Good-Old Values?
Most participants said they were hopeful for the future of the hippy style of life. Cowell said he sees a resurgence of the "good-old values that people drifted away from and now they are returning to."
"I don't think that you are talking about something that started in the 1960s," said Matt Wise, 25, of Allston. "It has always been around, and it will always come back."
Some feared, however, that too great a hippie resurgence would turn Harvard Square into San Francisco of the late 1960s, which faced a dismal situation of too many people, too little food and too few places to stay.
"Harvard Square is kind of like Haight-Ashbury was," said Sarah J. Baron, a student at Framingham State College, referring to the San Francisco street-corner where the hippies gathered. "I hope it doesn't go bad."
But despite the uncertainty of their futures--or their next meals, for that matter--Marcus, 27, a Cambridge-based artist and writer, said the hippie way of life is still better than the alternatives--at least for him.
"The pursuit of happiness has borne more fruit than the pursuit of knowledge," he said. "Tastier fruit, anyway."