I remember as a youth reading “Howl” and thinking “What a twit.” That was the end of any interest I might have had in the unwashed masses. Later I read Ayn Rand and thought “Yep, I know the twits she’s talking about.”
I was a twentysomething when the Beatniks were among us.. My fellow establishment types, and I tried to get into the groove to pick up the free love types..
No matter what we wore, it was new stuff, clean, and smelled of Jade East cologne from work, it never worked out.. I finally got close enough to a stringy haired ragmuffin to get a whiff of that common scent that most of them had, kinda like pot, incense, sweat, and a gross undertone that no one who bathed could ever replicate.. UGH!
I decided it wasn’t worth it, unless she would have agreed to be Dipped before I’d allow her in my new Nash Rambler.. :)