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Introduction

In order to know where we’re going, we have to understand where we’ve been. In that spirit this website was built for friends and folks the Webmaster had met in some not English speaking countries that didn't understand the influence hippies had on modern Western culture that he came from. The website has also become a source of first hand information about 1960-70s hippies and the Webmaster's personal experiences that may have been different from those of other hippies.

Other reasons why this website was created were
because many websites on the subject were made by folks that were too young in the 1960s to understand what was going on, weren't born yet or were not hippies themselves,
because the media portrays of the 1960 is often an image created to serve conservative corporate and propaganda interests,
because the Webmaster's experiences were different from those of others,
to prevent destortion of facts about hippies and 1960s Peace movement,
to contribute to the global community,
to create a home on the Web,
to tell about the Webmaster's personal experiences,
to preserve the spirit and ideas that are dear to hippies,
and for many other reasons.

My Story

I was there, drank the wine, smoked the herb and passed the acid test. So, if you won't expect too much from my writing skills and find the time to go through some of the stuff posted on this site, perhaps you'll learn a bit more about the 1960-70s. But most of all, this will be a biography of a 1960s Chicago hippy rather then a research work on the subject. In my transatlantic travels across the Old and New Continents and mentoring work I've done in Europe I've met many folks from all age groups that didn't understand America at all, and especially the 1960-70s, hippies and where I was coming from. So, instead of writing a book or explaining all of that over and over again to everyone I've met, now I direct them to this website where everyone could see some photos, hear my music, watch some simple videos, read stories and learn more about me. Perhaps that mnay sound a bit ego-centric. But I am not the first writer or artist to focus on his or her ownself. Generally speaking, art revolves around the artist, his or her experiences or impressions and not the other way around.

There may be other former 1960s hippies that may have had different experiences from my own. But in 2001, when I started building this site there weren't many old hippies talking about them on the Web. Perhaps that was because many may not be skilled in Webmastering (though hippies and psychedelics did play a great role in the development of computers, informatics and the World Wide Web) or because there weren't any Web 2.0 services available then such as YouTube or MySpace where one could set up a simple website presence with ease. So, I've been encouraging everyone to publish their old photos and stories before time makes them fade and distorts the facts.

I have to admit that my Karma has not prepared an easy or conventional life for me. If I were a writer I could probably write a book or a movie script based on the experiences I've had. The story would be based on facts with some fiction added to spice it up a bit. It would be a story about a young man that in 1960s bacame a hippie, about the peace movement, a flight from the draft to Canada and a transatlantic ocean voyage to Copenhagen, Amsterdam and then to the Polish mountains on the Czech boarder. And finally about a return to Europe where as a middle age man he witnessed the Solidarity movement and the fall of Communism. And to make things even more exciting it would have lots of music, some Austin Powers style James Bond international espionage scenes and others from the Matrix series.

The hippie movement started in America and incorporated many ideas and things that were already taken for granted in Europe such as naturism, nude sunbathing, herbal medicine, sexual freedoms, socialism, easy-going lifestyles etc. But those were not accepted among most Americans in the 1960s and still may not be among many American Christians (European Christianity is different from American Christianity). Those kinds of things were often associated with witches, communists, degenerates, anti-Christians, Satonists etc. by many conservative American Christians. So, America was very different before the hippie revolution came along. For those and other reasons hippies were a very controversial group and somewhat different from their European followers. Also, American hippies formed an informal political movement. Therefore, it's been said that American hippies were social reformists that brought about many changes that we take for granted in the world today. And that made us different from European hippies that were more into tramping around the world. That's probably because they didn't have the Vietnam war, the draft and other political issues to deal with as we did in the States and also because it was a lot easier for hippies to travel to other countries, India and Asia from Europe.

But perhaps I should begin by explaining that I was brought up in a cosmopolitan European family that moved to Chicago in early 1960s. My Parents spoke several languages, which is not uncomman for many Europeans. My Mother was born in Germany and my Father was born in the Czech Republic. Their families moved to Poland after World War I in the early 1920s. My Father was a successful businessman before World War II. After the war he also made a living working as a freelance Artist. He knew many successful people. Some of them were top Monte Carlo racing drivers, European stage and screen actors, clerics, politicians, manufacturers, merchants, electronic and railroad engineers, publishers etc. Those were usually people that were well traveled and that saw many different cultures in distant lands. I guess that probably helped to make my Parents a bit more open-minded then the average American family decades before it became fashionable to be cosmopolitan. I remember that when I was a child we had guests at home from all walks of life. My older brothers also had unconventional friends from the bohemian scene. Some of them were photographers, actors, professional ballet dancers, musicians, writers, painters etc. So, it seems to me that the worldviews I was brought up on were more of pragmatic-minded type rather then the typical ones most mainstream Americans or Europeans shared in those days. So, when we moved to the USA it was natural for me to cling to artists, beatnicks and hippies or to join The Peace Movement.

Beatniks, hipsters and hippies were urban subcultures, and for me they were a continuation of the European bohemian scene. Hippies were very often urban and suburban kids from Middle Class homes. But today there are lots of folks that take anyone with long hair for a hippie. But that is a mistake. There were other groups in the sixties that also wore long hair such as for example, members of motorcycle gangs that did not share the same values as the hippies did. Hippies were, and many still are into certain things such as ecology, psychedelics, Peace, music, art, poetry, reformation of society and government, and other progressive things like that. Since the 1960s hippies were/ are a kind of social-political Reformers that helped to move forward many Democratic and liberal traditions the United States was founded on, and have symbolized to the world for centuries. That's also what Allen Ginsberg was doing and many other hippie activists in the sixties. Unlike some of those other folks, a hippy would never own a gun or shoot an animals; though I have also come across such hippies in recent years on the Web, but I think that is a total misunderstanding. Real hippies were Earth loving, pacifistic and funky creatures. Hippies usually lived the way they did because it was an alternative lifestyle to the Middle Class one they were often brought up on. The hippie movement was a revolt against violence, the Vietnam War and false values. A revolt that has brought about many revolutionary changes in the world. Today, it may seem to some that it was mostly about taking drugs, living in the country or taking bubble baths somewhere in California. But in reality, many hippies were really on the run from the law for draftdodging, burning draft cards or not registering with the Draft Board. So they were on the road, crashed for the night in hippy pads, houses and communes across the country in an attempt to escape from the oppresive government that was at the core of their problems. Many of them settled in the country. Others escaped to Canada, to Europe and to other continents as far as India.

Chicago is also well known among hippies for the demonstration at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, the Chicago Seven and also as the birth place of the Yippie Movement that was initiated there by Abbie Hoffman. There were so many things going on in those days. Too bad I didn't think of documenting it all for the future. In fact, many of us thought of taking pictures as something that squares did. And perhaps my Brother was really a square for taking some of the '60s pictures of me that have inspired me to built this website. I guess I was just a bit too European for the 1960s America. Perhaps that's also why there are not so many '60s photos around taken by hippies themselves. Whatever the reasons may be, I am very happy to have the few photos from those days.

The 1960s weren't just taking European style bubble baths, practicing Yoga or watching sunrises on beautiful West Coast beaches for the majority of us. It was a time when members of my generation felt that our lives may end at the ripe, young age of 18 or so. And all that just for some senseless war that was fictitiously kept up for corporate profits of US based companies doing business in Cambodia. After Uncle Sam backed out of the War, the hippie movement began to dissolve too. And unfortunately, those guys who were drafted into the armed forces and fought in the war did not get the honors they deserved when they returned home. I and other guys who did not register for military service or burned their draft cards were given amnesty and life returned to normal for many of us after that.

After that, some of us joined other liberation movements or causes such as ecology, gay rights, civil rights or women's rights to name only a few. Some of us also turned on to the Glam Rock or Glitter Rock sceen, and also the underground Disco Music scene of the early 1970s. The Disco music grew around Motown and Soul music. But its characteristic rythm and beat came from the classic soul/disco song by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notesthe called "The Love I Lost" and others such as "Love Boat" by Earl Young from Phillidelphia 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 influanced European Techno music; especially in Amsterdam.

The 1970s was a fun time when my generation materialized many of our 1960s dreams of unity, happiness, peace and sexual liberation. And for that reason tt was a time of celebration, partying and dancing in the streets and/or on the clouds. The Disco scene united gays, blacks, Latinos and people from many other walks of life. In the beginning it was a fun, drugs and sexual liberation movement. It was held largely in underground clubs, on dance floors, in gay bars and bath houses in and around some major hippie centers in New York, Chicago and San Francisco. The first disco bar I used to hang out in, and the one where I met some of the nicest people that I really enjoyed was Dugan's Bistro a.k.a. Bistro Chicago at 420 N. Dearborn Street. I'd love to hear again from the friends I've met there. I also used to hang out in other discos and clubs between Dearborn and Broadway Streets; especially on Wells Street near Schiller Street in Old Town and some on the Near North Side.

Click HERE to learn more

The disco movement burned itself out by the early 1980s. It was soon after it became extremely popular with the mainstream culture through the success of the movie "Car Wash" and later especially "Saturday Night Fever". It lost a lot of its exclusivity and underground character. The masses of people that joined the scene perhaps didn't fully understand its core ideas or had a different concept of it. That's probably why some of us started turning away from it and going towards the Punk scene that many clubs in New York, Chicago and San Francisco started switching to. Finally it was in Chicago again that an end of another great era came about. It started with mass burning of disco records at a Chicago baseball stadium. It was later followed by another one in New York and perhaps in other cities. The idea came from a Chicago radio DJ. I was told that homophobia and racism played a great role in drawing uneducated riff-raff to those anti-disco gatherings.

Yet, the spirit of the 60s and 70s still survives. In fact, it has always accompanied mankind. Today, it seems to be trapped in a vicious circle between the Old Continent and the New Continent, but it's really strongly rooted in the Afro-American culture that I well remember from South Chicago. It keeps transforming itself anew into different forms of being, but the same core ideas remain at its base. And this time it was Donna Summer's disco song "I Feel Love" that gave rise to the Euro-Techno, Trans and Dream music scene. Today, the Love Parades in Berlin and other similar freedom oriented scenes around the globe are actually a continuation of that ancient spirit that was well known among Shaman at the time of dawn of mankind. The same core ideas and desires for love, freedom, wisdom and happiness are at play. They are the basic factors responsible for creativity, the evolution of the Universe and the species, and the expansion of consciousness to higher levels of awareness. Yes, I believe that it is that desire for freedom, growth and expansion that is the driving force even in the smallest atoms that our material Universe is built of.

I've been told that I look a bit like John Travolta in the 1970s. Well, perhaps it was the other way around. By the time the movie "Saturday Night Fever" was on in cinemas I was moving out of the Disco scene and looking for something less mainstream to do, something like moving to Europe. So, perhaps it would be more correct to say that Travolta was styled after guys like me, who used to go to Disco clubs but were not as straight or as good on the dance floor as he was. I also think we led more exciting lives then the movie hero and we were much more into psychedelic drugs then he was. However, I never used coke as it was fashionable to do then (though rum or vadka and Coke was my favorite cocktail) and I never tried any hard drugs and never will.

Not until the 1990s did I realize how important role the movement played in the formation of later generations' music, art, urban lifestyles and worldviews. The 1980s was a bleak decade marked by the spread of the Hiv virus, economic repression and oil crises that I think was caused by the withdraw from the Vietnam War. I was lucky to have not contracted the virus but did not manage to avoid joining the unemployed, running my credit cards to the limits and even writing a few bouncing checks. Then, my Mother talked me into joining her in Europe where she moved to after retiring on a small Social Security pension over a decade earlier. Seeing all kinds of problems developing in many parts of the world, I decided to take advantage of article 13 and filed for bankruptcy in the late 1970s. Finally, in the mid 1980s I move to Europe and joined my Mother. She was also running into some problems at that time. It was a post Marshall Law state in Poland, and attitudes towards Americans in general were not too good there. And then in 2005, fifteen years after the fall of the Iron Curtain my Mother passed away at the age of 91. I am still trying to get myself together now in 2006 after all these dramatic events and don't know if I should stay where I am, move back to the States or elsewhere?

My friends at a Jefferson Airplane Concert in Grand Park, 1969.
Later that year some of my friends went to Woodstock in an old Cadillac hertz
that I saw later 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.

The thing that puzzles me most is how I managed to be near the center of many important world events such as the Peace Movement in America or the Solidarity Movement in Poland, and yet how I managed to miss the many opportunities, which became available to me at those times. But most of all the one that I do regret most, is not meeting Allen Ginsberg when he was in a Warsaw Old Town Café near my apartment in the Capitol of Poland. I also regret not going to his concert that I was invited to by its organizers. I liked Allen a lot as an artist who had something wise to say. And he was very good at getting his message across in a humorous way that marked his genius. Allen, we really miss you!

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

Oh, and what about Woodstock? Well, I did that wrong, too. Instead of going there with my friends from Chicago's East Side as I hoped to, my family decided to screw up my plans and sent me off to Europe for an extanded vacation that year. I was seventeen and didn’t object because a vacation in Europe sounded really cool and there was a draft on, you know the “Uncle Sam wants you in Vietnam” type of draft. Besides that, a trip to the Old Continent was a chance to see my family, find my roots and meet some interesting people. If not for that trip I may have never gone back to Europe in the future.

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

My vacation in Europe was extended to a half a year. It helped to make me more cosmopolitan and also solved my draft problems. Later, after reentering the United States through Canada, changing my address, dropping out of High School for a few years and not registering for the Armed Forces my draft situation was under control for a while. However, I was risking a lot in case if I was cought. I’m still a bit sorry though, that I missed a chance to go to Woodstock and play around with my buddies in the rain and mud or the pond and the bushes. On the other hand, I visited 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 Customs Officer. And after all of that, I was made to pay a ridiculous costumes tax on used clothes. All this because the customs officer found a Peace button, Zig-Zag rolling papers and a pipe in my luggage. It was a year after a wave of 1968 student protests in America and Europe. And it was also a year after the January and March 1968 student protests in Poland. But I did not find any hippies in Poland. What I found there were students and kids that were trying to look fashionable. They were also interested in buying my jeans and LP phonograph records. The time spent there was like falling into a time warp for a while. I also learned a bit about Marxism, which I found had nothing to do with the Marx Brothers or Marks & Spencer. I also knew the language. And in those days English was not as popular in Continental Europe as it is today. Besides that, it was also a cheap place to stay.

A photo of a street in London 1970

Later, I found out 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. He was greatly influenced by Adam Smith, a well known 19 Century Scottish Economist. Marx believed in globalization and that socialism would be good only for highly developed and industrialized capitalist nations. He did not recommend socialism for developing such developing countries like, for example Russia or India (!). Perhaps that's why it had failed in Eastern Europe but survived especially in neighboring with Russia and the Soviet Block Western countries such as Finland or Sweden. In those countries the Working Class gained many social benefits and greater autonomy from government because of fear of spread of Communism.

Now, I must point out that my life was not exactly a bed of roses. It was a bit like some extreme sports I like. I am still reaping the consequences of the events of the 60s that altered the course of my future forever. As a consequence of dropping out of school I got my High School Diploma a few years later. But if not for the efforts of my Brother Mitchell, who had helped me to get back to school and drove me to it almost every day or the guidance of my good friend Charles (Larry) Hribal I wouldn't have Graduated. He was a Russian American, who used to play football for Notre Dame University. Later he worked as a High School Teacher and a Coach in New York, Florida and in Illinois. He also coached me though life for a while in the 1970s, taught me some self-confidence and was one of the best friends I had. Larry moved to California in the 1980s just as I was moving to Europe. Last I heard, he was employed as a Surveillance Agent at the Flamingo Hilton Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada and passed away in 2000 after a long illness. After the end of the Vietnam War, President Carter gave amnesty to guys like me and abolished the draft. He is my favorite President and I wish there were more like him, especially today in 2005.

Budapest, Hungary

Budapest, Hungary

Poland had major unrests with student and labor protests in 1968 and 1970. But 1969 was a good and quiet year for my visit there. Though, I was probably monitored a lot by the KGB. My Mother’s help and understanding made my move to Europe possible. I also had some friends there from the 1969 visit. And then in 1980s I made it back just in time to witnessed some historical events in Eastern Europe that were to changed the face of the world forever.

I moved into a modern one bedroom apartment in a fashionable downtown neighborhood. It was across the street from the Chinese Embassy where once stood a Warsaw Ghetto wall built by the Nazis during WW2. My apartment was also a few blocks from the Warsaw Ghetto Monument, the Warsaw Uprising Monument and other historical landmarks of the Polish Capitol. In fact, I was surrounded by all kinds of monuments and visited by some ghosts from the Ghetto. I believe that there was some kind of magnetic field in that place that drew me to it and kept me there for so many years. But besides all this, some of the best times I have had in the 1980s were on nudist beaches near Warsaw (this is Europe, you know). Too bad interest in the Naturist Movement had declined after 1989 in Poland due to its disapproval by the Roman Catholic Church. The Solidarity Movement that liberated much of Europe from the oppressive Communist system brought about freedom to the 90% Polish Catholic majority. However, it did leave behind many minorities that were also oppressed by the Communist system and by the Nazies before that. Those minorities are still struggling for acceptance and their rights.

Newsweek, December 15, 1980

Warsaw's Old Town Market Square

Some of my school friends from the 60s and early 70s joined the Coastguard, some died in Vietnam, others went on to study at Berkley and other universities. And many of them moved to California. I had hoped to continue my education at the University of Notre Dame when I was in High School. The draft, my engagement in the Peace Movement, alienation from a overly consumption oriented mainstream culture and dropping out of school for a while changed all of that. The solidarity among hippies and their like brought about the hippie movement. When the War was over that solidarity disintegrated and the movement did too for a while. It left many such as I somewhat adrift. I have realized how I have grown old and become somewhat more conservative. Guess time takes its tall. That reminds me of what we used to say, that you should not trust anyone over 30. And I am over 30 now. So, if you happen to disagree with me somehow, please don't get too hung-up about it. You may very well be right. The contemporary world is facing many complex problems that the world of my generation was not confronted with or just not aware of. There's still plenty of things to be fixing in the world. So, let's rock!

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

The Peace Movement was over in 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 were breaking apart and the Peace Movement was over. Some hippies returned back to their suburban homes, finished schools, got jobs, joined political parties, the Rotary Club, climbed up the ranks of the decked out world, became the establishment ect. And in the 1990s, during the George Clinton era led America to the longest period of prosperity in history stopping just short of stating “Better living through soft drugs”. The President even admitted to smoking pot [without inhaling it, though] in the 1960s. And what about me? Well, I smoked it too, inhaled it and ended up in Poland, where pot was legal untill about 1999. That's why I advice you not to do anything I would. In the 1990s I experienced the longest period of strife in my life and also the greatest rush of creative inspiration. That's when I decided to build a website for a hobby around a few 60s photos I had. And this is that website.

This portrait of Che that is on my graphic has become an icon.
The one with a joint comes from a tee-shirt I got in Amsterdam.

I have never sympathized with communism. I am an individualist and a communal life has never appealed to me outside of my bedroom, of course. However, I do admit being curious to learn something or other about it, and about some of its enigmatic leaders such as Ché Guevara. Many hippies read Ché’s Motorcycle Diaries, a book about his travels through the Andes. My favorite tee-shirt had Ché's portrait on it, too. I did not know much about his later life in Cuba or the terrible things he did there and in Africa. Ché's Motorcycle Diaries were an inspiration for many old hippies before he became a violent revolutionary. The book was also an inspiration for many Beat Generation Writers. He was a symbol of a free and united South America/ Latin America, and also of a fight of the weak for freedom. In the Motorcycle Diaries Ché said that revolutions are never peaceful. He probably said that because in his times there were no peaceful revolutions. In those days many prominent freedom loving Americans also had hopes that communism would bring about a better world for the oppressed masses. Since then we have had many reasonably peaceful revolutions lead by those who grew up on Ché's book. And communism turned out to be the most repressive, bloody and utopian political system the world has known yet. However, none of those enigmatic personas could compare to Einstein or Gandhi, who in my opinion, most 1960s hippies took as their role models, and perhaps many still do.

Gandhi started a non-violent movement in India but was confronted with a less democratic system. The hippies were also interested in holding a non-violent movement but in a free and democratic society. Some hippies also met with various Hindus, who came with some advice and spiritual support. Hippies wanted to change the politics of their own government through a democratic process that was Constitutionally available to them. But they did not want to abolish the system, on which their Fatherland was founded, and which enabled them to question their government's policies. In other less democratic cultures on our planet, such a movement would probably be quickly silenced or would degenerate into a militant one. Einstein was also into Hinduism. He studied Hindu Scriptures and was a confirmed pacifist. Einstein gave up his Austrian citizenship to avoid a draft and became an activist in one of the earliest Peace movements in the world at the time of the First World War.

Hippies did not want to abolish Democracy. They were patriotic young people who wanted America to be a better place for all to live, in the spirit of “…one World… with liberty and justice for all”. The way to achieve this less selfish objective was through changing people’s worldviews on some fundamental things related to the pursuit of happiness, justice and liberty for all. In those days, that type of reformist movement had no chance in Eastern Europe and other parts of the world. The 1980s Solidarity Movement in Poland, which I had a first hand opportunity to observe, was possible only because of some extraordinary and favorable circumstances. Some journalists in the 80s had also compared it to the American hippie Peace movement.

This photo was taken in 1976

I do not want you to get a wrong impression... I am not saying that Poland is a hippie Mecca or anything like that. Please remember that Pope John Paul II was Polish. And take it from me, it’s probably one of the straightest nations in Europe, if you know what I mean. But on visiting Poland I've had some nice times in Krakow and the mountains, and at the 1969 Warsaw Jazz Jamboree where a bop musician called Dizzy Gillespie and other Jazz musicians gave some really awesome concerts for a few days in a row. Though Chicago was once a big Jazz capitol, and Gillespie was almost a household word there for a while, we did not have such Jamborees there or anywhere else like that as far as I know, accept for perhaps New Orleans or San Francisco. In earlier decades of Jazz music (1930-50) many famous Jazz musicians and bands played at the Sherman House (formally one of the largest hotels in America). I used to work in that hotel as a cigar stand Night Manager around 1971. It was the first job I ever had. The hotel stood just across the street from Chicago’s City Hall. Mayor Daley, against whom I demonstrated earlier in the 60s had his headquarters on the first floor of the Sherman House. I served the Mayor often when I used to work there. Today on the site of the hotel stands the State of Illinois Building. And now, his Son is the Mayor of Chicago.

I was told that Bebop parties were also held in our ranch style home. It stood in a quiet but haunted neighborhood between East Side and Calumet City (Calumet means in N. Amer. Indian lang. "Peace Pipe". It is a place where many early Jazz artists such as Sun Ra, Frank Sinatra, Sophie Tucker, Keith Speaks or Gypsy Rose Lee used to play in the clubs). Originally it housed a Tavern (called "speak-easy" during the Prohibition) and I was told there were many Bop parties there. That also may explain why I used to hear music, dancing and voices of crouds in my dreams when I was a kid. I guess they never seized to stop reverberating in the particles of atoms, which formed the ceilings and the walls of that house.

Had I gone to neighboring Czechoslovakia in 1969 I might have bumped into George Clinton who was studding in Prague then or into one of his future advisors. I did that wrong, too. What more can I say? I guess that’s why they called me The Polish Hippy. Oh ye, one more thing... if you see Woodstock the Movie, you might get a glimpse of my friend’s Cadillac hertz parked near some bushes or woods. Well, I am sorry not to have spent a night or two with them in that car... But who would have guessed then that that would turn out to be such an important historical event. After all, I did participate in other important events in Chicago, which are hardly remembered by anyone today or not at all.

Even though sometimes I may not look like a hippy anymore, I will always remain a hippy at heart. I still have the Hindu beads I used to were in the 60s and other stuff such as a wooden stash box, small Hindu incense burner with a few original 60s incense sticks in a medicine jar, a bell, earrings, a few books and other hippie paraphernalia I got in Chicago’s Old Town Head Shops, Piper’s Alley and a head shop in Roseland. But my psychedelic day-glow posters, pipes, collection of LP and 45 rpm records and other stuff like that got lost through the decades. Not until 2003 did I managed to reconstruct some of my favorite 1960s records with CDs.

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

Peace & Love

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by Adam Wojtanek