Pondering The Symposium

MG's first response to hearing the title of my long-lingering dissertation, "Dirty Hippies, Earth Mothers, Love Children" was an enthusiastic laugh: "All three of my daughters were love children."

But, I have to ask: What's that Feather in your Hair mean in Herb Green's photo?

And what does a feminist academic have to say, to talk about, to make meaning of ... when it comes to holding up a Great Woman, Prankster, as an emblem of counter-cultural womanhood?

Given the love story/stories of what Cynthia Robins called "a hippie soap opera" in a 1997 San Francisco Examiner profile of Ms. Adams, some sensitivity might be called for.

"Go Tell it on the Mountain," that angelic gospel choir I sang in at age eight (1976) flips around in poetic play and how mothers' stories intersect with daughters' longings to something cautioning against gossip.

"Why would someone say something like that?" Jerry asked poignantly.