In 1945, World War II ended, where my daddy was a fighter pilot. He had flown fifty missions, received a Distinguished Flying Cross Medal and got sent home unharmed.... except, of course, for the mental anguish. We will never feel or know the pain he suffered.
My mom and my dad were married in June, and I was born the following June 1946. I grew up on the East Coast till I was 20.
When I was 5 my mom came home with my sister. I was hoping for a pony, but Laurie was born instead. My parents tied her on a long rope in the backyard when she was two. I untied it, trying to make her run away, but she stayed and somehow grew up with me. We were quite different, to say the least.
I started having stomachaches regularly at a young age. My parents took me to many doctors, and they all agreed I digested my food in one hour instead of seven. I should not eat meat, which took too long to digest, so I started to be a vegetarian at a young age.
At about thirteen, I started smoking marijuana and I realized that the sweet herb relaxed my stomach and slowed down my digestion, and low and behold -- no more stomachaches! So in 1959 I became a hippy. I cured myself and could live a normal medicated life.
By the ‘60’s I was in high school and the world was changing. In came Rock and Roll. The Beatles entered our lives. The first time I saw this incredible group I was a sophomore in high school. We all gathered around a T.V. at a fraternity house at Rutgers University. Ed Sullivan was announcing the Beatles -- we were very excited. T.V. was invented when I was 5 or so. T.V. was still a very exciting concept, ten years later.
My peer group were revolutionaries. We marched for civil rights. We marched for woman’s rights. We marched for no war, we marched for no nuclear power. Any cause, we were exercising our rights by marching!
Kennedy was about to be killed. I can remember being dismissed from school and crying. It seemed like high school was a bunch of crying kids, our leader was dead.
After I was done with high school, my Dad got transferred. He was a Captain for Pan American Airlines. He had lied to get hired. They did not hire Jews, so he did not tell them he was Jewish. He was the only Jewish pilot. When I was five, I went to school one day and all the kids revealed what religion they were. I said I was Jewish. The next day we came back to school and everyone said I had killed Jesus Christ. I ran home crying. I told my mom I didn’t even have a knife. She pulled me out of school and we moved to a Jewish neighborhood.
We were transferred to California in 1966. I thought I had gone to heaven. I was a flower child/hippie chick. I had found myself being a free spirited sexually liberated young woman.
I had long loose hair, wore beads, no bra and lightweight blouses over a long flowing Indian print dress above bare feet. I was a member of the counter culture and expressed a moral rejection of the established society.
I was a true hippie believing in and working for truth, generosity, peace, love and tolerance. I was a messenger of sanity in a world filled with greed, intolerance and war. At the time, it was the needless Vietnam War, which killed half the men in my senior class in high school.
By this time I lived in Isla Vista, in Santa Barbara, California. We started rioting and after months of throwing stones and being tear gassed by the National Guard, sleeping on the beaches, cause there was too much tear gas, it finally escalated into the Bank of America being burnt down to the ground, for it financed the Vietnam War.
The University of California was in this town and they really wanted the students to calm down, for fear of their parents pulling their money out.
So the Board of Regents bribed us into peace. I voted “no” but was out voted. We were putting the fire out when the National Guard packed up their trucks and started to move out. On the way out, one of the soldiers picked up his rifle and shot my friend, who was standing on the steps of the bank, and then the soldier kept right on going. My friend died. We all went to court. The judge deemed it an accident. That is how our government acts. Well, we took the 400,000 dollars blood money from the university and started our model town, thinking, as all hippies do, that we were going to change the world.
We started organic, free gardens all over town, a free clinic, a recycling center, food co-op, and we planted 500 fruit trees for free fruit. The city chopped the trees down, for they made a mess. We built many parks and put a windmill up. It warms my heart that still today recycling lives, and so do organic food and alternative energy sources. Unfortunately, our government is still acting in unacceptable manners, starting another needless war in order to make money. We could make money without killing our children. While working in Isla Vista, we learned how the government works -- locking us up many times for our opinions. We learned the Constitution was not there to protect the people. We were disillusioned.
Jumping ahead to 1985, skipping many lifetimes. I found myself childless. I had forgotten to have a child, so I had one -- Max. My love, green-eyed red haired boy. I was 40. Max is now 21 and I am 61.
There are so many stories to tell about him. I raised a child who is totally color blind. He cannot tell black people from white people, you have to tell him. He was home schooled and no siblings, so therefore, no teasing.
One day Tom, his surrogate dad, and him were having a conversation. Max asked Tom, who is Japanese: "Are you black?”
Tom said: “No, I am yellow.”
Max pondered a second, thinking that was silly and said: “OK, I am purple.”
I know prejudice is a taught thing and my kid was not taught, so he doesn’t get it. I hope the world takes his lead. When I was pregnant a psychic told me I would have a benevolent leader who would lead the people into freedom.
Our government has not changed at all and is still imprisoning people at an alarming rate. We have to continue to fight and try to change the system. We must teach compassion in our government and send us all home to our families. I will continue to fight for us.
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POWs 
Tom said: “No, I am yellow.”
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