Ellyn in Paradise
Cancun 2000

"Once upon a time I was a vibrant, energetic, and celestial hippie who grew up in the tie-dyed rainbow-coloured era of the 60's. I was a coed at Mizzou ready to experience what life had to offer. People were kind, nobody locked their doors, the world seemed gentle.... and the music was never better!

I still remember my first Grateful Dead shows in '68, staring at a lava lamp, wearing 13 button Landlubber bell-bottomed jeans, drawing smiley faces on everything, buying my first red VW Bug, hitch-hiking to San Francisco, my friends going to Woodstock, listening to K-SHE 95, the beginning of the women's liberation movement and their bra burning, wearing flags, burning incense, going to Haight-Ashbury, wearing platform shoes, seeing the Fillmore, wearing patchouli oil, reading Zap Comic Books, some of the students were doing magic mushrooms, orange sunshine and window pane, people were starting to say "groovy" and "far out", playing Pink Floyd's first album, listening to the Beatles White album, wearing flowers in my hair, everyone hanging psychedelic posters on their walls, strange people working in head shops, reading Timothy Leary and Ken Kesey, protesting the Viet-Nam War, marching for peace, hanging out in the Loop, spending a summer in New Mexico, wearing puka shell necklaces, the opening of those first coffee houses with espresso, hip poets, and musicians, people buying bongs, following the Grateful Dead, seeing Blind Faith live, seeing Bob Dylan, The Band, and Janis Joplin at SIUE, listening to the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane and Led Zeppelin, painting peace signs on my walls, buying a red, white, and blue VW van with a painted-on peace sign for 200 bucks, tie dying tee shirts, people buying Zig-Zags, and guys wearing love beads.

Wistfully I still think about those days.

I listen to today's lively music as well as to tunes from the 70's;

I love traveling to Mexico, and enjoy being with my family, especially my two beautiful grandbabies.

I embraced the 80's and lived grounded in the Nineties........

I have come full circle in life ~ totally exhilarated by the new technology ~ soaring through cyberspace, while spiraling through this new millennium..... "