Our trip to Maine was meant to be a few last precious and uninterrupted moments together; instead it was a bummer of epic proportions. Beyond the quasi-liberal boundaries of the New York suburbs, people openly stared at us. NO SHIRT, NO SHOES, NO SERVICE signs — and the anti-counterculture sentiment they signified — were ubiquitous. At a clam bar in Bar Harbor, a white-haired old salt wearing red suspenders and a plaid shirt grumbled loudly about us “long-haired degenerates.” At the L.L. Bean store in Freeport, a kid excitedly pointed and blurted, “Look, Mom, hippies!” as if we were some rarely glimpsed breed of exotic biped. When strangers flashed the peace sign, it was usually in a taunting manner.

But it was the Maine fuzz who were most responsible for turning our excursion into a ginormously bad trip, constantly harassing us with obscure regulations designed to keep us disconcerted: laws against cooking with a camping stove in a parking lot, rules against parking at the beach without a permit. At least once a night, we’d been jarred awake by banging on Odysseus’s door, followed by the blinding glare of a flashlight as yet another “peace” officer informed us that we were loitering and ordered us to depart immediately.

To much of the Maine populace, we are symbols of all that is wrong with this country. Me with my long hair, bell-bottoms, and Frye boots. And Robin, whose much longer brown hair falls to the middle of her back, and who on the trip wore a headband and a peace pendant on a strand of leather around her neck. And then there’s Odysseus. Covered with brightly painted flowers, paisley designs, rainbows, and peace signs, my microbus is a highly visible rolling advertisement for what Down Easters must assume is a deviant/promiscuous, pansy peace-loving threat to society. Robin and I would have preferred a quiet, uneventful vacation, but we’d be damned if that meant hiding our freak flags and pretending to support a government that sees nothing wrong with the wholesale slaughter of Vietnamese civilians.

Now, in my room, with the effects of the Orange Sunshine worn thin, there are things I should probably do. Wash my clothes. Straighten the mess. Figure out what to do with my life. But all I want to do is write to my ladylove.

6/26/69

Dear Robin,