i'm not sure how off-topic this is. i am evel less sure i am connecting the dots accurately. gentle feedback appreciated. please spare me the unsolicited advice. i am connecting ptsd dots. unsolicited advice is easier to process after the dots are connected. at present, not even **i** have all the facts. i am quite certain dear abby doesn't have them, either.

from my 60's child prostitute eye view, young hippies were most known for stiffing their free lovers and giving hideously impractical advice on how to discuss free love with an angry pimp. we aren't talking to your favorite hollywood role models, wise one. i found my escape route in the army in 1973, near the very end of the viet nam involvement. i don't believe i need to tell even the youngest of us how the young hippies reacted to my military uniform. by the time i finished my army stint in 1976, bell bottoms and beads had given way to the yuppie fad and the beat goes on.

fast forward to the turn of the 90's and the long forgotten hippies re-emerged in my life through a childhood friend of my husband's childhood. the man loved "pushing my buttons" and always warned me by reminding me that he was an old hippie. i bet i wouldn't have liked you as a young hippie, either. asshole. hubs stood by his childhood bud until he died from a drunken fall on a street curb. i blessed hubby's loyalty, but i dropped out of that relationship fairly early. no, i didn't attend the funeral, either.

a few years later, my eldest son brought his junior high crush to meet me. she was wearing bell bottoms, a tie-died t-shirt, beads and sandals. fashions cycle. seeing old world fashions on adolescants never has been much of a surprise. the surprise came when my son introduced me as, "an old hippie." shrug-a-lug. i don't often argue historical semantics with pre-adolescant children, though i believe that story ended with a note saying, "no, dear, i can't build you a commune."

in the decades since, reminders such as i received from my hubby's childhood friend have been showing up in some of the damndest places. most recently it showed up in a woman giving me unsolicited advice on how to use lawyers to maximize the government benefits we recieve on behalf of our 3 orphans. we didn't ask for those benefits. cps packed them in the suitcase they delivered with the children. they are being direct deposited into college fund accounts for each of the children.

the piece which is niggling is, what's with the old hippie alerts? what does that even mean here in almost 2024?

am i making sense? anybody else noticed?

i leave the mood icon squarely on okay. i'm an amateur linguist/etymologist. following language roots and trends is my favorite hobby.