Generations

Normal is Just a Setting but the Knob on my Dryer is Broken

/ cigarman501 / 8 Comments

“A ‘normal person’ is what is left after society has squeezed out all unconventional opinions and aspirations out of a human being.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

I just read a plea for normalcy. The plea had to do with the way a certain youth had chosen to dress. Was it her purple hair or her nose stud that set you off? “Why can’t they be like we were?” Because they live in a different world, and we aren’t the way we were.

This came from a person of a generation who might have worn a Poodle skirt while sucking on a Chesterfield unfiltered, or a coonskin cap and taken their shoes off to dance. Youth have always stretched the rules for normalcy according to the previous generation. Have you ever watched “Rebel Without a Cause” or “The Wild Ones?”

Charles Addams’ quote comes to my mind, “Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.” I wonder who I am, the spider or the fly?

Merriam-Webster defines normal as: “conforming to a type, standard, or regular pattern” and “according with, constituting, or not deviating from a norm, rule, or principle.” But who determines the standard, regular pattern, or rule? Society, culture, our previous learnings, all contribute to our view of normalcy but what happens when we begin to question it or worse, ignore convention?

As I questioned myself, I thought about the spider weaving a web. The web is how the spider survives but when the fly gets stuck in the web his chance of survival becomes nil.  Their concepts of normalcy are skewed in different directions. Both experience the web, yet their experiences are radically different…much like individuals from different generations.

Normal is an illusion dependent upon our point of view and few of us are willing to break out of the box society and our culture put us in. This is what you should wear, how you should act, and what you should believe. It is hard to throw off childhood programming instituted by our parents, their parents, teachers, and clergymen and as we get older the box becomes like hardened concrete. “Don’t confuse me with the facts….”

According to a blogger only known as Heather, “Normal is a box that our society created that reflects someone’s or some group’s definition of how things should be. Having these labels makes these people feel more comfortable about their own choices and ideologies. But everyone is different and that is what makes us who we are.”

She continued, “At the end of the day, normal is the biggest illusion you will ever buy into. Plus, why would you want to be normal and fit in with everyone else, when you were born to stand out?”

It is also boring to think that we are all cookie-cutter versions of someone else, yet society would have you do just that. I loved my parents, but I do not want to be them although I say things that came right out of my father’s mouth.

Most views of normal are forced upon us by our previous generations. My parents were just as critical of my fashion and music choices, choices of friends and girlfriends as we are critical of the next generation. Normal changes generationally.

These are the people telling others how to dress today.

When I taught, I tended to view students in terms of square and round pegs. Except for those few who felt the need to set their pegs on fire and went around humming Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall”.

Most students aspired to be round pegs that fitted nicely into their round holes…what we would, as teachers and as society, consider “normal.” They “fit” the norm. Studious, well behaved, driven to please, you get the idea…likely to bring the teacher an apple normal.

There were others. Square pegs who didn’t want to conform to the round holes. We teachers were expected to knock the edges off until we could force them into a hole no matter how constricting the hole was.

They were the ones who thought outside of their box and colored outside of the lines if they hadn’t turned their box into some type of art form. They wanted to express themselves in ways that didn’t reflect accepted cultural norms for teenagers. They were the ones who wanted to push the envelope whether it was the way they dressed, wore their hair, or participated in activities frowned upon by society. They were the rebellious youth of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off or Dazed and Confused.  Creative, and wishing to erase all boundaries.

Early in my career, I found the “little Buellers” to be as much a challenge as his movie teachers did. A teaching peer of mine pointed me in a different direction when she said, “These are the most creative students you will teach. If we can just get them out of high school, they will be okay.” I found this to be true.

Late in my career, when they weren’t driving me crazy, I found them the most interesting and I seemed to attract them. The kids who looked at the world with a tilted head, a quizzical look, and a sly smile. They weren’t bad kids, anything but. They questioned, they asked why or why not and weren’t willing to accept the “normal” answer, sometimes to the chagrin of their parents and teachers. (I don’t believe there are “bad” kids, only the ones we were unable to reach)

Unfortunately, our youth have become, in today’s climate, a part of a political battleground not of their own creation. Republicans versus Democrats, “woke” versus “anti-woke”, history versus CRT, straight versus LGQBT, parents versus teachers, parents versus parents, and Ron DeSantis versus history. I would not be able to teach in today’s climate…I would not want to. I hope our youth rebel against this “new” normal and create a “newer” normal of their own that reflects the true definition of “woke” and not the propaganda point.

I find it humorous that I have grown more liberal and “hippie-like” in my old age. I was one of the “normal” ones who came of age during the late Sixties. Normal as in haircuts every two weeks, starched button downs, khaki pants, and penny loafer normal. Anything to please your parents normal. I was patriotic as in “my country right or wrong.” I grew a beard and wore my loafers without socks as my protest against convention. In my Autumn years I have added blue jeans and Jimi Hendrix tee-shirts to my wardrobe.

The Sixties were a decade of extremes, of transformational change and bizarre contrasts: flower children and assassins, idealism and alienation, rebellion, and backlash. Somehow, I avoided the issues by wandering through the decade in a non-drug induced lack of consciousness.

By the end of the decade Americans had lost much of their innocence and optimism and parallels much of what I see today. I only began to embrace the lessons learned in the Sixties in my Autumn years. We are once again battling ourselves with our youth at the spear tip of some of our battles. Normal change is characterized as abnormal and both sides of an argument state the same points against each other.

Yes Charles Addams, “Normal is an illusion” and I have misplaced my rose-colored glasses.

***

The title of my post is a play on Patsy Clairmont’s book, “Normal is Just a Setting on Your Dryer”. It is available through Amazon.

Don Miller’s writings and novels may be found at https://tinyurl.com/2ef2a429 Don’s latest is a historical novel, “Thunder Along the Copperhead.”

Hippies, Good Ole Boys, and my Grandmother: A Rambling

/ cigarman501 / 2 Comments

 

Speaking to a gathering of Baby Boomers, I suggested professorially, “We are a product of the generation we grew up in” and proceeded to talk about my grandparents and their life during the depression.  As my brother made clear without saying so, it didn’t sound like a very interesting subject but the people listening to the presentation seemed to enjoy it and I enjoyed giving it…nah, nah…nah, nah, nah!  Only a handful fell asleep.

My grandparents were defined by the age of the Great Depression and to a certain extent, World War Two.  If stories are to be believed, they certainly did their part during the war but continued to “live” the depression right up until the day they died.  My parents?  The depression and World War Two, of course, along with the era of American Exceptionalism.

As I drove home, I thought about my life and the history that had defined it.  Somewhere around the small town of Blacksburg, I began to think about hippies.  An idle mind can be a terrible thing.

I was aware of hippies, as I was aware of the Cold War, Viet Nam, and the Civil Rights movement.  I was aware from a distance.  I was also aware of the protests of the Sixties that went with these events, all playing out in black and white while my brother and I ate our Swanson’s TV dinners watching Walter Cronkite on TV.  Sometimes it was hard to stomach, the TV dinners and the evening news.

The events of the Sixties and early Seventies helped mold my beliefs, but I didn’t realize how much until recently.  I also knew, despite the flattop I wore in the mid-Sixties, I felt a tug toward the counter-culture, one I withstood until recently.

I’ve always felt I was in a battle with two generations, one wearing conservative oxford cloth and khaki, the other a more liberal tie-dye and denim.  Lately, the generation of Weejuns is losing to the generation of “Jesus” sandals.

I have become more “hippie-like” as I have slogged into my “autumn” years and wonder if it is “my generation” defining me or was it my grandmother’s attitude toward her world.  No, my grandmother was not a hippie, but she had some hippie like attitudes.  Some attitudes one might attribute to the greatest hippie cult leader of all, Jesus of Nazareth.

Beliefs the earth’s bounties should be protected and shared with each other and future generations, loving thy neighbor as thyself, and despite her prejudices of the day, live and let live regardless of race, creed, color or religious affiliation.  No, she wasn’t perfect…well…except in my eyes.

Raised in the church she was devout but more to the point, she was spiritual and rooted solidly in the earth.  She planted and fished by the phases of the moon, seasonal “signs” and the Farmer’s Almanac.  Connected to the depression, she lived by the three ‘R’s’; recycle, repurpose, reuse.  Nothing was ever thrown away unless the question, “Can I use this for something else?” was answered.  Yep, my hippie grandmother.

Often, I feel I am an oddity, a “seasoned” man of Caucasian persuasion who has grown more liberal as he has grown older…more liberal than just adopting blue jeans and tee shirts as his primary wardrobe choice since retiring.  Is it that I’ve become more liberal or has liberalism grown more me?  Despite my question, I’ve decided the term hippie transcends the poles of a political spectrum.

When I say hippie, I’m not talking about those who didn’t walk the walk.  Sometimes “hippie” is used as a broad stroke.  There has been much written about Haight-Ashbury’s “Summer of Love”, the Grateful Dead, and Timothy O’Leary’s slogan, “Turn on, tune in, drop out”.

I understand the message but believe there were those in attendance just for the drugs, music, and the siren’s call of “free love.”  Mr. Khaki and Oxford Cloth did none of those things…certainly, I never turned on and making love never came without a price tag…but if “marijahoochie” becomes legal in my part of the world…I might turn on…especially as my arthritis gets worse.  Okay, I would turn on for sure and maybe I’ve already dropped out.

Many young people walked the walk desiring to make the world a better place, idealistically believing they could stand up against “the man.”  Some weren’t hippies at all, just young people who thought the war was wrong, all people were created equally, and had no desire to become radioactive dust.  They wanted to create a positive life and were simply lumped into the counter-culture with the long-haired, Commie, hippy freak, “make love, not war”, ni@@%^ loving bunch.  Lumped by the conservative right or “Moral Majority”, something still happening today.  Lumped despite the crewcuts that didn’t allow for “wear(ing) flowers in (their) hair.”1

We have enclaves of “hippie freak” types in areas around us…especially in the rougher and more isolated areas of the Blue Ridge Escarpment.  Not exactly communes, they are more like small villages of likeminded people, some living in small cabins, motor homes or aged out school buses.  All attempting to reduce their footprint on the face of the earth.  Most just want to live and let live while loving their neighbors no matter their sexual preference, skin color or religious affiliation.  I might add, regardless of political affiliation.  A lesson we should all learn from I believe.

“Hippies” living a life of self-reliance, the artsy types welding sculptures made from iron collected from the side of the road or junkyard.  Creating colorful paper from kudzu vines and leaves collected from the hillsides near their homes.  Potters throwing local clay and molding it into interesting desirables.  A particularly old “hippie” living near me creates sculptures from the burl wood he searches for from the seat of his wheelchair.  They are all quite liberal in belief…except when they are not.

Others live off the land, creating, and selling organically grown food…and drink…and certain inhalables.  Some create moonshine legally, others not so much.  Some grow marijuana in amongst their tomato and eggplants.  They come from all sides of the political spectrum, united with the belief that the government shouldn’t restrict their freedom of expression and leisure activities.

They still have causes, liberal only because they wish to effect change.  Like me, many folks in my “Dark Corner”2 are concerned about the water and air we breathe and drink and the environment we will leave behind to future generations.

I attended a gathering of like-minded people who were attempting to halt the domestication of a wild, local river in the name of progress.  The meeting was attended by trout fishermen, tree hugging, Sierra Club environmentalist types, and good ole boys who were just worried about the effects a lack of environmental management might have on their “tax-free” alcohol production.  I’m guessing there were more than a few folks attending who preferred to take their herbal supplements in deeply inhaled form.

Weejuns, brogans, work boots, Keen sandals, and motorcycle boots were all found under a picnic table, their wearers breaking bread…well…pulling pork and drinking beer.  There was as much flannel as tie-dye, khaki as denim, buzz cuts as long hair.  From this and other gatherings, the environmental advocacy group, “Save the Saluda”, was born.  My grandmother would have approved.

I’m happy to see young people or those young at heart standing up for issues they believe in, those who peacefully take to the streets or rally for a cause.  I don’t agree with some of their causes. I don’t have to and they shouldn’t care.  They aren’t my causes.  Like my “hippie” neighbors, they come in all shapes and sizes, buzz cuts to long hair, tee shirts and oxford cloth, high school seniors and lifetime seniors.  All want their voices heard.

As I made my landfall from Blacksburg, I still didn’t exactly know what a hippie was or if I am one.  I just know for me it is more state of mind than where I sit on a political spectrum, or whether I choose oxford cloth or tie-dye.  Let’s tie-dye our oxford cloth.  Please label me if you must, I will wear a liberal, hippie freak badge proudly.  Just remember, it is your label for me, not mine.  I am much more than a label…as are you.

“And the sign said, “Everybody welcome. Come in, kneel down and pray”
But when they passed around the plate at the end of it all
I didn’t have a penny to pay
So I got me a pen and a paper and I made up my own little sign
I said, ‘Thank you, Lord, for thinkin’ ’bout me. I’m alive and doin’ fine'”3

  1. San Fransico (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair) sung by Scott McKenzie and written by John Phillips.  Verse paraphrased by me to fit.
  2. The “Dark Corner” of South Carolina is the Blue Ridge Mountain foothills area of Greenville and Spartanburg Counties, known for resisting nullification and embracing illegal moonshine production during the Great Depression.
  3. Signs, sung by The Five Man Electrical Band and written by Les Emmerson

For other musings by Don Miller go to his author’s page at https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

Image from https://hippiesonhaight.weebly.com/summer-of-love.html