THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 2, 1995 TAG: 9504020011
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ELIZABETH SIMPSON
LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
Hard to believe that my generation lived through the counter-cultured purple haze of the '60s and '70s.
The mottos of the day? Turn on, tune in, and drop out. Drugs, sex and rock 'n' roll. Don't trust anyone over 30.
Marijuana was the forbidden fruit that signaled defiance to authority. From Woodstock to college campus, the smell of hemp bound together a generation for better or worse.
Now, baby boomers have traded tie-dyed pants for Gap khakis, and guitars for laptops. We've shouldered mortgages, and had children. Now, we're the ones over 30.
My, what a long, strange trip, er, journey it's been.
I was thinking about this the other day because of a story I saw about a new do-it-yourself kit to test your children for drugs.
Take a guess at the unlikely market. The '60s generation.
Whoa. The same crowd that popularized the word ``narc'' is now primed for drug-busting?
Little scary, huh?
Get a load of the details. The kit arrives in an ordinary-looking envelope. Inside there's a 3-inch, pre-moistened pad.
You sneak into your kid's room, dust their desk tops, telephones, books, slink back out and deposit the swipe in a drug-free envelope.
Then you mail it back to the company, and keep vigil over the mailbox for the next couple of days. ``Hold on there, Johnny, let me check the mail today.''
Dust 'em and bust 'em. It sure beats trying to smuggle a urine sample out of them.
But it's a little ironic, given the trademarks of the baby-boomer generation. The psychedelic drug culture. The anti-establishment mentality. The live-and-let-live lifestyle.
Even for baby boomers who stood on the sidelines, who never tried grass or marched against the war, the counter-culture themes were at the heart of the music we listened to, the clothing we wore, even the way we thought.
We found double meaning to ``Puff the Magic Dragon,'' not to mention ``Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.''
And today, we vote for leaders who admitted to stepping one toke over the line. It's as good a political platform as any these days - ``I'm one of you'' - just as long as the toking was far back in their long-haired, tie-dyed, pre-campaign-button past.
Times have changed and so have we. More than we ever thought.
First, we've grown up. The drug scene that was once so groovy is now so scary. It's killing our children, destroying the adults who never stepped out of the haze. Drug use has contributed to a teenage pregnancy epidemic and diseases from which there's no going back. The live-and-let-live attitudes have blurred the lines between right and wrong.
As youths, we felt invulnerable. Now, we look at our own children and see raw fragility.
Whether the check-out-your-kids drug kit is a good idea or not, it's certainly a sad commentary on our times.
We can only hope to take some of the good themes that came from the '60s - the idealism and living by your heart - and use them to raise a generation with clear vision.
To create children whom we can trust, and who will trust us. Instead of children whom we have to turn in or tune out. by CNB