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I suppose many other Beatles fans began like I did, by waring high heel Beatle boots and growing long hair. The British artists resembled spoiled boys from good British homes, not hippies. The fashions from London were called Mod Fashions. Later, the Mod look transformed itself into the colorful hippie look.

The hippie movement was created in America but incorporated many ideas and things that came from Great Britain and Continental Europe. America is different in many ways from the Old Woeld. Hippies also formed an informal political movement, and it's been said that hippies are social reformists that brought about many important changes to the world. Many of those we take for granted now. But as the movement spread, hippies became identified with different things in different countries of the world. Not all of them were as positive as in the USA. For example, European hippies were involved in different types of issues then American hippies. They also wanted social changes and organized protest marches but didn't have to deal with the Vietnam war, a military draft and other issues we had to face on the New Continent. They also traveled around the world a lot more; probably because it was easier to travel from Europe to Asia and the Indian subcontinent, for example.

I was brought up in a cosmopolitan European family. We relocated to Chicago in 1961 after my Mom remarried. My Parents spoke several languages like Polish, German, Czech, English and Latin. So, that was one thing that wasn't common among most Americans. My Mom was born in Germany and my Dad in the Czech Republic; though ethnically they were Polish. My Dad was a true capitalist, a businessman and a professional artist. He was offered a high government post in Communist Poland but refused to join the Communist Party during the occupation of Poland by the Soviets, and paid a high price for that. I also had close relatives who were imprisoned in Auschwitz and who died there during the Nazi occupation of Poland. So the life experiences and worldviews I was exposed to were different from those of most Americans from my generation. Hence, it was inevitable for me to become a hippie one way or another. The hippie movement was the only movement which shared my views and worked towards ending the madness of war, the exploatation of natural environment, demanded respect for basic human rights and other important issues for the world that I supported with all of my heart.

Beatniks, 1940s hipsters and hippies were urban subcultures that are connected. They are a continuation of the European libertine culture, Wandervogles and bohemian scene. Hippies were most often young people from middle or upper class homes. But hippies weren't the only ones that wore long hair in the 1960s. There were other groups that also wore long hair. Some of those were for example members of motorcycle clubs, vagabonds and beggars. They were often wrongly mistaken for hippies by people who had less knowledge about the hippie movement. There were also earlier subculture groups such as Nature Boys, better known in pre-War Europe as Lebensreform that had an enormous influence on hippies. Furthermore, I was brought up on the spirit of the Lebensreform movement which had many followers through out Europe and some followers in America. Hence, another reason why I was quickly labeled "a hippie".

Hippies were, and still are involved in issues such as ecology, psychedelics, Peace, music, art, poetry, reformation of society and government, and other things like that. Hippies are important social Reformers. Allen Ginsberg and the Beats were also such reformers. Unlike some folks who may call themselves a hippie, a true hippy would not own a gun or shoot an animal. Real hippies are Earth loving people. Hippies lived the way they did because it was an alternative lifestyle to the mainstream model that was focused mainly on consumption, competition and topping others. Today it may seem that hippies were about taking drugs, bubble baths or going to concerts. But that's not the way it really was. There were also some hippies that drank wine or that didn't take a bath everyday.

I remember Old Town best for its parties, Piper’s Alley, Folk Music Cafes that I couldn't afford to visit too often, and Lincoln Park where we used to gathered on various occasions. There was also a lot going on at the University of Chicago Campus, The Coffeehouse on 54th Street in Hyde Park near the Museum of Science and Industry and also in Grand Park. But that would be another long story.

My neighborhood was also where The Memorial Day massacre of 1937 took place on Burley Avenue, in which many demonstrators were brutally beaten and shot dead by the Chicago Police force. That was a keystone event for the labor movement. It also inspired many to show support and to stand up for the working class, Many artists such as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger became involved and identified with that cause. Artists such as Bob Dylan, Donovan and a host of many other younger artists continue that mission through art and music into our times. The demonstrations at the 1968 Democratic National Convention began in Grant Part and were met with brutal Police force on orders of Mayer Richard J. Daley. That was followed by the trial of the Chicago Seven and it gave birth to the Yippie Movement which was initiated by Abbie Hoffman. My neighborhood was also the last place Mayer Richard J. Daley visited for an official visit on the day he died.

Later, after the government backed out of the Vietnam War the hippie movement also fell appart. Hippies lost their main cause and went separate ways. Many followed various other interests such as ecology, gay rights, civil rights, women's rights etc. Some also turned on to the Glam Rock or Glitter Rock scene that was forming in New York, and believe it or not, also the underground Disco Music scene of the early 1970s esp. in Chicago. The Disco music grew around Motown and Soul music. But its characteristic rhythm and beat came from the classic soul/disco song by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes called "The Love I Lost" and others such as "Love Boat" by Earl Young from Philadelphia in the late 1960s. The disco scene was very colorful and psychedelic. Chicago developed its own disco music style that is called House Music and which spread to other discos in Detroit and New York. House Music also influenced European Techno music; especially in Amsterdam.

The 1970s was a happier time when hippies achieved some goals; mainly the end of the Vietnam War. And for that reason I think it was a time of celebration, dancing and overindulging in different things that just became available. The Disco scene united gays, blacks, Latinos and people from many other walks of life. In the beginning it was a happy movement that started in underground clubs and gay bars located near former New York, Chicago and San Francisco hippie centers. One of such early discos in Chicago was Dugan's Bistro also called Bistro Chicago at 420 N. Dearborn Street. Later, others were opened around what is now known as the Boystown neighborhood, and others opened on Wells Street near Schiller Street in Old Town.

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The disco movement burned itself out by the early 1980s and ended in Chicago with burning of disco records at a sports stadium. The idea came from a Chicago radio DJ. Similar campaigns were held earlier against Rock & Roll music in 1950s and The Beatles' music in 1960s. But those were not as successful as that one against Disco music in 1970s. Yet, the spirit of the 50s, 60s and 70s survived and lives on.

Not until the 1990s did I realize how important role the hippie movement played in the formation of music, art, urban lifestyles and worldviews that blossomed in the following decades. Though, the 1980s was a bleak decade marked by the spread of the Hiv virus, economic crisis and an oil crises. So I joined the unemployed and had to move out of Chicago.



My friends from the University of Chicago campus in Hyde Park turned me on to The Fugs, the peace movement and the psychedelic scene. Below is a photo from a Jefferson Airplane concert in Grant Park which was held some time before the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

My friends at a Jefferson Airplane Concert in Grand Park, 1969.
Later next year, some of those friends went to Woodstock in an old Cadillac hertz
that was shown in the Woodstock 1969 Movie.


My Cousins had a great basement band in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1965.
The were the warm up band for The Rolling Stones' Concert in Milwaukee.
They also showed them around town in their red Thunderbird convertable.

Me and Joe, an old hippy friend from Chicago's Old Town and Near North Side, 1974.

Here's some photos from my 1969 trip to the Old Continent from Montreal.

I took this photo on the Atlantic Ocean in 1970 on my way back to Montreal, Canada

But lets get back to 1969. In that year, I went on a vacation trip to Europe and ended up staying there for half a year. That experience helped me to become more cosmopolitan and also solved my draft problem. Later, after returning to the US through Canada, changing my address, dropping out of High School for a few years and forgetting to register for the Armed Forces my draft situation was under control; though, I was risking a lot in case if I was caught. I’m still a bit sorry though, that I missed a chance to go to Woodstock with my buddies and sliding with them in the mud. On the other hand, I was in Canada, England, Holland, Denmark and Poland. In Poland, I was kept on the border for hours, had my luggage searched and had many things taken by a crooked Customs Officer. And after all that, I was made to pay a ridiculous costumes tax on used clothes. All this because the officer found a Peace button, Zig-Zag rolling papers and a new hash pipe in my luggage. It was a year after a wave of 1968 student protests in America and in Europe. It was also a year after the January and March 1968 student protests in Poland, which I wasn't aware of at that time. But I did not find hippies in Poland like in England, Denmark and Holland. What I found were students and kids that were trying to look fashionable. Most of all, they were interested in buying my jeans and LP vinyl records but not in discussing any of our ideology. It was like stepping into a time warp. But it was very cheap to stay there and I knew the language. It was also a good place to kick some bad habits and to repair the condition in which my condition was in. I also learned a bit about Marxism, which I found had nothing to do with the Marx Brothers or Marks & Spencer. The best of all was that the few bucks I got from home went a long way there, which is important no matter which ideology one follows.

A photo of a street in London 1970

I learned that Karol Marx was a romantic, who believed that the working class should have social benefits and more time to enjoy music, art and culture like he did. He was greatly influenced by Adam Smith, a well known 19-century Scottish Economist. Marx believed in globalization and that socialism would be good for highly developed and industrialized capitalist nations. He did not recommend socialism for developing countries like, for example Poland, Russia or India. Perhaps that's why it had failed behind the Iron Curtain and caught on well in neighboring with them industrialized countries such as Germany, Denmark, Finland and Sweden.

I must point out that my life was not exactly a bed of roses. I'm still reaping the consequences of the events of the 1960s that altered the course of my life forever.

Budapest, Hungary

Budapest, Hungary

Newsweek, December 15, 1980

A family friend at Pipers Alley in Chicago's Old Town, 1968

The Peace Movement was over by the mid 1970s, underground FM radio stations turned commercial, head shops closed and so called hippie ghettos or Meccas turned into popular tourist traps. The War was over! Lennon got married, the Beatles broke up and the Peace Movement was over too for a while. Many hippies returned to their family homes, graduated, got jobs, married, joined political parties, climbed up the ranks of the decked out world, became successful, joined the Rotary Club, became the establishment and were better known as Yuppies. But most hippies did not become Young Urban Professionals, and may not always look like a hippies, but we remain hippies at heart. So, we keep on truckin'.

1976

Family friends at Pipers Alley in Chicago's Old Town 1968

Copyright © by Adam Wojtanek