Hippie Wisdom

This is the story about another of my hippie friends.

Professor Jack, I will call him. He teaches anthropology at a university in central Ontario. It is either Waterloo, Western, Guelph, or Wilfrid Laurier, but that is all I will tell you. He left the United States at the height of the Vietnam War to take up a teaching position here in Canada. Thats what some people say; others say he is a deserter from the United States Marine Corps.

Back then, you were a deserter if you just did not show up after being drafted. That is what Professor Jack did. His college deferment had expired when he got his Master's degree. You may wonder why Jack fled his country, his Mom and Dad, the family farm where four generations of his ancestors grew up. One night, when Jack and I were drinking and toking, he told me: He did not want to die. He shrugged and made a nervous laugh, I am not a coward, technically, he said, I just did not want to fight. That is not desertion. Besides, I was young. I had a car. I was getting laid, I sold dope and was very popular with the girls. He has four albums of yellowed pictures of his early girlfriends. Jack liked them to dress up like Jane Fonda in Barbarella.

Dad did not understand Jack's decision. A veteran of World War Two, he stopped talking to Jack. He never said a word in his presence, he looked away. The first Thanksgiving that Jack snuck down to the family farm from Canada, Dad walked out of the house. He stood up at the table when he saw Jack come into the house, and walked up to the picture of Grandpa (a veteran of World War One) and Jack's Uncle (wounded in Korea) and put them face down on the mantlepiece, then he left. He went to a bar and got drunk, actually. He did not come home till Tuesday, after Jack had left. Dad started drinking, he said that the sharpnel in his arm was aching.

Jack loved his new life in Canada. At first, he was uncomfortable with the radical politics, but his love life was one long sexual encounter, lubricated with wine, whiskey, and hashish. Jack soon became an outspoken member of the Socialist Professors clique on campus. Being a deserter, people assumed he had abandoned his country for political reasons. Jack laughs at this, I left because I was Yellow, but the hippie chicks thought I was a Red, he says. He was making good money, he had a new car, a new house, and abortion was legal. Thank God for Abortion! Jack would say, Thank God for Abortion as Birth Control! It was funny.

In California, Mom divorced Dad. The new alimony laws meant that she got to keep the farm that had been in Jack's family four generations. Dad moved to a small apartment in town, close to the plant where he worked. The alimony payments were pretty high, but Mom figured she deserved it. Mom became a radical too, now that she did not have to work. She rented out the land instead of working it herself. Around the time the Viet Cong were sending the Boat People out to drown in the South China Sea, Dad died. Mom sold the farm and moved to Canada. It was closer to Jack, and she could get free health care for her arthritis.

Good citizens of Canada, Jack and his Mom vote in every Federal and Provincial election. They are not citizens, but that should not stop them from voting, now should it? Everybody in the University loves Jack and his Mom. They care for people. Jack is an outspoken partisan for a Woman's Right to Choose. Mom goes to all the Feminist meetings and writes letters. She has lots of money from Dad's pension and the sale of the farm, but she keeps that in a bank in Buffalo. She uses that money for her travelling to Europe and the occassional new car she buys her Jack. Otherwise, she gets social assistance and the best pickings from the University food bank, where she has been the volunteer manager for a decade.

Jack and his Mom. I got to know them when I was in University. They are an important part of the University experience. I only hope that you get to know them better, like I do. It is worth the effort, and you will be a better person. Such is wisdom.


I, Fenris Badwulf, wrote this.