Old hippies abound at the Tucson Peace Fair

The 28th Annual Tucson Peace Fair was Saturday, February 27. Despite grey skies, hundreds of Tucsonans turned out for an afternoon of peace, music, social justice, and community.

Dozens of informational booths representing everything from socially responsible investing to the Tucson Astrologers Guild ringed the area around the Reid Park band shell. Pictures tell the story better than words, so check out the slide show linked below.

This article originally appeared in my Baby Boomer Examiner column. Check out this link to view a slide show of the event.

New Year's Resolution: Do More with Less

A few years ago, I was walking through Macy's in San Francisco and checking out the latest fashions. This was about 5 years ago when the '60s and '70s looks first started coming back in style. The upscale downtown store was filled with fringed suede purses, lace-up leather boots, beaded necklaces, and crocheted vests from the hippie era and weirdly psychodelic mini-dresses, big sunglasses, and platform shoes from the early disco era. (Who knew that platform shoes would come back?)

The blue jean mini-skirts struck me in particular because they were authentically ragged, although quite pricey. The handmade look was reminiscent of the original blue jean skirts that we old hippies made in the early 1970s.

I sewed my first blue jean skirt from pair of cutoff shorts when I was a freshman in college. Since the dorm sewing machines were possessed by mechanical demons, we sewed these skirts by hand, which gave them a particularly crude look.

My mother was appalled by the rugged workmanship of my creation. In the fall of 1969, she sent me to college wearing wool sweaters with matching wool skirts, purses, and tasteful heels. When I came home in the spring, I was wearing a home-made love bead necklace that I strung; an orange hand-crocheted vest; my hand-sewn, blue jean mini-skirt; and Water Buffalo sandals. Except for the sandals, I had created my outfit with a handful of raw materials, a bit of ingenuity, and some skills I learned in junior high home economics class.

Fast forward 40 years to 2010, where is that personal ingenuity today? In the current economic climate, I believe we should look back to the '60s and '70s for direction. Gardening, composting, eating healthy meals, making your own clothes, living simply and naturally, and living in harmony with nature and other people were all in style.

How can you emulate this lifestyle today? Here are a few tips on living more simply:

- Evaluate your household. Does your house or apartment suit your family's size? Is if convenient to your work or do you have a long commute. You may consider downsizing or moving closer to your work to save money and energy costs.

- Do you know how to knit, sew, or crochet? These are useful skills. Consider taking a community class or asking a friend to give you a few lessons. If you know these crafts, teach your children. (They'll thank you someday.)

- Check out your closet. Are their clothes that could be updated or restyled into other fashions? Recycled fashion is in style-- particularly in Tucson. Maybe you could make pillow covers or other decorative household items from these clothes.

- Harvest rainwater and grow a garden.

- Plant trees to shade your property.

- Start a compost.

- Buy and eat locally.

- Reuse and recycle.

- Engage your family-- particularly your children-- in these activities.

I challenge you to more with less this year. You may find that this enriches your life.

This article originally appeared in my Baby Boomer Examiner column. To see a slide show of recycled art, check out this link.

You know you're a Baby Boomer when...

20. You remember dial telephones, five-digit telephone numbers, and party lines—telephone party lines, not political party lines.

19. You remember watching The Lone Ranger, Howdy Doody, the original Mickey Mouse Club, Johnny Carson, and Steve Allen on a black and white television—although you were probably too young to understand the jokes Carson and Allen were telling.

18. You remember when almost everyone’s mom was a homemaker and dad was the breadwinner.

17. You remember the excitement of the Sears Catalog—especially the Christmas edition.

16. You remember when people paid cash for everything and to pay for Christmas presents in December people opened Christmas Club accounts the January before.

15. You remember when the only television stations you could get were the three local affiliates for NBC, ABC, and CBS. That, of course was long ago, when there was news, investigative reporting, and locally-produced programming on television.

14. You remember the British “invaded” the US—musically, that is—and all music was on vinyl.

13. You remember the draft and the prime time ritual of pulling military draft numbers from a rotating bin, as if it were a macabre, life-and-death lottery (which it was).

12. You remember the days that President John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Kent State students were shot.

11. You remember watching the Senate Watergate hearings live on television and watching President Nixon leave the White House after his resignation.

10. You or someone close to you served in Vietnam, protested against the Vietnam War, or moved to Canada to avoid the draft.

9. You have at least dabbled in Eastern religions, meditation, yoga, tai chi, alternative medicine, vegetarianism, controlled substances, and/or composting.

8. You own a copy of the Tao te Ch’ing, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Diet for a Small Planet, or anything by Carlos Casteneda.

7. You remember when everyone smoked cigarettes everywhere, and LSD was legal.

6. You learned to type on a manual typewriter.

5. You remember AM transistor radios were a miracle of technology, computers filled entire rooms, and data entry was done on key-punch machines.

4. You remember when abortion was illegal, and the birth control pill had not been invented.

3. You remember the sexual revolution before AIDS, HIV, and herpes.

2. You own something tie-dyed and wore it to a Woodstock 40th anniversary party.

1. Regardless of your gender, you have an old photo of yourself with shoulder-length hair, a beaded necklace, hairy armpits, and no bra.

We’ve come a long way, baby…