Can you believe it? It has been 50 years since the Summer of Love! That time in American history when men grew “long beautiful hair,” wore colorful beads and paisley shirts, and still used the men’s bathroom like all the rest of the guys.

San Francisco, of course, was the epicenter of the hippie peace and love movement. During the summer of 1967, around 100,000 young people walked, hitchhiked, or floated there seeking tranquility and free medical treatment for some annoying bug they happened to pick up along the way.

Haight-Ashbury, the center of the drug culture, was the place to be. It was an area of the city where all the beautiful people badly in need of a bath could “turn on, tune in, and drop out.”

Man, remember those crazy bell-bottom pants that both men and women wore back then? Well it just so happens that I still have a bell-bottom. Unfortunately, it is now part of my anatomy and closely resembles the Liberty Bell.

Some folks look back at that period of pot-smokin’, free-lovin’ hippies with disdain. But I’ve got to tell you, all that wild and crazy behavior sounds pretty darn good to me at certain times nowadays, like when I’m sitting in the hospital lobby waiting to get my colonoscopy.

Sure, I sometimes get a little depressed when I recall all the energy and optimism of my youth. But actually I’m feeling pretty good about how today has gone so far — it’s already 9 a.m. and I have not misplaced my car keys even once.

When I was a young man during the Summer of Love, it was not uncommon for me to arrive home after a wild night out on the town just as the sun was rising. Now, during the long summer evenings 50 years later, I find myself heading home from a “night out” about the time the sun is setting.

In the 1960s some hippies dropped out of society to form what they considered utopian communes. There, the young people sat around naked and weaved entire bouquets of flowers into their hair. I can’t imagine doing that now at my age. I have hardly enough hair left to hold one dandelion, and eliminating the naked part is self-explanatory.

A popular catchphrase for my generation back in the ‘60s was “Don’t trust anyone over 30.” We baby boomers have had to update the saying periodically as time passed. Last I heard, the most recent version of the expression for my age group is “Don’t trust anyone over 115.”

Around the time of the Summer of Love, a lot of young people were totally into LSD. Now those same folks are a lot more concerned with their PSA.

As a young guy, I had perfect eyesight. Yet, just to be cool I wore specs with rectangular and round lenses like the rock stars. Of course, those lenses were just for looks and were made of regular glass.

For the last 10 years I’ve been wearing those nerdy magnifying glasses which I need so I can read the restaurant menu and never accidentally order the fried pickles again.

Worst of all, I recently had to purchase a pair of glasses with bifocals to help straighten out my vision since all the baseball players on TV look like they’re carrying a Siamese twin riding piggyback. And these glasses are definitely not cool — they’re more like the glasses included with a Gramps Halloween costume.

It just so happens that I also graduated from high school in 1967, at the start of the Summer of Love. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll were all part of being a senior back then. Not so much as a senior today, though I do keep some Gas-X handy.

I briefly thought about attending my 50th class reunion. But then I said to myself, “Are you nuts? Hell, half of the guys who go to that probably won’t even survive the trip!” Besides, I needed to stay home and do more exciting stuff like walk the dog and water the lawn.

Yes, I have to admit that l miss some aspects of the Summer of Love. But as Bob Dylan sang, the times are definitely “a-changin’” and there just isn’t a whole lot that we can do about that.

Mike Murphy retired after a 35-year teaching and coaching career. He has a master’s degree in English from the University of Nebraska and is an Associated Press award-winning columnist.

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