Reunions

30 years ago, my stepfather, Gary, my mother, Bee, and my father, Jake, and I all lived (in various combinations) on a commune called (with some subtlety) THE LAND. It has been a bookmark in all of our personal histories--more so of my parents, of course, who have memories that are steeped with such misty-eyed nostalgia, that the moment you heard the words, "When we were living on THE LAND..." you could swear there was the smell of reefer and incense in the air, and a dim soundtrack of Joni Mitchell singing: "And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden..."

On Sunday, during my weekly conversation with my parental units, Pam and Gary, Gary said rather excitedly, "I just filled your e-mail box." With what, I wanted to know. It turns out that through the easy access of the internet and e-mail, a reunion chain has been spawned for the far flung members of The Land. Gary included me on the correspondence. I thought, "Oh how cool." Some people I have only made up memories of through the various purple haze stories I have heard through the years, and others, who I remember very clearly from my childhood. It seemed to me a very interesting cultural example--where are all these people now?

I go off line 4 days a week--partly because I don't have easy internet access outside the office, but I also FEEL better when I am not constantly logging on, checking on things, and scanning the interactive TV that is the internet. I am used to a small collection of e-mails awaiting my response, but was not prepared for the NINETY-SIX forwarded e-mails from this little reunion chain that could! GEEZ LOUISE! Retired hippies can e-mail, people!

I haven't had time to read through everything, but from what I have read, it's been interesting to see where people have scattered to since 1977. Some are documentary filmmakers, some are editors, some went to prison, some are dead, some are in Canada, some are grandparents. I am very curious to see what happened to the other kids that were affiliated. I guess I'll have to wade through the FIFTY or SO remaining e-mails. One thing that seems evident just from the limited reading I did, is that no matter how diverse the paths of these people are, all of them have been through it, all of them are still making their lives by hand--something that drew them all to The Land in the first place.

Reunions are weird things--they can either be welcomed events filled with connection and recognition or they can be prickly, inasive, painful things. Either way, they are filled with stories. I can't wait to hear them all.

Sunday Scribblings: Instructions

How to Be a Product of Hippies: The first 21 years.

1. If you aren’t born at home, be brought home to a shack, preferably one remodeled from a chicken coop or a barn. If possible, neither parents should be gainfully employed. They should be “living on love” otherwise known as “living by their wits” or more accurately, through odd jobs and state assistance. Make sure your father either has hair the same length as your mother, and/or give her a run for her money, with overflowing facial hair. Have him listen to Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” on the way home from the hospital. It will make him think of you.

2. Be named after the following: seasons, weather, Biblical characters, Greek mythology, misheard names from movies, moods, or deities.

3. Spend early parts of your childhood either completely naked, or slightly adorned by beads, a pair of sandals or moccasins.

4. If your parents don’t stay together, plan to spend weekends at your dad’s makeshift home, surrounded by metal sculptures, Southwestern rugs, and tie-dye t-shirts, listening to the Doobie Brothers, and watching dad roll his “cigarettes” and drinking beer. Mom will start sporting tinted sunglasses, and wear scarves in her hair, while finding out the price of a goat, you will keep in the back yard, along with the Chinese ducks and apricot trees.

5. Be warned: when someone offers you carob, it is not the same thing as chocolate. Not even close. Be baffled at adults’ insistance that it is better for you. Also, when you are served spaghetti, it will be thick, green, flat noodles, tough as rope. This will be better for you, as it is made from spinach. Get used to the vitamin scent of healthfood stores and goat’s milk instead of regular old milk. Learn that tofu, that incredibly thick and bland thing that shows up in your spaghetti comes from a bathtub, in someone’s house.

6. Learn that President Reagan is the anti-christ. Curse his wrinkled, rosy cheeked face, like your stepdad, when he comes on the TV. Write letters against nuclear war to him. Be upset that nothing happens. Be outraged when the Republicans continue to win. Feel that the government is not to be trusted. You are twelve.

7. Be totally embarrassed that your parents love to party. Lay in bed, listening to them howl and cackle with their friends in the living room. Listen to a story being told by your stepmom’s friend, about when she wasn’t with your dad, and how they threw hash in some omelettes one morning, only to have her parents show up unannounced. Laugh to yourself when you imagine your stepmom’s stuffy mother declaring that the coffee was making her “dizzy.”

8. Go to high school and get ridiculed for your name. Think it makes you deep. Believe in things strongly. Continue the thought that all Republicans and people with money are morally corrupt. Everywhere you look, people are MORALLY CORRUPT. Believe that you will find yourself once you go to college, which won’t be just any college, but a small liberal arts school that no one has heard of. Think it makes you deep.

9. When you are away at college, discover feminism, discover outrage. Believe that the commune you lived on as a half naked babe was a toxic environment and that your parents were selfish to bring you there. Date another biblically named hippie child. Love his sensitive, but politically minded soul. Together, you discover all the meanings behind what it was to be brought up this way, this way being a hippie child.

10. Over Christmas break get in fights with your parents over your “upbringing.” Tell them how wrong they were. They in turn will tell you how corrupt your “generation” is. How your generation doesn’t “get” what it really means to be radical and on the front lines and filled with wisdom.

11. Vote in your first election. Feel excited. Call your parents. They voted for him too. Celebrate. For he first time ever, you feel that the "good guys have won."

12. Graduate from college with a BA in the arts. Your thesis will be a documentary of your soul, or 25 views of the Male Psyche, or an entire semester of self-portraits. Believe your work is important even revolutionary. Then get a job as a waitress.

My Name is Summer, and Yes My Parents Were Hippies

People like to make fun of my name. As a temp, you meet people more than you normally would, and so I’ve been getting it more than usual in the last six months. "Summer?” One out of three will say, “Oh, well I'm Winter, nice to meet you!" Then they follow it with, "I bet you get that a lot." I humor them and smile and shrug it off, but after the third time in one day, I am thinking: Nah. YOU'RE THE GENIUS. Since it’s wintertime and very cold in New York, I’m often asked, “Why didn’t you bring summer with you?!” I am looking forward to the summertime, when a heat wave hits, and somebody says, “It feels like YOU out there.” How would you know, buddy?

Up until high school, I lived a relatively free from “winter” existence. Then again, I grew up in what I have learned since then, is considered an ALTERNATIVE environment. I went to a hippie school, and my classmates had names that included Andromeda, Boreas, Vitali, Oak, and Rolly (pronounced Role-e)(hi guys!). Considering the roll call, I was kind of the "Jane Smith" of the group. However, regardless of the pillows on the floor, and meetings where we had to discuss our feelings, I still got teased on the playground and called names. None of them were season-based. They were things that rhymed with my name--names that STILL make me cringe and feel bad. Names like "Bummer" and "Dumber." "Hey, Winter." Didn't come until I entered public school as a freshman. Then it was open season, so to speak.

If you opened my yearbooks, you would see (in all 4 years) that 90% of the entries end with "Have a good summer Summer (ha ha)." Sometimes the more creative types would write "Have the summer of summers, Summer (ha ha)."

My freshman year, the showcase model for the game show Sale of the Century was named Summer Bartholomew. If I had a dime for every guy in a Corona t-shirt that asked me, “Hey, are you related to Summer Bartholomew?” I wouldn’t have any college loans to pay off.

When I applied to colleges, I usually got two responses: one addressed to Pierre and the other addressed to Summer. I used to joke that Pierre got into college, but Summer did not. As it happens, in ALMOST all cases, neither did. (ha ha)

Then, I moved to the East Coast. East coast people find it a very funny name. This morning, as it would happen, two co-workers discussed my name in front of me, and one said, “I didn’t think it was your real name.” I get that a lot. Maybe it’s because there aren’t any hippies left here. I know the cultural consciousness happened on the east coast, because I’ve met people that had hippies for parents, but it seems that east coast hippies have moved on to academic postings or documentary filmmakers, and they seem to name their kids Amos or Noah, and not after seasons or other natural occurrences.

The good news about having a name like Summer is that people remember you. Or when they don't, they come up with the most interesting alternatives. I had a guy ask me once, "What is your name again--Sunshine?" SUNSHINE? Oh, it SO is now...

All said and done, I have to admit that I like my name. I know it fits me, as someone who is arty and who had hippies for parents. Incidentally, I knew a woman named Winter--she was my classmate Oak's mother. They lived on a commune with a kid who's real name was Cisco. In an act of wanting normalcy, Cisco declared in 3rd grade that his name was now DAVID. I hear he is on Wall street.

The point of this little tirade is that my friend Erica wrote to me yesterday and asked if I knew that the name 'Summer' was becoming popular. She had gone into a kid's store and saw all this merchandise with the name 'Summer' on it. Maybe it's the kid in me who watched with envy as every Rebecca, Jennifer, and Kathy got barrettes, mugs, lunchboxes, stickers with their lovely names on it, who wants to say to all the new Summers out there--LUCKEEE. The other part of me wants to say, GOOD LUCK. Then again, with an army of Summers out there, maybe they won't need it.