Middle Aged Man Finally Gets His Chance To Go To A Summer of Love

Young people growing up in the backward, conservative culture of the 1980s in rural Wisconsin responded in different ways. Some bought it hook, line, and sinker and indulged in hunting and fishing, mullets, beer drinking, and complaining about the Packers. Others went to college seeking a better life and a bigger world to be a part of. Most of those who fled never went back.

“I always wished I could have lived in the 1960s with the hippies,” stated Texas teacher Jimmy Hoskins who grew up in the small town of Sparta, Wisconsin. “But I was born at the end of the sixties. So I was stuck living in Reagans’s America,” Hoskins complained, referring to the Republican President who dominated the politics of the 1980s. “And the pop culture seemed so saturated by bubblegum corporate crap.”

Hoskins was recently attending a teacher union conference in Chicago and found himself among colleagues from across the nation and the whole world. Teachers from Argentina asked him which decade in America he would like to live in if he could choose any. “I thought there was no question. It would be the 1960s. Specifically during the Summer of Love.”

“The 1960s was the beginning of the modern world with openness to different kinds of relationships, and treating all people as equals, and stopping a murderous war in Vietnam,” Hoskins waxed nostalgic for a time he had only read about and saw in videos. “Maybe the biggest change was that the pill reduced fears of pregnancy and opened up sexual experimentation. Remember it was called the Summer of LOVE,” emphasized the bachelor teacher. 

“I missed the 1994 redo of Woodstock. I’m still pissed at my parents for not sending to New York that summer,” complained Hosklins. “All my money from work went to rent and beer. I ended up staying with my folks in Texas and watching Woodstock ‘94 on TV. And I didn’t even have any weed or acid.”

Amidst the explosion of BLM protests since the murder of a Minneapolis man by police, some radicals have attempted to take direct control of the streats. “The Seattle Mayor said this anarchist takeover of downtown was like a block party. I’m going to CHAZ to finally live out my lifelong dream,” commented Hoskins. Finished with the hot garbage of Middle School distance learning and finally on a real summer break, Hoskins got a tune up and oil change for his 2000 Toyota Corolla and drove off to the Pacific Coast. 

“Let me say it just wasn’t what I was hoping for,” stated the dejected Hoskins as he prepared for his return to Texas after only a few days in the CHAZ in Seattle. “I got some great weed cuz it’s legal now, but that couldn’t chase away the ennui and boredom of endless, inane poetry readings and speeches. And the incessant chanting, it drove me nuts.”

The Summer of LOVE that the Wiscnosin native pined for over the decades turned out to be a chimera. “Some of the women called me out for harassment even though I was just flirting with them. I mean, I thought it was flirting,” stated Hoskins. “On the other side were the modern day free love women. They weren’t as sexy as I imagined them to be.”

 Hoskins complained that most people in the CHAZ were uptight and wore too many clothes. “They’re not like the chill people who were barely dressed like in the 1960s,” reflected Hoskins. “And I didn’t see too many smiles. I had the song “Let the Sunshine In” from the musical HAIR where everyone believes in love and peace in mind when I came here. That wasn't happening. I blame the clouds in Seattle.”

“I’m going back to Texas and take my chances there. At least I can rely on a place to sleep at my parents place instead of the cold concrete here in the CHAZ,” stated the forlorn seeker of an American utopia. “I’ll probably drink a beer and watch the Woodstock documentary when I get home.” 

Editor’s correction: CHAZ is now known as CHOP