I just read an interesting article about a place I’ve never heard of, called Hippie Hill in North Carolina.
Link to Original Article

Hippie Hill transcends times, offers communal atmosphere
Tuesday, 04 November 2008
by JACQUELINE SCOTT
Intern Lifestyles Reporter

Peace, love and Hippie Hill.

Hippie Hill refers to a residential section of grassy land overlooking King St. between College St. and Appalachian St.

It is a natural, geographic piece of property tying the residents of the stone houses and nearby apartment buildings together, Marie W. Freeman said. It is like a deregulated Sanford Mall. On beautiful days, there are almost always people hanging out, playing music and hacky sack.

Freeman, a creative services Technology Support Technician, lived in the stone house, or rock house, while attending summer school in the mid-80s.

Hippie Hill always had Grateful Deadheads™ listening to bootleg tapes on the stereo and attending lawn keg parties, she said.

While the music of the times has changed, the atmosphere of Hippie Hill has not.

Sean M. Piazza, senior public relations major, has lived at his apartment on Hippie Hill for three years and describes the Hill asa community.

[The] Hill is the community that sprang up after having shared lawns and common areas, he said.  It’s just that sort of culture thats consistently developed both living and hanging out on the Hill.

After living on the Hill for two and a half years, senior anthropology major Erika C. Johnston said its the culture that causes people to gravitate to Hippie Hill.

They tend to gravitate to [the Hill] because their friends live there or they know someone with something to sell, she said. There are still many people, though, who do not participate in the hippieness of the Hill.

The name Hippie Hill may also refer to some of the tie-dye wearing, pot-smoking, free-spirited residents.

In [the 80s], not everyone living on Hippie Hill smoked weed. There were some drugs used, but it wasnt widespread, Freeman said. Mostly what attracted folks up the Hill was the accepting nature of the people living there. There was a constant flow of human traffic offering the opportunity to come in contact with those whose lives and ideas may be different, without fear of rejection.

Freeman revisited her old residence to reminisce.

I returned [to the Hill] a couple of years ago and shared my memories with some of the kids who lived there, Freeman said.One thing we could agree upon were the rats living in the area. I remember opening a kitchen cabinet only to surprise a rat, not a mouse, a big toothy rat, eating a box of Kraft Mac and Cheese.

The spirit of Hippie Hill has triumphed music genres and still remains the laid-back environment Freeman experienced in the 80s.

The environment is pretty unique to Boone and theres a culture that, even with new people every year, continues to be reborn and reinvented, Piazza said. Its neat to have seen it change radically but, in essence, stay the same in terms of its close-knit nature.

Nice headband, Mischa! Awesome white flowers adorning it and all! Mischa may or may not be a hippie chick, but I felt compelled to post these pictures, I especially like the tight denim jeans.

At the Down On The Farm Festival, 2006.

What’s up? Thanks for checking out my hippie blog. Although it’s still a work-in-progress, I plan to make HippieDistrict.com an all-around hippie site, with all kinds of hippie information and stuff. If you have any cool ideas for the site, let me know!