Enough of the 'Summer of Love' Already
August 08, 2017
If an 80-year-old visitor carries on the way he does about the Rat Pack vs the Beatles, he must positively lose it when he hears about the 1967 (or was it 68?) 'summer of love' - a time period highlighted by Woodstock. Even I, who lived through the time, tire of it, and always did.
At best, it was the summer of STDs. It was overgrown children kicking over the traces, as they have always done, but because it is charged with sex, rejecting the morals of their parents, it endures. That generation still trots out the phrase as though it was a glimmer of light in a dark world, a major assertion of love - and not just decadence.
Look, people have always slept around, but only with the 'summer of love' did it become a virtue. I suspect many of the current generation in which 2/3 have herpes have cursed their overindulgent elders.
I was part of the mob of college kids along for the ride, marching from campus into "downtown" Potsdam, NY. I caught a whiff of the pepper gas - man, you don't want to get near that stuff! I always thought it was phony - just an excuse to cut classes, riot, and party. That is not to say there were not sincere student protesters somewhere. But I never saw them.
It's very easy to grouse about something you don't like. Building something better is another thing entirely.
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