My mother is a beautiful, hippie spirit.  She met my father in 1971, during their junior year of college, spent abroad in the quaint, socialist country of Denmark.  Although my father has evolved (after voting for McGovern in 1972 and then switching to Ford in 1976 and never voting Democrat again), my sweet and adorable mother has remained true to her hippie roots.

Yesterday, I accompanied my mother to the Fox and Hounds, a British pub in Studio City, to see the Bob Cowsill Band, a 1960s & 70s cover band.  The band was great, my mom and her friends were in heaven, dancing and signing along to their favorite songs of yesteryear.

I sat at a high table, on a barstool, watching these older, gray-haired men rock out on their drums and guitars.  Then, as the band played “Flower Girl,” an older woman, probably in her 50s or 60s, began dancing right in front of me.  She had short hair and a bright orange shirt that was several sizes to small for her slightly plump midsection.  She danced and sang and smiled.  How cute, I thought.  Until…

I began examining this ill-fitting, bright orange shirt, and soon realized that in big, black letters, across her back, the t-shirt read, “We are the 99.”  I suddenly became quite annoyed and, more than anything, disappointed.  The song and the band and the atmosphere of the bar suddenly took on new meaning.  These older, has-been hippies and their progressive, SDS comrades ruined our society.  The 1960s destroyed so much that was good and decent and successful and productive.  These baby-boomers were the counterculture revolution.  And now, here we are, with their descendants, their revolting progeny, the Occupy Wallstreet lowlife radicals who wish to take the torch from them and destroy our society even more than they could ever imagine.

It’s quite possible this woman is a woman just like my mom: incredibly sweet and goodhearted and extremely misguided and uninformed.  Unfortunately, many who are misinformed lean left.  They have to.  If they were better informed, they would lean right (and be right).

Oh, Mom, how I wish I could awake you from your childlike ignorance.  I once said to my father, “Dad, I love her, she’s my mom, but how are you married to this woman?”  He smiled and replied, “I love her so much, she can do whatever she wants.”

I guess that hippie, John Lennon, was right.  All you need is love.