Hippies

So whassup with Steve Pearce's congressional campaign in New Mexico? He's worried about hippies:

With Phish gone, Jerry Garcia dead and Woodstock nearing its 40th anniversary, I think we can all admit that hippies are no longer here (though their... particular love of a certain plant is well in place, as one can see from Seth Rogen and James Franco's newest movie).

Well, except for in the deluded minds that are behind the advertisements at the Steve Pearce campaign. If you saw the Albuquerque Journal the other day (hell, for all I know, today as well), then you saw an ad where hippies holding signs showing "radical" positions.

Hmmm.... Hippies.

Ahh, Bernalillo, New Mexico, during the hot summer of 1978 - 30 years ago! I remember sitting in my grandmother's mobile home on a stifling hot summer's day and listening to my dad and Gramita (my grandmother) discussing hippies:

Dad: I think I saw some hippies at the store.
Gramita: I saw some hippies last week.
Dad: Ooooh, hippies!

I thought the conversation strange, because I had hardly seen any hippies for years - since, say, 1972? They weren't very common by 1978 - almost vanishingly rare, like whooping cranes.

Thirty years later, it's safe to say, hippies are essentially gone. Yet Steve Pearce bases his campaign on a fear of hippies.

Tick, tick, tick: Time moves on.... It had moved on by 1978. How much more so today?