Remembering My Hippie Mom on the 50th Anniversary of Woodstock
Her wandering spirit made her difficult to know, but I’m still fascinated by her life
My mother was a stranger to me. For all her stories and souvenirs of a life spent wandering, Didi was a difficult person to get to know. Early on, I could tell she was different. Regular people whispered that she’d been “wild,” but in person she was quiet, not volunteering much about herself until asked.
On our court-mandated Sunday visits, I sat cross-legged on the cheap carpet of her apartment, firing off every childish question I could think of. The number of things she answered “yes” to, in her nasally mid-Atlantic accent, was entertaining in itself.
“Have you ever gone to jail?”
“A few times.”
“What about turtles? Did you ever have turtles?”
“Yeah, we had some of those once.”
“How about Woodstock?” (Everybody said she was a hippie.) “Did you go?”
“Oh, yeah, of course. It was muddy. Fun, though.”
She really had done everything. We’ll start with Woodstock.
