by Cynthia Trowbridge

Created on: May 07, 2008

I was born on the cusp of the counter culture in June 1969. I was at Woodstock when I was two months old. My father, who was a recently ordained Christian minister married three couples at Woodstock while my mother danced naked in the mud. The other adults that rode the bus with us to the Woodstock Festival took care of the me and my siblings and the other children, while my parents did their thing. Then my parents took their turn looking after the children. But that may be the stereotype. Here is the reality.

My parents met in the peace corp in 1963 in Honduras, helping to build homes and teach the locals. My father, who had been studying to become a rabbi had discovered Christianity and converted, much to his father's chagrin. Joel decided that his life was better served elsewhere and he left the home of his rabbi father. He says he was not running from anything, but running toward something better. I think it was a combination of the two. My mother was a Debutante from a wealthy family in Virginia. Halfway through her "coming out" she realized the hypocrisy of it all and she just couldn't deal. She dropped out of society and did not speak to her family again for three years. She also says she was not running away.

So Joel and Barb became instant friends and lovers. Once their tour in the corp had ended, they and a group of friends migrated to the eastern shore in Maryland where the found a plot of land. They put up a roof and makeshift walls and applied as homesteaders. Five years later, the land was theirs; all eight of them. The house in which I was raised had no electricity until I was 10. We did not have indoor plumbing until I was 14. It was in incredible place to grow up. We had animals on the land. Everyone in the house shared everything and all decisions were agreed upon by all of the house members.

My early years were fantastic. We went to protests and rallies. As I mentioned,our house had no electricity. We had a short wave radio and books for entertainment . A big source of literature in my life was the Bible. My father was fluent in Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin and had a great deal of knowledge regarding translation of the Bible. Sundays were fantastic in my house. We had some amazing bible discussions. Some of the debates were rather heated, but the respect was always there.

As children, we DID have rules. We had were home schooled, but we were schooled. If we all went to the store at the same time, we were well behaved. If we were not, we would be sent to the car to sit until the shopping was done.

The reality about the hippie movement is that it was NOT drug based. It was NOT a fad. It was NOT something that teens thought would be fun. Kids of that time wanted to make a difference. The apathy of today's youth is sad to me. A top ten song a couple of years ago proclaimed "We're waiting on the world to change." The hippie movement did not seek to wait. They wanted change and felt they could achieve change.

It was not a sub culture. It was a counter culture. The movement rejected all that had come before. They worked for the common good. The worked for the betterment of humanity as a whole. Perhaps they were misguided. They were young. But they should never be placed on the back burner for their youth. They were not selfish or self centered. They were selfless. They were for all man. They lived for life.

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