January 2nd, 2017
Post 1 - The Introduction

     Can you believe that seventeen years ago we were taking a collective sigh of relief after freaking out about Y2K?  We were so afraid that the computers wouldn’t be able to handle the change over from the 1900’s to the year 2000…possibly meaning that planes would no longer be able to fly, computers would crash, banks wouldn’t operate, and our military would be paralyzed.  People withdrew their money from their banks and national security was heightened.  Thankfully, we worried for nothing.  When the year turned over on our desk top screens, we gratefully tapped our champagne glasses.  Our computers were all fine, and the online world went on to give birth to blogs and social media, something that was inconceivable only a decade or so before.  Flights continued to be scheduled and planes are now flying back and forth in the US for only $50 bucks a pop on a regular basis. Unfortunately, our national security was only able to relax a bit for a short time…before a few of those planes overhead devastated our country.

It was still unnerving, in 2015, to see a plane flying so close to our new tower on a visit to New York.  Can you make it out to the left?

     
I can’t help but be amazed at the things I have witnessed or that have been a part of my life time.  I’ve seen this crazy planet go from it’s black and white televisions, Harvest Gold appliances, pagers, and the Rocky Horror Picture Show to today’s atom crashing devices and satellites that circumnavigate our planet.  It has been a technological tornado that has kept me on the edge of my seat for the whole gnarly storm.  I can’t help but wonder how many of you who will read this have been alive during these same times.

This photo had to be taken in the late 70’s. That’s me at the back right.

     My name is Patti…and welcome to my blog. I’m a retired teacher, part time tree hugger, a tail-end baby boomer, and an aspiring super hero. I am also known as someone born in Generation Jones.  This means that while my older brothers could have been classified as part of the hippy movement, I was the one of the siblings who came afterwards…whose biggest tie to the counter-culture movement was a commercial one.  That means I bought a mustard colored wallet with a rainbow colored mushroom on it.  I wore bell bottoms and platform shoes for a while and took off my bra when I got to school.  

Even now my ties to hippiedom are commercial.  I can’t help but buy this popcorn now that a friend from Northern California introduced me to it.  

       The teens my brother graduated with were dodging the draft…the teens I graduated with were considered “dazed and confused.”  While my older brothers said things like “groovy”…and “wild” and listened to The Lettermen, Herman’s Hermits, and Country Joe, I was more likely to say “cool”, “right on”, or “bitchen”, and listen to Neil Young, The Band, and Creedance Clearwater.  The boys in school that I liked had really long hair like hippies, but they all took showers and didn’t drop acid.  At least not where I was,at least not that I knew. In other words, I was way cooler than my brother. Ha!... He doesn’t think so.

It was so much fun going to the Steve Miller Band concert at Vina Robles Amphitheater this past summer.  The best part was seeing so many people our age and eating a psychedelic mushroom pizza with a beet juice swirl!

     While I can’t claim a full-fledged hippy membership, I was certainly influenced by most of the things that the hippies were standing for.  Not so much the idea that one needed to take psychedelic drugs in order to understand their creativity and deeper spiritual selves, but the other part.  The part that many people don’t discuss as much.  I remember hearing about the hippies that were angry at the government for taking advantage of or hurting people, and taking people further and further away from what most people considered natural for life on planet Earth.  Hippies wanted peace, hippies wanted to go back to the land, and to save the planet.  That is the piece of  the hippy pie that I thrived on…not so much the stereotypical hippy with smelly armpits that wanted to make love with anyone that could tolerate their “natural” musk, but the kind that thought “peace and compassion” weren’t just fluffy or weak concepts, that thought saving rainforests and wildlife was a noble cause, and believed that the planet offered enough herbs and plants for our medicine and food. From those teen years until today, I have felt this on a daily basis.  I have longed to try and help our planet and didn’t know how.  

This is a photo of my garden area during a particularly hot and dry summer in Southern California… after more than 7 years of drought. We hear the expression “brown is the new green” a lot around these parts of the U.S.

   

     Many years after the California Jam and the North Ridge Earthquake, I was lucky enough to become a teacher.  I taught middle school students for twelve years.  As teachers, our administration always told us that we must instill a love for life-long learning in our students.  I believe this is crucial and did my best to make that happen.  However, there is one problem with this idea.  I’ve come to realize, as a lifelong learner myself, that we must balance our life-long learning out with life-long doing.  Learning is golden, but it is not enough on its own.  I personally got fat sitting down learning my whole life!  I sit to study, watch documentaries, research, read books and articles, attend seminars and conferences, journal, watch YouTube videos and TedTalks.  Most of my style of learning has to do with being seated for long periods of time, so I have accumulated information around my hips, stored data on my thighs, and  my upper arms are bulging with tools and strategies.  I’ve realized that I have collected enough information…and could continue to find more…or I could start doing something about what I have learned.  This is how my blog came to mind.  I wanted to start sharing practical solutions to the problems our planet has been facing for centuries…the problems that have haunted me since I first became a Jethro Tull loving, Dr. Pepper drinking, post hippy-epoch teenager.  So here I am, creating the Herban Solutions blog.  I hope I can show you what I have found out, to instill a desire to learn about it in you, and to motivate you to become a life time do-er with me.