And they wore tie-dye yellow hats.

Sister #1: Where are you going in that yellow tie-dye hat?

You: For a walk.

Sister #1: In that yellow tie-dye hat?

You: Yes.

Sister #1: What's that under your arm?

You: Nothing.

Sister #1: Oh my God. Is that your recorder?

You: (no response)

Sister #1: Oh my God. Are you going out in back of the barn to sit in the field and play that thing?

You: (no response)

Sister #1: Oh my God. Sister #2! She's heading out into the field again to play that recorder!

Sister #2 (from kitchen, where she is kneading bread): Is she wearing the yellow tie-dye hat?

Sister #1: Mais oui!

Sister #2: Oh my God.

So it went, that summer. Something about a recorder, something about a field of daisies, something about a yellow tie-dye hat. Sister #2 went on to become the New York State Bread Baking Champion that year. To the best of your memory she never baked another loaf, once the trophy was hers. Sister #1 made a granny dress out of checked orange and white cotton. And in the face of steadfast opposition, you kept wearing your yellow tie-dye hat.