Retrospective Of A Boomer (part 4 of 4)

It sometimes seems like a dream, Right? Timothy Leary,

LSD, “Voices in the Sky,” In Search of the Lost Chord,

Haight-Ashbury, flower children (I wasn’t one but wished

I had been...I opted to be a hippie. Mind, they aren’t the same.);

lost in that murky realm between childhood and

a notion of lust and desire; wrestling hope and uncertainty;

alcohol, music, brilliant successes to dismal failures,

Vietnam disrupting the post-WWII “American Dream” 

of Donna Reed, Ozzie and Harriet, the Cleavers,

Norman Rockwell, and The Saturday Evening Post. 

Yet...there were race riots, Kent State, police brutality,

non-violent protests, War on Poverty, voting rights;

anti-establishment, racial equality, First Amendment rights,

women’s rights, “I have a dream,” and “... give peace a chance.”

The 1960s were too big, too much for anyone to grasp.

Some of us found a corner or a niche or a room with a view

and watched events unfold from everywhere we were not;

bemused, confused, excited by the chaos, many were rebels

in search of a cause, faced with the decision of either jumping

into the rough and tumble or crawling back into the womb,

alienated and disillusioned about what to do 

or where to go, just as we watched in the final scene 

of The Graduate, Benjamin and Elaine 

riding the bus to who knows where, 

and I and thousands of others were suddenly

brothers and sisters riding along with them.

From: A Meandering Search for

Innocence, Time, and Love

Unpub. MS p. 44