(Free Bird, Lynyrd Skynyrd)
Yesterday, blissfully unaware of a sudden change in my life, I left a regular doctor’s appointment and headed for a big box store. Five minutes from the medical center, the phone rang, and my car’s speaker announced the caller as a local compounding pharmacy. The pharmacist had bad news. Our current regime has disallowed compounding pharmacies from selling the product I have used for years. Even the pharmacist couldn’t believe the announcement. But she offered me a similar product which is still “allowed” but is not compounded. I already know from past experience that the substitute has fillers which don’t agree with me. But … I’m screwed and must fall in line and obey the government edict.
I turned up the radio full blast to drown my anger and sorrow. The DJ played Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Free Bird, and I rocked to the words; remembering my twenties, when life was easy and free. When we embodied the hippie movement, free love, and the rejection of societal norms. We danced and wore bell-bottom jeans and tie-die shirts and never worried about the future. It was “far out, man.”
Old age hasn’t dampened my hippie spirit, a vision for free love, freedom of choice and pacificism. Most of us got jobs and married. We conformed, darn it. But I have never entirely trusted “the man.” Many of us still smirk when someone in authority says “jump.” We don’t reply, “how high, sir?” We have given up weeds and have switched to vitamins and natural products, which are now becoming verboten. Ronald Reagan quoted, “Trust me. I’m from the government.” Right on, Ronnie.
The forced use of approved products, foods or speech, rankles my sanity, my freedom.
“Cause I’m as free as a bird now,
And this bird you cannot change.”
Take away all that keeps me alive, healthy and sane.
But you can’t kill an old hippie’s spirit.
Peace out.
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