Week 5 -- Prompts

A Stranger Comes to Town

Most everyone that lived on our road was family. There really were only seven or eight houses within five miles, it was like a half circle, on either end of the road you had to go over the railroad tracks and then a little after the tracks you would hit  Route one which went through town.  Kind of quiet neighborhood most of the time. One of the houses was an old, vacant, rundown farmhouse with a big barn attached and attached to the barn was an old chicken barn. One summer day in the late 60's a new family moves into the neighborhood. Strangers in our neighborhood, not family, oh no.

Right not only were they strangers, but they were different. Long hair, differently dressed and an old Volkswagen van. They were HIPPIES!!!!!!!! Oh my god, what brings them to our neighborhood? It wasn't really a family as there were no kids, it wasn't even just a married couple, there were several people men and women all living together. Boy, was there a lot of talk around town about this. They were going to be free spirited and live off the land. Come to find out a couple of them had college degrees, but my dad said they sure had no common sense and did they have a lot to learn.

At first, none of us kids were allowed to go there unless we were with dad. Sure didn't know what these people were like. My parents not really sure if it was a good place for us to be. It turned out that they weren't bad, just really different from what we were used to. I remember that they had made dandelion wine and tried to get my parents to try it. Well my dad did, but not my mom. The food they ate was different then what we were used to. More earthy, supposedly healthier for you according to them. They grew pot plants everywhere.  They were always dressed what I thought at that time was weird. After awhile us kids were able to go there a little at a time. They made due with out much of anything at all and seemed pretty happy.

I think remembering back that the old farmhouse had burnt or maybe just became unsafe cause they never put much of any repairs into it. But anyway, the next thing we knew they were living in that old chicken coop barn. How nasty, cause they didn't really clean it or anything. They didn't care that they had no running water, no shower or stuff like that. They were not bad people and they sure brought a new way of life and meaning to our  neighborhood. Some of their friends bought land around the area and stayed. Still today they are referred to as the hippies. And it nothing to hear from local people, "Remember when the HIPPIES first moved to town?"