Just got back from a two-week vacation—a rambling road trip covering more than 5,300 miles across a dozen states, mostly on two-lane highways. (The trip itself is immortalized on Instagram under #superepicmegaroadtrip, if you’re interested.)
Anyway, one of the highlights was meeting my aunt for the first time. She has a little farm on the Rio Grande near Dixon, New Mexico: fruits and vegetables, chickens, dairy goats. After getting to know her a little bit—like learning that she lived in a teepee for a couple of years—it occurred to me that she was something of a hippie. Which I dutifully reported, of course.
“Not a hippie,” she said as she looked at me over the top of her glasses. “I was a beatnik.”
“So,” I replied. “A hippie before it was cool.”
“No,” she said, a little more firmly. “A beatnik.”
Which is all just a roundabout way of bringing your attention to this story. It’s not only a fascinating—and maddening—look at the “hipster millennial scapegoats of their time,” but also a tastefully designed reading experience. Hats off to the Washington Post for a great article, and for doing something truly interesting and engaging with the medium.
