For this entire year of 2024, I have been withholding a lifestyle decision from you. Now that it is officially over, I thought I would tell you about it. But, first a little background story:
I was in college in the 1960s when hippies, demonstrations, and such things were frequently happening on college campuses. I wanted to join it, but that was simply not possible. I was too busy working 40 hours a week while taking a nearly full course load. That left about 4 hours a night for sleeping and other things. Scholarships and student loans were not available to me for reasons I don’t want to get into here, so it was strictly “pay as you go” for my college education.
While I was in college I learned to play an acoustical guitar from a good friend, who graduated the year before I did and was killed in Vietnam after just one week there. Thanks to Don, I memorized plenty of folk songs that were popular during those times. Unfortunately, I have forgotten even what a guitar sounds like after so many years of deafness. But, I do remember many of the verses from songs by Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, Peter, Paul & Mary, and others.
After college, I was active in a few demonstrations, but my dream of being a hippie and living in a commune just never happened. You could say being a hippie was a bucket list item, but I never until recently thought of it that way.
Finally, in early November 2023, I decided I would let my hair grow for a year, just to see how it would look. No, I didn’t join a commune, but my RetCom is sort of a commune. It is 200 or so people living under one roof, eating meals together and getting together for various activities. If you ask me, that kinda describes a commune.
I found out that my hair grows about 1/2 inch a month, so it was 7 inches long by early this month. I tried to figure out how to manage hair that long, but I was pretty much a failure at it. It just kept getting uglier and uglier. My kindred spirit friend here in my RetCom tried to help me with hair management but to no avail. Finally, I just gave it up. After 11 months and a week, I had enough. After my haircut on Friday, it is now a little longer (about an inch and a half) and bushier on the sides than it has been in years.
Using a firm bit of rationalization, I have lived parts of my life, although not consecutive parts, with long hair, playing folk songs, living in sort of a commune, rejected conventional values (that’s what RJsCorner is kinda like). The one thing I think I will pass on is the hallucinogenic drugs. I did smell marijuana in college, but that was the extent of it. 🙄
It took about 50 years to be almost a full-fledged hippie, and I’m kinda glad I lived long enough to make that happen.
RJ's Corner 
Being a rock radio DJ in the late 60s and early 70s meant long hair and occasional dabbling in the softer drugs of the time. It meant a modified version of a hippie who was still very much a conservative member of mainstream society underneath the image.
That all ended when I went full “corporate:” 3 piece suits and a conservative haircut.
Your dream lifestyle lasted much longer than mine, but isn’t it grand you could fulfill that dream and scratch that itch that you carried for all those years.
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Yeah, that was a 50-year itch that finally got scratched.
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In my life, I’ve gone from short hair in childhood, long hair as a teen, shorter again as a young adult, long again in my 30’s, and now shorter again since I turned 50 a number of years ago. Hair management is a pipe dream beyond a certain length. Some guys look great in long hair, like they were born to wear it that way, but when I see pics of myself from 30 years ago, I wonder what the heck I was thinking.
Still, to this day, I get a little upset when my hairdresser goes too short. There is a happy medium in there somewhere and it often proves to be elusive.
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Thanks for your story, Page. When I was a newbie graduate from college in the 1970s, I let my hair grow to about 3 inches, but that was it until this time. Of course, I had a lot more hair back then. As you say, I found that the longer it got, the more unmanageable it was.
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it is likely that the word commune has been demonized because of capitalism. living communally, sharing things and entertaining, immersing yourself with your special interests and being social in organic ways is a special interest of mine. i have studied it by reading dystopias and protopias (& all in between). zombie movies are always a commentary or critique of forces that interfere with or prevent this kind of lifestyle.
we are not old enough yet to live in a senior living place (i have checked), but targeted ads think we are because it is likely that the ai used to direct them have deduced that we’re not interested in living in the ways we live modernly. the way typical humans live is weird and sad, not in a comforting solemn or energetic quirky way but in a bad, unnatural way that self-perpetuates.
maybe it is because i am in the neurodivergent club that i think this way, but also, i think many people buy into living typically and regret it. we live on a street and know none of our neighbors or any of the surrounding streets neighbors & don’t have time or money to make a life that is not that. anyway, all that is to say that i think you thought about being a ‘hippie’ or living in a commune because it was actually a natural way to live even if it got a bad rap & did not align with modern income standards.
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You are the reason I keep my comments open for so long. It was a pleasure reading your words. You might not know it but you and I think much alike. I,too am in the neurodivergent club and definitely live outside the mainstream.Thanks so much for your comments.
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