Raven

[righton] :} :} Good ones guys! Pleased to meet you!

Welles -- B7 glad you joined in!

Silky

Thats a good one Welles. Yeeehaaa, partner. 8}

Evil Nemesis

Nice Pic welles [righton]

Doc

OK, I'll play too.

Welles,

Being from Santa Cruz, you don't look as 'Hippy' as I expected.

(I've visited Bonnie Doon and Red, White & Blue beaches many times...when I was much younger). [righton]

Evil Nemesis

Hey Nice Pic doc, you look pro [stuned]

Raven

Nice to meet you, too, Doc! B7 Looks like you've an interest in aviation and cartoon/animation?? Cool avatar and sig! [righton]

Welles

Doc,

Haw! I survived the HippieDippie revolution in many ways, including hair down to my butt, doing all sorts of street arts and 'theatre', being in a hot air balloon and aerial phenomenon flying circus, and acquainted with the bands etc. I had been in the Air Force, repairing medical electronics in a hospital just north of San Francisco during the convergence of the Viet Nam era and the earliest evolution of the Beats into Hippies, prior to 'the summer of love.' During that time 30,000 wounded came through the hospital. Faced with those competing living choices, I rejected 'reality' in no uncertain terms.

In those days, which seem many lives ago now, I also homesteaded. My nearest neighbor lived 4 miles away. I wandered through many of the major communes and lived 'on the road' for many years...never realizing I was 'homeless.' As life went on and hair was thinning with baldness the obvious result, I had to either give up on vanity or go nuts. It was extremely cathartic to give up on vanity. Besides a bald hippie with a long fringe looks stupid.

How I look now is more a nod to comfort with undertones of hats due to skin cancer aversion. My dress is decidedly from the sticks as I've lived in rural circumstances, by preference, for the last thirty years. I'll admit that no one can categorize me by a look. When they try, their analytical capacities immediately fail an unstated but real test of, um, depth perception.

I don't fit preconceptions worth a darn...and prefer it that way.

Raven

[righton] Welles! B7

Doc

Welles,

Thanks for sharing your 'formative years'...those were amazing times. I enlisted in the Navy right out of high school in the summer of '63 so I was otherwise occupied when the beatniks of the time became the 'flower children'. After my service, I got married and was further removed from that culture...talk about divergent life styles, oh brother. I basically was 'stuck' in the 'Ozzie & Harriet' zone while the world seemed to go crazy all around my little universe.

Raven,

Thanks for the comments.

I do have an interest in WWII flight simulators, specifically the B17. My avatar is just a bit of manipulation with a 'crew photo' from the game which I colorized and blended in the 7 Dwarf's 'Doc' face (as a medic in the Navy, we were called 'doc')...then added the blink.

The original crew photo:

The 7 Dwarf's 'Doc':


Oh, the sig is just using a 'Walt Disney' font and adding 'Droppy Dog' to make it look like it's his writing.

Evil,

I'm almost afraid to ask what kind of a 'pro' I look like. [saywhat]

Welles

Doc,

That's what makes the internet so special. The diverse people who share this forum, for example, might well never meet to realize shared fascinations because of such varied life styles and experiences and yet...here we all become acquaintances through our love of creating and manipulating images. Pretty amazing. B7