I was also 17 in 1967 and I agree with your comment except offhand I thought it was 1968. Regardless, the hippies set out to change the world, and they have, but not for the better. I wouldn’t want blacks to be treated as they were in the 1960s, but other than that, I can’t think of a single positive change.
I agree about the way blacks were treated in the early ‘60s, I saw “Whites Only” and “Blacks Only” drinking fountains and bathrooms on a trip to Texas in 1962. As a kid from California I was appalled.
You may be right about 1968 being the real year that the big cultural shift hit, but to me, where I lived at the time 1967 was the beginning, first year of psychedelic pop music, etc. At any rate, the 1960s as people conceive of it today, didn’t begin until 1967 or ‘68. I don’t recall anyone I knew smoking pot or using drugs until the very early ‘70s.