Chapter 3: Buddy Check

Chapter 3: Buddy Check

While driving west of Boston through the woodland hills of Massachusetts, I sat behind Driver Brian listening to him speak with the soccer player from Boston. “Where did you live when you were a kid?” she asked him earnestly.

“In a cooperative,” he informed her.

“Is that like a commune?” she asked.

“Ha!” he laughed. “I should hope not.” His eyes lit up with his smile. “A cooperative is a place you live with other people, typically in a place you could never afford yourself, but instead of owning your digs, you share the whole property. It’s a bit like rent control.”

“Like a condo?” she questioned.

“Not really,” he informed her. “We were all about sharing resources with our neighbors. We lived in a yurt on a communal farm in Cupertino.

“Hell yeah,” said the soccer player. “That’s so cool.” She had an athletic spirit to match her build. Just like Sporty Spice from the Spice Girls, she was a kickass brunette with an empowered attitude. She was smart and fun altogether.

“There are several types of co-ops in the Bay Area,” Driver Brian explained. “Some are just apartment buildings, but there’s almost always a monthly fee. In ours we could not sell our share when we left. We loved it there, but someone else started paying the fee and we lost our right to go back. The fees are stupid expensive in the bay area.”

“Wicked!” I said. “I wish I grew up in a place like that.”

“It was great,” he gushed. “I would still be living there now if I could.”

“Why did you leave?” asked Sporty Spice.

“There was a parting of ways between people living in the woods and the established people living in more permanent structures,” he explained. “So, my parents fought against them, and we eventually moved away. They wanted everyone to pay the same fee regardless of where you were living. It was totally unfair. It did not make sense to pay the same money as someone in a house with running water and electricity, and heat for that matter. Some of the old-growth Hippies were still living in lean-tos and tents, sometimes just a hammock.”

“I love the term Old-Growth-Hippies. I never heard that before this trip,” I told him.

“They’re still out there,” he said. “There’s no shortage of old-school tie-dyed-in-the-wool folks from the sixties in San Francisco.”

“We walk among you in disguise,” the boy’s Mother Michelle suddenly interjected. She had a cool way about her. “We don’t get the respect we deserve for trying to save the world,” she opined. “The word Hippie isn’t even capitalized in our language.”

“It should be,” voiced the Bostonian.

“I’m going to start capitalizing it,” I told them.

“It’s sad,” observed Mother Michelle. “Many of your generation have lost sight of us Old-Growth Hippies and what we stood for. We fought for women’s rights, we fought against the war, we were idealists, anti-materialistic and very much seeking out innovative ideas. We had a sense of purpose, like we were doing something good with our lives,” she told us. “All that remains is a terribly commercialized relic of what was once a pristine and beautiful thing. Young people see us as desperately conventional because we value frugal living and buying wholefoods in bulk, instead of paying a premium for individual servings of frozen microwavable kale. That shit produces a shit-ton of waste.” As she took a breath, the two women looked at each other and nodded in solidarity. She concluded, “If your rice comes in a box, you’re definitely not an Old-Growth Hippie.”

“That’s funny,” observed the Bostonian, “but I see your point.”

“The kids today only love themselves,” spat Michelle. “It’s all about me, me, me.”