In early july 1967, in a little cottage across the street from the cemetery in Vineyard Haven, a still teenaged Janet Messineo and her then-husband Butch Lesko were looking through the latest issue of Time magazine. The cover story was “The Hippies: The Philosophy of a Subculture.” The article described the guidelines of the so-called hippie code: “Do your own thing, wherever you have to do it and whenever you want. Drop out. Leave society as you have known it. Leave it utterly. Blow the mind of every straight person you can reach. Turn them on, if not to drugs, then to beauty, love, honesty, fun.”
Janet: “We were curious, living here on the Island; we’d heard about these people called hippies and we wondered what they were. You’re reading a magazine and it’s describing what you have on your body – bell-bottoms, beads, flowered clothes, really long hair for the times – marijuana, the music. That’s what a hippie is? We looked at each other, ‘Son of a gun, that’s us!’
“I wanted to be a beatnik when I grew up. It was kind of astonishing that I had turned into this hippie. I had never aspired to be a hippie – hadn’t known there was such a thing, but,” she pauses. “LSD came along – I’m sure that’s what it was.”
Janet Messineo is now a fisherwoman and taxidermist living in Vineyard Haven with her husband Tristan Israel, a Tisbury selectman, landscaper, and musician.
Martha’s Vineyard was a hippie paradise. It was removed from “America” – a refuge from the sixties’ political turmoil. The hippie story on Martha’s Vineyard, with few exceptions, is a “washashore” story that began in the late sixties and grew to invasive proportions in the early to mid-seventies. The alternative lifestyle of “turn on, tune in, drop out” that became known as “hippie” was not something the Vineyard youth were so susceptible to; laid back was something they already knew about.
The Island was used to summer visitors, but these hippie folks were so entranced by its charms that many decided to stay. Some of them had grown up summering on the Island, others (like myself) found their way here by chance or word of mouth. The hippie “invasion” was one of the many mass movements onto the Island after the Europeans startled the Wampanoags. The Island’s legacy of hitchhiking and nude bathing (at least up-Island), the beauty here, and a feeling of openness all contributed to a sense of freedom that, in the ease of summer, was irresistible to unattached sixties hippie youth – whether they were dropping out from college, from the 9 to 5, were trustafarians, or just free spirits. The Island seemed welcoming.
Some hippies were more industrious than others, and hippie institutions were born. While most disappeared after the hippie heyday, others endure. The Black Dog Tavern in Vineyard Haven, known the world over for its T-shirt, was a hippie way station.
So, where have all the hippies gone? Well, they’ve (mostly!) grown up. One of the reasons why few from that time are willing now to accept the term hippie is that its meaning depends on a person’s point of view. There was the dirty, panhandling hippie. The peace and love, groovy stoner/acidhead hippie. The levitate the Pentagon, political hippie. The longhaired, rednecked, out to get the hippie chicks pseudo-hippie. The word was a media invention in 1967 that tried to label a new youth culture eruption. It’s a big word. In many cases, people retain aspects of their hippie past but not the label itself.
Crash pads, camping…and partying
Searching for the earliest evidence of hippie on Martha’s Vineyard, preferably indigenous, I found myself hearing, more than once, “Oh, hippies? The first hippie? You have to talk to _____.” The name that would fill that blank is the person whose house was known as the Love Inn. (Not everyone wants to be remembered, in print, for his or her youthful adventures, so the space above will remain blank.) It was somewhere in the town of Tisbury, and began sometime around 1965 – before the term hippie had been birthed. But the sign out front clearly said Love Inn.
It was not really an inn, more a crash pad. In hippie terminology (somewhat borrowed from the beatniks), it meant a place where you didn’t necessarily live, but – without calling ahead – could sleep, as could others. It was communal in spirit. (Another crash pad near the blinker in Oak Bluffs, where Tilton Tents and Party Rentals is now, was called the Casa Blinker.)
At the Love Inn, you could join the ongoing party at any time, and depending on your stamina, stay for days. Many people didn’t know whose house it was, though the owner was right there with them, partying on.
Yes, drugs. Yes, black light. Yes, long hair, ever-present music, and good vibes, as well as good marijuana and psychedelics. Someone who lived there in 1967 says, “We used to have love-ins; we’d put up flyers even off-season. Love-ins would be on the weekends – playing music, making up our faces to glow under the black lights. There was a girl who used to get road kill and skin them. But there were live animals too: raccoons, a boa constrictor in a cage. We were a strange collection of
characters. Some of us didn’t have any place to live and stayed a year or two.”
But don’t make the wrong assumption. It was not a free-love kind of place; it just radiated that love vibe, well before the larger world acknowledged that this kind of thing was going on. As one participant says, “When we were there, we were there, and when we weren’t, no one missed us.” That free attitude encapsulated what was to be the hippie stance.
This was something very new. The Vineyard’s blues maestro of today, Maynard Silva, was in the sixties a teenaged native of Oak Bluffs: “People on the Island thought the Love Inn was just the embodiment of evil. A lot of the Island people, the parents, and the schools were really afraid of the drug angle. But it was weird because, on the other hand, even the oldest, stodgiest Islanders were still pretty rebellious, independent people, so they kind of liked that rebellious hippie quality, and they’d figured out the [Vietnam] war was a crock.”
Robbie MacGregor moved to the Island in 1974 from Rockland County, New York, but in the late sixties, he was a summer visitor with an alternative lifestyle. “Living in my VW van, I stayed at Deep Bottom Cove, out at Katama, and in Gay Head at the West Chop Club beach. You could go anywhere along Moshup Trail, pull in any of those little parking lots, and stay for days,” he says. “You didn’t have to have a house, you didn’t have to live somewhere, and you didn’t even have to have a hippie commune. You just were floating around, you were here to be with nature….You’d go where you wanted. Nobody cared – they were glad to see you.”
My own Martha’s Vineyard “hippie” tale (although I considered myself a freak, meaning more radical) began on Sunday, August 17, 1969, in the mid-afternoon. With my friend Denny, I was threading through 500,000 people on Max Yasgur’s farmland. Yes, it was Woodstock, the event. It was the hippie nirvana, everyone sharing, eating, drinking, sleeping, making love in the outdoors to a live amplified sound track, in a haze of drugs, goodwill, and sunshine (which had followed the rain). Joe Cocker was singing “With a Little Help from My Friends,” and we were intent on leaving well before the music ended to avoid the certain mega-crush traffic exodus. We were walking side by side toward the road that I expected we would take to hitchhike back down to New York City, where we were living in the East Village.
I said something about how long it might take us to get back, and Denny said, “Oh, we’re not going to New York. You made me come here, so you’re going with me to Martha’s Vineyard.” My response? “Martha’s Vineyard? What’s that?” Thanks to the tragic death of Mary Jo Kopechne in Ted Kennedy’s Oldsmobile exactly one month previous, I had heard of Chappaquiddick, but not the Vineyard. Denny knew of the Vineyard only because a friend of ours, Jim, was shooting a film there. It was still a happy secret of the few.
We disembarked the Islander in Oak Bluffs and inquired how to get to Cranberry Acres, a former campground off Lambert’s Cove Road in Tisbury, where Jim was staying. Walking onto the property in the golden late-afternoon light, we arrived to see – a mini-Woodstock! Instead of Joe Cocker or Jimi Hendrix, a few folks had guitars and hand drums. It was a rustic setting in a wooded area with a pond nearby and dogs, children, Frisbees. Colorful, flowing, tie-dyed fabrics were decorating tents. Marijuana and the buzz of psychedelics were detectable, as of course were long hair, sandals, and the smiles of friends, known and brand new. There were some older and straighter folks (over thirty), but the vibe was easy, loose – all was cool.
Hitchhiking around the Vineyard for the next three weeks led me to Jungle Beach (now Lucy Vincent) in Chilmark in the daytime; at night, running around the Gay Head Light, chasing the beams and shadows as they revolved, or running down the Cliffs on acid under a full moon seemed fine things to do.
Where have all the hippies gone? Well, instead of running around the Gay Head Light, I am now the lighthouse keeper with my wife, Joan LeLacheur, and we live in Aquinnah. We’ve kept the light for the Martha’s Vineyard Museum for eighteen years. While we don’t mind anyone running around the light when we’re there, we do help protect the magnificent face of the Cliffs from climbers, now that they are owned by the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah).
Music, movies…and partying
Music was one of the unifying elements of the youth culture. Maynard Silva: “The best thing out of the whole hippie thing was that for maybe two years, ’68, ’69, they used to have block dances in each of the towns – one was where the restrooms are in the Stop and Shop parking lot in Vineyard Haven, one was at Viera Park in Oak Bluffs, the other was Memorial Wharf in Edgartown. Really good bands would come from off-Island for free. The Commodores with Lionel Ritchie played, right there in the parking lot. One time it was the Velvet Underground. They would play all three towns. The Velvets played the three nights but they didn’t play their song “Heroin,” and then their last night right there on Memorial Wharf in Edgartown, for their last number they played “Heroin” and it was wild!”
When the influx of young vagabonds became sizeable, the Island’s social services had to adapt. Ann Bassett, a Vineyard native who now sells books online and produces “The Vineyard View” on MVTV, says, “A hot line was created by [Martha’s Vineyard] Community Services to deal with young people in need, including talking them down from bad trips.” This type of proactive institutional response was in glaring contrast to Nantucket’s “no longhairs” policy. In the late sixties, if you tried to get off the ferry there, you were sent right back on the boat to Woods Hole.
Ann Bassett, who lives in West Tisbury now, was also an active participant in the Island’s counterculture. “I considered myself a hippie,” she says. “I not only used the word, I treasured it. In the late sixties, if you saw someone with long hair or somebody in bizarre clothes, you could almost assume you knew what their politics were, the music they listened to, that they were anti-war.”
The Island A Go Go was where Vineyard groups The Ogres and Acme Rock Service played. It was a happening spot. Now it’s a professional building on Beach Road in Vineyard Haven. Ann says, “My boutique there was called Lorelei. I was designing clothes, and it was the best time to be a designer because it was ‘anything goes.’ The boutique was open all day, every day, and the Acme Rock Service would rehearse there and have concerts at night on the weekends. The space was also used for draft counseling for those wanting to avoid going to Vietnam. There were serious things going on there.”
Upstairs in that same building in 1969, photographer (and future author and music producer) Peter Simon, who summered here beginning in the fifties and now lives in Chilmark, was showing underground films in a series called Martha’s Mid-summer Film Festival with his friend Kim Rosen. One night the film to be shown didn’t arrive. Peter and Kim decided to keep the lights low and turn the music up, and they invited everyone in for free. Someone passed around a jug of pink pineapple juice dosed with LSD, and everyone was told it was “electric.” Peter says, “We pulled back all the chairs and put down mattresses. People alternatively danced all night with their best hippie moves, and then crashed on the mattresses and went off into space.” The film audience, happily tripping or stoned, listened to Grateful Dead concert tapes all evening and saw whatever movie their synapses provided.
Peter was happy to be buffeted by the shifting energies of the times and was compelled to document the music, the politics, the zaniness as it unfolded. He says now, “I took photos of it all, because I never wanted to forget it.” I met Peter in 1969 at one of his film screenings, and he was wearing a green paisley collarless jacket and pants, designed and made by Ann Bassett – a trade for shooting publicity photos for Acme Rock Service, the group she managed.
In summer, it was on the up-Island beaches that hippies congregated – often in the nude. A lost pleasure from those times in Gay Head was the “clay bath” made by damming up a flow of water from the Cliffs. Wallowing in the clay and painting it on one’s body felt cool and looked tribal. That practice is prohibited now to preserve the Cliffs.
Peter Simon tells a hippie tale from 1970, when he and a group of maybe fifteen friends, including folk singer Tom Rush, were nude on a beautiful summer’s day on the Hornblower beach (now Caroline Kennedy’s) in Gay Head. Someone had called in a complaint about a group of “nude hippies.” The police chief, the late Kenny Belain, showed up with his “paddy wagon.” Peter says, “He rounded almost all of us up, except a few who escaped into the dunes. But those of us who wanted to do a civil protest surrendered. We were arrested for indecent exposure and got into the four-wheel drive – most of us tripping on acid – peacefully. And as he was driving us off of the beach, the four-wheel drive got stuck in the sand. We all hopped out, some of us naked, and helped push it out of the sand. So there we were, arrested, but helpful, on acid, some of us nude, keeping our boundaries loose in keeping with the hippie ethic. We were off to jail, so I couldn’t get to the movie theater to show that night’s film. Tom, in the jail, couldn’t get a guitar, so he led us all in a round of Joni Mitchell’s “Urge for Going.” A month later, we were in court, fined $25, and told it would be much worse if we were found again on the beach naked.”
Working, artists…and partying
Janet Messineo waitressed at the Black Dog from 1973 until 1976. “Before the Black Dog was built by Alan Miller [at the behest of Captain Robert Douglas, who still owns it along with his family] in 1969, there was no place for young people to hang around – except the bars. Back then, for something to do, we would drop acid, go to the bowling alley, sit at the counter, and have a blueberry muffin,” she says. “After the Black Dog was built, that was a place you could drink coffee and sit around the fireplace. There was homemade bread, real potatoes, just good wholesome food – and lots of it. Alan’s concept was to build a place with a maritime feeling as if it was the nineteenth century, all wood and that huge fireplace.”
Alan Miller, who now owns Pepe’s Cafe in Key West, ran the Black Dog for the first several years, and it catered to harbor folk as well as tourists. Sailors and wharf rats were out on the water as much as possible – off the grid. To them, haircuts and shaving were not necessary. So long hair was no impediment to employment there, and many hippies just off the ferry were able to stay and support themselves by taking a shift at the Black Dog. It was a hippie hangout.
A branch of the hippie aesthetic was reverence for American Indian culture. One craft that was reborn on Martha’s Vineyard in the early seventies was the Native American art of making wampum from the purple and white quahaug shell. It is now a craft that supports perhaps a dozen people here, but it began with Joan LeLacheur, Kate Taylor, and the late Charlie Witham. When Joan and Charlie moved to the Vineyard in 1971, they opened a juice bar on Circuit Avenue in Oak Bluffs, called Nectar. It became a hippie watering hole. Kate, who did not think of herself as being a hippie, feels the term “baby beatnik” is a more accurate description of her young self. She had summered here growing up, and was playing, singing, and recording then, as she does today. Sharing their resources and equipment, the three called their wampum jewelry guild the Black Eagle Mint. Part of their research into Indian lore led to their use of teepees as summer housing.
The police response to the growth in marijuana and psychedelics varied around the Island. A couple of hippie-esque characters from that era separately told their personal versions of the same story: They were in their homes (a tent in one case) off in the woods, with some marijuana on the table in a shoebox top ready for rolling, and a police car comes down the bumpy drive. The police approach the house, walk in without a warrant, take their guns out, put them on the table, and having brought their own papers, begin rolling a joint. While smoking, everyone around the table enjoys some herb tea and light banter, and the cops, waving goodbye, drive off. Not the norm, surely, but it did happen.
In the winter of 1973–74, an experiment of the late Vineyard hippie era began to form. Anna Edey, now a West Tisbury author and the creator of Solviva (a green design enterprise), is dedicated to sustainable living, an attitude that grew from sixties, hippie roots. She was one of the founders of the Art Workers’ Guild. It became one of the magnets of the mid-seventies arty/hippie crowd – a cultural center for the times. Anna did much of the legwork necessary to turn a large garage on State Road in Vineyard Haven into an artist’s cooperative. She got James Taylor to agree to the idea (he owned the good-sized steel building) and got things straight with the straight world of banks and insurance. “We considered it a community communal project. At that time there was an artistic activist core on the Island, maybe two, three hundred people who were artists in one form or the other, building their houses or doing the seasonal moving.”
Robbie MacGregor, who’s now an artist and builder living in West Tisbury, became involved with the guild as a woodcarving sculptor. “Over the years we kept collecting materials, building studios and lofts,” he says. “A rift developed between the over-thirty’s and the under-thirty’s. The under-thirty’s wanted to have an anarchist commune, basically do whatever they wanted, pretty much – as long as they weren’t creating a ruckus. The over-thirty’s wanted it to be an institution, to have a charter and rules, get a loan from the bank. I was going to the meetings of both sides, and they were both regarding me suspiciously.”
Anna Edey recalls, “We were having one of our incredibly painful meetings; we were split into at least two different camps. It was just an awful meeting. People were absolutely not communicating by anything other than just harsh words and negativity. So I started to roll a joint: the ultimate example of the peace pipe. An example of the good side of pot. There were maybe sixteen of us in the circle, and after smoking, it gave everybody a total understanding of how things could change in a positive way. We were hugging each other, and crying, and completely understanding each other’s point of view. And then the next day…it was back to normal.”
Robbie: “Finally the people over thirty won the struggle, and we all, the under-thirty’s, we all left. It was a political education.” A year later, the over-thirty’s left, and the ideal of an arts cooperative dissolved. But for about five years, it was the scene of art exhibits, art classes, dances, concerts, as well as the site of the Greek restaurant Helios.
Long hair and a willingness to dress expressively made dressing up medieval-style an easy transition for the guild’s artists and others in the hippie arts community. A Renaissance Fair was held in back of the Art Workers’ Guild. Robbie remembers, “There were minstrels and jugglers. There was a stage for people doing medieval dances and songs. There was a guy who had a full suit of armor; he showed up on a horse with a jousting pole! It was pretty amazing and fun. We knew how to have a good time. The whole hippie thing was collectivism. If you did things together, not only was it a lot more fun, but also it was cheaper, and you get a lot more things going on. That was the whole idea. You did things together. Nobody ever thinks like that anymore. The whole reason to come to Martha’s Vineyard now is to get away from everyone. It’s all individuals. I really miss that sense that people were connected to each other creatively.”
When did the hippie era end? As a conscious lifestyle, it faded long ago. People paired off, started families, the Vietnam War ended, many left for elsewhere. Cocaine came along and it was, “Pssst, I’ve got some blow,” and two people would go into a bathroom together instead of passing a joint in a circle of friends. All these factors distracted from the more communal, tribal, hippie ethos. Most people drifted away from their hippie-ness, but for Janet Messineo there was a clean break, “You know when I knew I wasn’t a hippie anymore? When I didn’t want to be associated with the term? I went home one time in 1971, and there was my dad wearing flowered bell-bottoms. That was it.”
The hippie energy of today
All over the Island, you can see people you might associate with hippie culture. Whether it’s their clothes (or lack thereof), their hair, their smell, their attitude. In the sixties and seventies, there was a parallel peace and love movement on the island of Jamaica. Rasta lifestyle and reggae music were something hippies could relate to easily. Along with other remnants of hippie, love of reggae (and dreadlocks) persists here.
Currently, there are two new energy centers on-Island that might be said to carry a strong whiff of hippie. The altruistic sense of sharing and “what goes around comes around” grounds both enterprises. One is the new low-power radio station WVVY FM 93.7. Broadcasting from its studio in Tisbury, it can be heard down-Island, up to Abel’s Hill, and across to Falmouth. A community-based station with an eclectic play list of songs and shows, it’s run by a collective of people volunteering time, energy, money, space, and equipment. WVVY has a free-form-feeling format, and since it just started out December 2, 2007, the crew is still exploring the possibilities. Program Director Bob Lee of West Tisbury describes himself as both “proud to be a hippie and an un-reconstructed bohemian” and says, “WVVY is a voice crying out in our Vineyard-ness. We give and take direction, but there’s a presence, an energy. It’s creating itself. I marvel at the way people have come together on this.” It’s a licensed, above-ground station with an underground sensibility.
The other new/old energy revolves around the Potluck Jams. Island acoustic musicians, most in their twenties and thirties, have come together over an idea that was hatched from a discussion in late 2007 between musicians Willy Mason and Alex Karalekas, who both live in West Tisbury. They agreed that an evening of free food and music was needed to bring folks together. After that chat they drifted apart for a while, and separately each booked a venue and made the idea happen over the winter. Alex used the Grange Hall in West Tisbury, and Willy chose the Chilmark Community Center. Both were successful, drawing a broad cross-section of all ages together in the relaxed spirit felt at hoot-enannies and in coffeehouses of the past. (There have been a handful thus far, but they pop up intermittently, so keep your eye out.)
Musicians play short two- or three-song sets over a nearly five-hour period. It breaks down the formality of the audience-performer relationship and succeeds in creating a living room, laid-back vibe, where dogs thread through the crowd of infants and toddlers, grandparents and teens, twenty-, thirty-, and forty-year-olds – all like some huge extended family. This family, the audience, comes and goes as the musicians come and go on the stage – and all partake of the food.
The group Ballyhoo, which played for free in Menemsha on Sunday evenings throughout last summer on the Texaco dock by Squid Row, is a five-piece acoustic band – one of the largest units at the Potluck Jams. Asked if Ballyhoo has a leader, Brad Tucker of West Tisbury, on guitar and vocals, responds, “Everybody would say that I am, but I’d say there is no leader. We all play a role in it.” Asked about the Potluck Jams he says, “Community dinner and music – there’s a long continuity of that on this Island. We’re happy to be part of it.”
Matt Lozier of Tisbury, the band’s five-string banjo player, sees it this way, “Old-timey, participatory music. Playing for fun. We’re going to play anyway, so we might as well entertain people while we’re doing it.” There is a history here that reaches back to Island living rooms in the 1800s and before, when in-home, family entertainment was the norm. But visually and vibe-wise, the Potluck Jam has a tribal-hippie-2008 style.
As to whether there is a conscious wish to emulate the hippie lifestyle? After talking to some of the participants, the answer is…not really. They’ve got their own thing. Matt says, “I grew up a longhair and very liberal, and my mind-set has always been with the proletariat, the small guy. I would consider myself somewhat of a hippie even by today’s standards.” But many are wary of labels, any labels. Colin Ruel of Chilmark, guitarist, singer, and a regular at the Potluck Jams, has hair that’s longer than short. When asked if he thought of himself as a hippie, Colin says, “I had a VW van for a while, an old one, and I liked it because it held a lot of surfboards. But I had to get rid of it because people were always calling me a hippie.”
Willy Mason: “I don’t think people make a conscious effort to emulate any particular cultural school. It’s just what makes sense – and the fact that a lot of elements of that culture still make sense is a testament to that culture, I guess.”
This article appears in May-June 2008.
May 2012
In response to the article, “Where have all the hippies gone?”
I really enjoyed reading this article and reminiscing.
Remembering My Happiest Years on the Vineyard…
A New Yorker by birth, I first visited Martha’s Vineyard the summer of ’69, instead of journeying to Woodstock, as many others did.
Ah…the anticipation of embarking on the “magical” Ferry ride, which left behind the insanity of the world in that era, and transported one to another land and life-style. One truly could leave behind their old life on that crossing. I can recall, more than once taking that ride, in complete fog, all ears peeled for the sound of the fog horn as we neared the land.
Upon my first arrival, I heard about a great Campground, where it was rumored that many other young people were staying. Anyone could stay for ‘a while’. There were at least 20 of us camping-out there at the time. Nights around the campfire were great, folks passing a jug of wine, singing. Many nights a very tall, quiet young man would show up after dark and sit around the camp fire playing his guitar and singing songs. He never much spoke to anyone, but after he’d leave everyone would comment, ”Wow! That guy really sings good!”
Well, as we found out that winter when his first album came out; it was none other than JT who had joined us and we actually had been staying at Taylor’s camp. I remember how very generous he was as a human being, even after becoming “known”. He put on a concert and after everyone who could afford to purchase ticket was in the gate, he announced over the loud speakers to the gatekeepers, “Now let everyone in who doesn’t have a ticket.” We were all permitted to hear and see James “up close”. His songs continue to bring back the feeling and memories we lived in that magical place.
We spend our days exploring the beaches and country roads without a care. (Yes, I was ‘one’ who got away in the beach “raid” mentioned in the article. Had to hike all the way down the rocky coast to find a way back up to the road. It rained, and got cold, too.) We visited old Indian grounds where some young local natives were creating pottery and did yoga with an amazing older man, George, who was an Artist/Sculptor and lived on one of the inlets with his wife and dog, on a lovely wooded lot. I remember that at times of high creativity he wouldn’t come out of his studio for weeks. At my young age, that really impressed me. “This man must really be spiritual”, I remember thinking to myself in amazement.
I wintered in Boston, but the riots were breaking out everywhere in the streets and it was scary! While there, I met someone whose father allowed me the privilege of “house-sitting” their romantic Oak Bluffs Painted Cottage that early spring. So, the opportunity to return to the Vineyard opened itself to me. It was a beautiful and peaceful existence. By late spring the family needed their home back and I transferred out on the Island to their wooded property where I camped for the entire summer. Roaming cows kept me company and scared me to death at night; rubbing up against my tent. The cold rains that Autumn, finally drove me indoors. At that time it was considered “cool” to see how long one could endure out with nature. Hippy?
I ended up living up in “Roddy’s” old home on Chappy where I spent the winter and following spring. We heard the insider tales of the “Ted” fiasco by his “supposed” personal guard at the time. Such gossip we were privy to! I remember warmly our friends, Cecile and Jeffery, and our naughty escapades!!! I think Jeffery was a fisherman at that time. I often wonder how they are and what they did with their lives, so if you are reading this, please E-mail me. (debinchina2010@yahoo.com)
I earned a little cash doing alterations and sewing pieces which I placed in shops or custom made for folks. I frequented Mrs. Wren’s fabric shop in one of the wonderful old mansions in Edgartown, spending afternoons drinking tea and chatting while gazing through the pattern catalogs. I had purchased an old Singer sewing machine and sewed for a living. Yes, even while camping.
I don’t remember those “hippie” days as being “dirty”, but of people being relaxed about life and sharing with one another. Some nice person, (sorry can’t remember your name) allowed me to use the top third-floor attic room of a wonderful old Oaks Bluff mansion, as my sewing room. The small window looked right out on the sea-side. Could a studio get any better? It was there that I spend much time creating fashions.
During my breaks, I would descend the stair to get lunch or a drink. One particular day, I heard someone playing in a front parlor room that housed a baby grand. I asked the young woman if it would be alright if I just sat on the stair and listened. She said, “It’s O.K.” When Carol King’s album came out, I was quite surprised to see that it was this amazing artist to whom I had dropped in on. “Up on the roof”, had always been on of my favorite songs growing up. Imagine, sharing a moment in time with a musical genius’ creative session on the black and whites! The Vineyard indeed held for me some remarkable chance encounters, which I have rolled over in my mind, to treasure; as a rare and precious gift in this life.
On the lighter side, I remember visiting the fish Hatchery with a few friends. We were going to throw a special Birthday dinner for one girl. We rode out to the pier and purchased a beautiful large lobster, but made the mistake of naming him on the way home. Feeling guilty, we called people who we thought would be in-the-know on how to painlessly kill the poor creature. Many of us were trying to eat vegetarian and abstained from eating living creatures. One person recommended getting the lobster drunk on beer. So, we spent the next hour dunking the poor creature’s head in a glass of beer. I don’t remember the outcome because I was too chicken to watch as he was thrown into the boiling pot. His obituary read; “He was the crowning jewel on a birthday piaea.”
Two years passed happily until I found my way cross-country, finally seeing the mountains of Redwoods in California. I spent my time there on a mountain top om-ming and trying to find G-d. Then off to Hawaii, which would become my home for nearly twenty years. While there I married, bore two children, then became a single Mom. But that’s another story.
I then migrated over to China where I have lived and taught English for nine of the last twelve years. I enjoy my work immensely and find the culture fascinating. My favorite is to journey up into the gorgeous Himalayas and be transported back in time. When visiting the minority village peoples I have the privilege of joining in with their dances, learning of their close-knit family ties and customs, learning how to cook new foods, appreciating their fine needle work on their ethnic clothing designs, dancing with the Tib. around the New Year fires and on and on the wonders of life continue. The greatest, I believe has been to experience- how we are, in fact, in our hearts, more similar than different… where-ever one calls home.
A well-written story by my hip friend, Richard Skidmore.
Guess I’m still a hippie at heart – living a life doing things very few others in society are doing. Like living outside 24/7 for two years while doing a 7,500 mile horseback trek across America entitled, RIDE FOR NATURE.
After the trek, I moved to woods of West Tisbury, living in a one-room shack with an outhouse, no electricity, an outside hand-pump for water. After one year, I started a water testing / environmental research institute doing cutting edge research with local fold and WHOI scientists.
After a few years, I decided to start “Martha’s Vineyard Magazine.” At the time, there was NO MAGAZINE on our island. I thought we deserved a magazine showing off its color and beauty. From the very first issue -islanders thought it was “hip” and “cool” to be in the magazine. I published features about artists; poetry from island poets; environmental stories; did stories about music – like the untold childhood evolution of the entire Taylor family; about an island-born hermit who lived alone in the woods – having his food brought to him by a few friends; about island farmers; about how a few folks saved three of our island lighthouses from being torn down in the 1980s – all kinds of alternative stories that the newspapers didn’t cover or gave short riff to.
To me – being a hip person is one who is honest and truthful – one who deeply connects with our Earth’s environment – one who loves and lives a life being as free as possible – one who gives their spirit the freedom to explore the wonder of being present in a physical body (albeit briefly) in this magical world.
I was the manager of the Acres for five years it was my job to keep everything civil, but loose we policed ourselves most of the time I went around at night to make sure everyone was registered with my dog Silas a big black lab Shepard mix we had the campground divided different sections named after cities like Providence and The once infamous Hartford area where would put all the motorcycle clubs that the other two campgrounds Family campground and Webb’s in O B we accepted anyone we put the motorcycle groups way in the back land that abuts the neighbors land that they bought for cheap from Manny Duarte because it was next to a campground that was the friction point they would come in late at night have large fires and loud music we resolved that by moving the family camping area to the Hartford area and the motorcycle area to front near the front entrance near Lamperts cove rd that seemed to chill everything out, everybody else was between the motorcycle area and the family section area we tried to keep everything loose and easy we didn’t care about pot smoking, most of the time we were able to police ourselves there was a open snack bar in the main building and a gameroom with pool tables and video games that would stay open till 10 o’clock and reopen in the morning to serve breakfast it was a great place to get food at resonable prices the office was located at the lowest part of the property where you could see up the hills to most of the camping area we had many muciscains that stayed there like Steve and Bruce one played guitar and the other played flute we had an area next to the main bathhouse that slopped up like a small Ampa theatre where people could and play it was all free and loose people came and sat that’s where I meant Maynard he would show up sometimes to play with some of the musicians it was great were maintaining the hippie movement without having to involve the Tisbury 5 0 that’s what we called them instead of police we were kqhaving a good time cruising along made many friends for life I’m 68 now and still stay in touch across many state your artical brings back many fond memories I went on to open a yearound restaurant the Spaghetti Pot but that’s a whole other story
Such fond memories of Cranberry Acres and the comraderie that existed in the early to late 70’s. There are enough of us still on island and off island who relive the memories often because it was such a special time. Most everyone I know, to differing degrees, have continued to remain socially and politically active. Great article.
My sister, Kathy and I probably only 10 or 12 years old at the time by chance saw this band setting up one afternoon in a parking lot in Vineyard Haven near the dock. Curiously, we asked somebody older than us if they knew who these guys were who were setting up and he replied, ” they’re the Velvet Underground.” Of course, it was a free concert and there had to be only about maybe 50 or 60 people there as I recall. I think they played some pretty experimental stuff and being a total Beatle nut the music was a bit strange to me at the time, but in hindsight, I’m so glad I got to experience it. My family has relatives of Portuguese descent on the island and we visited them every summer and feel so lucky we did. What a magical place it was for my family. Our uncle, Donald Maguire, and wife, Hazel later became the caretakers of Herring Creek Farm; just another amazing place. I so miss those long and innocent days. Let’s bring the best part of the hippy culture back again. All you need is love, my friends! That is all you need!!
I first arrived in the Vineyard in the summer of ’66. I was AWOL from the Marines and had just being arrested in Hyannis, along with some Quaker students who were holding a Fast For Peace and Teach In about the war in Vietnam, because I had gone to get something to drink. Coming over on the ferry was like some magical trip. A feeling I never lost for the next several years every I returned. The first night there my friends and I went to find a party on South Beach somewhere around the old half sunken bunker. Before we got there we needed to turn around and get som gas….but we ran out anyway. A cop came by and asked what was the problem. When we told him he got us some gas and led us to the party. That’s when I knew I had found the coolest place in the country.
After telling the rest of our friends in DC about our time there several visited and a couple of them stayed and worked at bars in Oak Bluffs. One was a draft refuser, he had been arrested then vanished, who was a wanted person and everyone knew it even the cops but nobody cared.
I spent a month that summer then went back to turn myself in to the USMC and find a way out. It took six months but When it was done officially for doing drugs when everyone in Vietnam doing them I spent the next 6 years returning every summer the latter moved to Key West as the Vineyard had become too gentrified.
Glad to know some have hung on and there is a new crop of free spirits living there.
I built guitars at the artworkers guild and took my share of mud baths back in the day – this article was like a flashback maaaaaan!
I built guitars at the artworkers guild and took my share of mud baths back in the day – this article was like a flashback maaaaaan!
This is a long article, but worth the “trip”. A fitting tribute to memories of years spent on the island as one of this memorable group. I arrived a little later ( mid 70’s) and wasted no time getting into the swing of things. I am 80 now and most of my fondest memories are of these times. I am humbled by the fact that I was able and allowed to live on one of the most magical places on earth.The experiences, friends and allowances that were bestowed upon me will carry me through to the end. I want, no I need to go home again. Thanks for the memories. What a long strange and remarkable trip it’s been. Lastly. Is there some way to share this???
My sister and I lived the rich hippy life living at Grandma Atwood’s on Dunham Rd in Edgartown. We worked at Katama Shores and The Dunes, created by my grandmother when she bought the army barracks on South Beach. Uncle Miles gave us a 64 Cadillac to drive and I would see how many hitch hikers I could get in the car travelling up island to the nude beach. The next summer I had a boyfriend who, along with 2 other guys from Brown lived in a school bus in the woods. Such great times and memories! I am retired now and recently treated conservative family members to a hippy tour after my niece’s wedding. I visit as often as I can. I was born in Oak Bluffs and my sister and I attended 2nd and 3rd grades in Edgartown while my mother recovered from losing a baby.
I Thank you for this great account of the best years on Martha’s Vineyard.
I was lucky to make it my home in 1974. I was Reinventing Life ( title of my book)
with the most talented mentors assembled for coffee at the Black Dog fire in the afternoons after work as a carpenter. Gratitude to all of you who made sense of life for me and gave me the skills to make it a great and successful adventure.
Really appreciated reading this. I lived on the Vineyard in the spring of 1971, after opening in two companies of the play “HAIR” in Paris and Las Vegas, and
traveling around Europe & America for 5 years, a free spirit, musician and graphic artist. My brief time there that spring, changed my life forever. I left there after many experiences and wonderful friendships, and pregnant, on my way to Boulder Colorado with 4 new friends on a converted school bus, stopping at the Celebration of Life gathering in Louisiana before disbanding in Boulder.
My first visit to the Vineyard was in July of 1966/or1967, I had an ounce of clean Panama Red, I drove a 1963 Thunderbird, the Pequoit Inn in OB, when it was a rooming house,$25.00 a week.
Needless to say, I was lured back years later & don’t regret my choice of raising my son A.P. here.
Except for a few trips to an eye clinic in Sandwich, I haven’t been off island for 7 years, and don’t miss the other part of America!