A wedding is a wedding is a wedding, right? That was then and this is now, but the ceremony is over and the party begun, and isn’t that just what we still do, what we’ve always done?

Memory is what it is, but my memory says things, and not just the facial hair, were different back then. Hippies we were called, and we had more hair and dressed unconventionally. Unconventional by choice and for deep moral purpose, not to say that we didn’t have our fun. For conventional was the habit of segregation in the South, and conventional was supporting an unjust war gone awry, and conventional were the schools that taught, “Work hard and do what you are told and your life will be just fine.”

Perhaps we strutted our stuff a bit much, but then, didn’t we stop segregation, didn’t we stop an unjust war, and didn’t we start a thousand alternative schools?

“I have grown old, and know

How an owl feels,