Hippie Summer: A Transformation at 11
Imagine being an 11-year-old inner-city kid with a real summer job—for pay! That was me. Up until then, I was your typical rule-following, obedient child with two clear career paths laid out before me. For a long time, I wanted to be like my father: a minister.
My dad was more than just a Sunday preacher. While the sermons were a bit dry for a restless kid like me, the rest of his week was anything but boring. He ran a social center in our urban neighborhood, creating a space where people of all ages could come together. He took seniors on bus trips, he roller-skated and played volleyball with teens, and he even cut off the back roof of a bus to bring horses to city kids who had never seen one up close. He was always in the mix, having fun, making people laugh, and bringing joy to the community. It seemed like a good life, but as I grew older and started getting an allowance, the allure of money came into the picture.
I was frugal, a saver by nature. My sister, Margaret, would spend her allowance as soon as it hit her hands, but not me. I liked to save, count, and strategize ways to make more. This pragmatic approach didn’t seem to mesh well with ministry work. My dad retired in 1979 with an annual salary of $19,000—a figure that made me pause and reconsider my options. A compromise emerged: I’d become a doctor. I could still help people but also make the kind of money that made sense to my 11-year-old brain. That was the plan, anyway, until that fateful summer when everything changed.
That summer, I became an assistant cook at a teen summer camp run by hippies. I was thrilled—an 11-year-old working alongside older kids and getting paid no less. And these weren’t just any hippies; they were my family, too. My brother, Robert, was the camp director, and my sister, Diane, was the head cook. From the moment I arrived, I felt the easygoing, open vibe. The rest of the staff, too, were grade-A, genuine hippies. They were the coolest people I’d ever met—gentle, loving, and completely at ease with themselves and the world around them. These weren't straight-laced do-gooders pretending to be nice. These were beer-drinking, pot-smoking, rock 'n' roll-loving free spirits who radiated kindness.
It hit me right away: you could be anything—a doctor, a minister, or just a person in the world—and still be kind, open, and totally yourself. I started seeing the world through their lens. The music they played became my soundtrack: songs about love, peace, and acceptance. I listened carefully to the words, soaking in the message. My lofty aspirations to become a doctor started to dissolve as I found something that resonated more deeply—a life that wasn’t just about making money, but about living with meaning, love, and music.
By the time camp ended, my view of life was transformed. To my mother’s horror, I came home with a newfound ambition: I wanted to be a hippie. Her immediate solution was more church—clearly, in her mind, the only remedy for my summer of rock and free love. But it was too late. The Cat Stevens was out of the bag. With my hard-earned $400 paycheck from the summer, I bought the best stereo system I could afford. I let my hair grow long like my brother’s and adopted his style of clothes. I was hooked, the only kid in my middle school who was into The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, and the songs of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Cat Stevens, James Taylor, and Carole King. I didn’t always understand every word—The Doors' lyrics, in particular, were like a riddle to me—but I felt the power and depth of each song.
Those songs became more than music to me; they were a way of staying in touch with that warm, accepting vibe of my hippie summer. Even now, I listen to them daily, a constant reminder of the summer that reshaped my life. That one job as an assistant cook at a hippie-run summer camp didn’t just change my career path—it opened my heart, filled it with music, and introduced me to a new way of living, one that I still carry with me every day.