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Mohawk Valley’s Healthcare Newspaper
November 2011 • Issue 69
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Reconnect with your hippy days By Barbara Pierce
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It’s not lost,” said 57-year-old Bruce Penske about his long-lost hippy. “It never went away. Once a hippy, always a hippy. It’s a state of mind.” To many Baby Boomers, “hippy” evokes vivid memories of love, peace, Woodstock, flower children, traveling in a VW bus, rock music, folk music. “Woodstock is more than a moment in time. It is about a way of being in the world,” says the website Woodstock.com. Steve Falco, of Utica, also 57, agrees with the Woodstock website slogan and Penske. “I’m just as nuts as I was then,” he said with a laugh. “I’m older, but I still have the same values. I still love the same music.” Falco is the owner and drummer of The Steve Falco Easy Money Big Band in the Mohawk Valley. Music of the ‘60s eloquently spelled out the values of the hippies. “We started questioning authority. We started asking ‘why?’” said Penske. “And we wanted peace. It was all in the songs.” Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s “Ohio”‘ mourned the four slain students at Kent State University. “Where have all the young men gone—gone for soldiers, everyone,” was Peter, Paul and Mary’s protest of the Vietnam war. As was Bob Dylan’s “How many deaths will it take ‘till he knows that too many people have died?” Acclaimed author and poet Eleanor Lerman lived the hippy life in Greenwich Village. She believes that,
for many, the memories and strong ideals of youth can fade. “When we were young, we were searching. We had many spiritual ideas,” she said. “Then we got lost in everyday stuff. The pressure of middle class and the issues of middle age absorbed us.” Lerman grew up in the Bronx and Far Rockaway, and now lives in Long Beach, Nassau County. In 1973, when Lerman lived in Greenwich Village, her celebrated work of poetry, “Armed Love,” was published. It received much attention, and a double X rating. Only 21 years old at the time, Lerman was not prepared for the notoriety thrust on her. She abandoned writing for more than 20 years. When she went back to writing, she considered the long distance between her two worlds: who she was as a young woman, and who she is now. The time comes, when we’re older, that we begin thinking again about those spiritual ideals we had as young people, she believes. “It’s very impor-
November 2011 •
tant, as we get older, that we go back to the spirituality of our youth. We begin to realize that those ideas and values may be even more important to us today,” added Lerman. Lerman believes those ideals they once held high may help boomers rediscover relevance and meaning in the lives they live today. She explores this in detail in her new novel, “Janet Planet.” The original intent of the novel was to rewrite the life of Carlos Castaneda, said Lerman. “He was a guru to us; his work meant a great deal,” she said. Aging hippy Janet Planet moves to Woodstock to re-establish her life. Like Planet, Lerman recommends that members of the Woodstock generation recapture the spirituality of their youth. Reconnecting with our personal spiritual beliefs is a worthwhile quest as we grow older. Lerman strongly agrees with the phrase, “Don’t follow leaders” that Bob Dylan sang in “Subterranean Homesick Blues.” “Life is all about exploring the mystery yourself, rather than blindly following a spiritual leader or organized religion,” Lerman said. “We don’t need a guru, a minister or a priest to tell us how to get meaning. We’re old enough and wise enough to know how.” On Dec. 11, at Herkimer County Community College, Easy Money will play at a benefit for veterans of the Korean War.
IN GOOD HEALTH – Mohawk Valley’s Healthcare Newspaper
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