The Original Hippie????

[Dave The Dov]

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." - Henry David Thoreau
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Mercedes OC500LE

[Zlatko Waterman]

Dave:


I am a great lover of Thoreau's prose, and this is a great photo.

If "hippie" means cutting yourself loose from the mainstream completely and living independently from others, however, Thoreau, who feasted at Emerson's table incessantly, never cut himself off far from the optimistic clergyman's swaddlings.

Reading biographies of Thoreau, one is impressed with how much HDT relied on Emerson's financial and moral support, launching into some of his greatest work while under the aegis of the older philosopher. Emerson even tried to find Thoreau publishers through Emersonian family connections.

Thoreau worked as a tutor for members of the Emerson family, as a "handyman" living in the Emerson home 1847-48, and, most famously, moved into a cabin of his own construction in 1854 ( on July 4th) which was located on land owned by Emerson.

Next to occasional land surveying and working in his own father's pencil factory, Thoreau stayed quite close to home and relied heavily on the financial support of his family and his "second father", Emerson.

The magnificent journals and "tour" books we possess of HDT's are the fruits of that relatively stable outer life. And thank God for Emerson, or we might not have Thoreau.

Inwardly, he may have been the first "hippie." He certainly declared principles along those lines. He was as "anti-Establishment" as one was likely to find in 1850 in the US.

Here's a fun definition to try Thoreau against:

http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/Hippie




Zlatko

[Dave The Dov]

Then again the Transcendentalists of the 19th century could have been the proto type for the Hippie movement that would take place during the 20th century. Then again there has always been those who look at the state of affairs that the country or any country goes through and says that this is not right at all. There for there must be change in order to correct the situation at hand. Yes I would like to one day vist Walden Pond and walk the same ground that Thoreau walked as well. If you are lucky and find your self at a used bookstore. Ask if the store has any old National Geographics. If they do look for March 1981 issue. It has a wonderful article on Thoreau with great pictures to go along with it. I do have the issue myself and I will read ever so often. Because it's that good to read. Yes I do like that photograph of Thoreau very much.
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Paintball variations

[Zlatko Waterman]

Visiting some friends a couple of summers ago in Massachusetts, I was tearing down the Freeway, Highway Two, headed west, when I achieved the apotheosis of what Thoreau warned about:

I saw a green-and-white freeway sign flash past at sixty-five miles per hour, too fast for me to stop, and bound as I was by the freeway direction ( make whatever allegory out of this you want), pre-determined by my twenty-first century civilization, I was too late to turn off:


( the sign read)


WALDEN POND EXIT 1/4 MILE




Zlatko

[Dave The Dov]

Then again Walden Pond could be a state of mind perhaps????
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Depression Forum

[Zlatko Waterman]

Or a freeway exit of the mind?


--Z

[jimboloco]

oh once i was on my last hiatus lost i stopped at a roadside rest stop on the freeway heading east across the cherokee mountains. i was checking the oil in my car, wired, needing rest and direction, and saw an indian man, elder, looking about, crying.