On the corner

So, we've all been called some names in our lives...
I've been accused of being a lesbian-lover, a cuff link-robber, a spell-casting witch, a bitch, a tree- humper, a misanthrope, an irrational idealist, a Space case, a braincell murderess, a goofy drunk, a Devil's Advocate, an obnoxious Why-Asker, a dirty Hippy, a cynic, a legless leader, a silly smiler, a sarcastic sap, a soybean fiend, a serial skinny-dipper, a penny-pincher, a rock-kicker, and a circumlocutive writer...
But, I have to say, that only the vast majority of those are true...

This past Friday evening, on the corner of Laurel Canyon and Ventura Blvd., I came to the disappointing realization that I am not now, nor have I ever been, nor will I ever be,
a good, honest-to-god Hippy.

I can rack up years of barefoot ambling through forests, box up hundreds of notebooks filled with cheesy nature ramblings, stick flowers in my nostrils and pontificate for months about the evils of certain, unnamed political Administrations...
But, I'll just never make the cut.

Ok.... that was the unnecessarilly circuitous way of getting to the fact that I recently attended an Anti-War/Katrina fundraising Vigil.

I joined my mom and her buddies on the corner, waving a sign that read "Peace is Patriotic" in my right hand, and my left index and middle finger extended to the honking traffic.
After the band had sung a ballad for Cindy Sheehan, a banjo/harmonica improve session segueed into a group sing-a-long of "We Shall Overcome.."
And, it was then I realized, aside from three very uncomfortable highschool kids wearing Pink Floyd shirts, that I was the only one present who hadn't also waved a sign in protest during the Vietnam war.

...hmmm.., I wondered. Where are the students? Where IS everybody?

I guess I thought that because I was living outside of the country for the past four or five or six years, I was somehow exempt from duty.... and that I could count on those who WERE in the country to make some NOISE. I guess I thought I would come back to screams and cries, threatening network T.V. channel reporting, and causing nation-wide population Laughter Riots... (I'm serious-- you should see the enormous effects of a good, solid Laugh on the Loose!)

But, I'll stop now, before I ramble myself into a crevass of ether...

(***P.S. Just for the record: I am not a lesbian.
....unless women have recently started carrying that tasty chunk of timber we all know and love)