Here in Detroit (and definitely a lot of other cities), there were lots of Hippies, and even some Hare Krishnas; what happened to them all? My wife is certain that they grew up and became the establishment that they claimed to hate, and probably were heading all the banks, AIG, Enron, etc., when they just went a step to far. Any ideas?
Don’t know if there is much of an overlap between Hippies and Hare Krishnas. But Hare Krishna and other sects with high personal demands usually have a high turn over. Most people drift out after a few years. Anecdotally I know many former hippies that lead “normal” everyday lives.
They are in California and Oregon.
English Hippie here from the 1960s. Yep, I grew up and became The Man. Lyrically speaking you could say I’ve gone from, “Hope I die before I get old”, to, “Oh, oh, oh, oh, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive.” 
Still and all, the 60s did change things, mostly for the better.
Most of us that came of age during the late 60s / early 70s embraced the “counterculture” to some degree. It was a continuum, not a binary categorization. And many of the less extreme aspects eventually simply merged into the cultural mainstream. Many modern attitudes which are not viewed as at all radical have their roots in that era.
My in laws were at the tail end of the hippie generation. He works in a factory, she works at a bank. For the most part, they grew out of it. They never really abandoned the ideals, just the practices (protests, promiscuity, and pot to name a few), but he still gets together with his buddies and plays Cat Stevens, Arlo Guthrie and Janis on the guitar when they can.
Some of them stayed hippies: I have at least two aunts who meet the description (and neither of them lives in California).
The Hare Krishnas are half a block up the street from you, at the Fisher Mansion, 383 Lenox Avenue in Detroit. I went there once 20+ years ago, during an open house. They gave a tour of the house, and had a free meal (I think they too donations). Maybe they still have them. They had peacocks roaming freely on the grounds. Those “screams” you’re always hearing are the peacock’s calls.
- I don’t really know where you live, just thought that was funny. Peacock calls really do sound like screams, and were bothering the neighbors (at the time, anyway).
I work for a small fire alarm company in the Midwestern US
Just yesterday driving through Brattleboro Vermont, I said to my wife-
AAUUGGHHH I’m blind from seeing that hippie chicks’ floppy boobs! She really needs a bra! And her homemade hat is ugly, too!
I’m pretty sure all the hippies live in Vermont now. Or at least they are on vacation here and walking down the side of the road dressed like it’s 1968. Seriously, Phish broke up years ago, we have really high dining and property taxes, and your hairy armpits aren’t here to ski.
So why all the ‘new’ hippies in Vermont? It can’t be for the gay marriage, since I usually see straight hippie couples together, dancing in intersections doing some kind of performance art.
Vermont today- everything is expensive and takes a bit of driving to get there. Hippies have no money and no car. So how can they live here? Winter is cold and harsh, no amount of homespun clothes and garden veggies can help you survive. My wife and I make about $50,000 a year and can hardly afford to live here. So how can broke ass back to the land hippies do it?
From what I know many either segued into mainstream society but kept fairly progressive view point or they stayed hippies from life.
A coworker at a pet food factory who is 56 was a hippie as a youth. Now she works as a lab technician and dresses fairly mainstream, but her attitudes are still fairly progressive.
I also see a variety of 60 year old hippies around sometimes, esp at college or various progressive organizations or functions.
I do wonder how many of the hippies actually did a 180 and became Bateman or Gekko types in the 1980s.
My father works as a lineman (or something, I never really paid any attention when he told me) for a local natural gas utility. His protesting days are over, and these days his focuses mostly on raising his stepchildren, landscaping his yard, ang getting high.