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Flowers In Your Hair
Aug. 12th, 2007 08:26 pm
I went out for a drive today. Mechanic's orders. I've been having trouble getting gasoline into Esmerelda's tank. It might be that the carbon cannister's plugged; apparently Ford's had a run of that lately. If so, it's an easy fix, but they have to be able to put gasoline into the tank to check how things flow. So I had to get the gas lower in the tank somehow.
The sun was shining, and after the welcome thunderstorms this morning the wind had come around from the north, clear and cool. I drove over to Rogers City, on the Lake Huron shoreline. Walked on the beach a bit, had dinner, and came home. Life is hard.
While I was eating dinner, the oldies station played Scott McKenzie's hymn to flower power. I don't know the title, but it's the one that starts "If you're goin' to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair." And all of a sudden I was crying into my minestrone.
Why does that song always hit me that way? It's not like I have any good memories of being a hippie, alas. I only wish I did.
I was a good Beatle-hating bible banging Baptist Nixon Young Republican in those days. About all I can say in my defense about that is that I believed and trusted people in whom I should have been able to believe and trust. They betrayed me. No, not that. They were betrayed, most of them, as much as I was, as much as we all were, as much as we are all still being betrayed. I know it, while some of them never found out. Some of them are still sweet lovable puppy-souls licking the hand that beats them, not knowing from whence come the blows.
Thank God for Richard Nixon. He taught me everything I ever needed to know about politics or politicians.
But that's not why that song makes me cry. It's a plaintive, lovely song; that has a lot to do with it. But I think it makes me cry because it's a hymn to a dream that died, and most of my heart with it. We were going to change the world, all of us, flower children and Young Republicans alike, we were going to make the world better, and everyone would live happily ever after.
The world did change. The world did get better in a lot of ways. You have bigotry today; you had lynchings then. You have environmental pillage today; you had people choking to death from coal smoke in the streets of London and of Pennsylvania steel towns then. It got better.
But it didn't become perfect, as I'm sure those who follow us are more than delighted to tell us. As far as I can see, people are still people. A lot of them are still right bastards, and that happily-ever-after thing, if we ever do find it, will probably come in the form of a pill that shuts down all higher brain functions.
Sort of the pharmaceutical equivalent of television, perhaps.
I don't know-- I cry because of a dream lost, because we are what we are and not what we should be. Or maybe just because it's a lovely, plaintive song.
The sun was shining, and after the welcome thunderstorms this morning the wind had come around from the north, clear and cool. I drove over to Rogers City, on the Lake Huron shoreline. Walked on the beach a bit, had dinner, and came home. Life is hard.
While I was eating dinner, the oldies station played Scott McKenzie's hymn to flower power. I don't know the title, but it's the one that starts "If you're goin' to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair." And all of a sudden I was crying into my minestrone.
Why does that song always hit me that way? It's not like I have any good memories of being a hippie, alas. I only wish I did.
I was a good Beatle-hating bible banging Baptist Nixon Young Republican in those days. About all I can say in my defense about that is that I believed and trusted people in whom I should have been able to believe and trust. They betrayed me. No, not that. They were betrayed, most of them, as much as I was, as much as we all were, as much as we are all still being betrayed. I know it, while some of them never found out. Some of them are still sweet lovable puppy-souls licking the hand that beats them, not knowing from whence come the blows.
Thank God for Richard Nixon. He taught me everything I ever needed to know about politics or politicians.
But that's not why that song makes me cry. It's a plaintive, lovely song; that has a lot to do with it. But I think it makes me cry because it's a hymn to a dream that died, and most of my heart with it. We were going to change the world, all of us, flower children and Young Republicans alike, we were going to make the world better, and everyone would live happily ever after.
The world did change. The world did get better in a lot of ways. You have bigotry today; you had lynchings then. You have environmental pillage today; you had people choking to death from coal smoke in the streets of London and of Pennsylvania steel towns then. It got better.
But it didn't become perfect, as I'm sure those who follow us are more than delighted to tell us. As far as I can see, people are still people. A lot of them are still right bastards, and that happily-ever-after thing, if we ever do find it, will probably come in the form of a pill that shuts down all higher brain functions.
Sort of the pharmaceutical equivalent of television, perhaps.
I don't know-- I cry because of a dream lost, because we are what we are and not what we should be. Or maybe just because it's a lovely, plaintive song.
