September 24, 2018:
Aug 67. The Summer of Love is nowhere near the pocket-protected part of Silicon Valley.
Two of the generations are present. Mom, son, son's pretty wife.
History is entirely not present.
"San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" is at number four, where it's been for weeks. Monterey Pop was six weeks ago. KMPX is broadcasting progressive rock. The Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic has existed for two months. It's estimated that 100,000 students and young people have traveled from around the country to the Bay Area, mostly wearing those flowers in their hair.
Here in Pocket Protectorland it's still 1957. Mom's red hair is pulled back in the Hillbilly Bouffant. Son's hair is short and already receding. Son's wife's glasses are the butterfly shape from five years go. There are no flowers to be seen, but there's a motel-quality landscape hanging behind their little suburban dining nook. Staid turquoise curtains cover french doors leading to their tiny fenced-in suburban back yard. Things are exactly as they're supposed to be.
Also not present: Mom's criminal middle son, locked down somewhere for one or another casual horror. The family doesn't speak of him, a cultural holdover from the same era which produced that landscape.