A huge multi-colored strobe candle (a two-foot-long wax torch with a large hollow cardboard tube in the middle) held in place by the akimbo arms of a three-foot-tall, life-like, nude female plaster statue set high up on a dresser, flashed beautifully against the artfully painted dayglo mural on the bedroom wall. The room was filled with the intense smoke of three different kinds of incense.

          Julie Bonaventura delicately placed a peacock feather in the bottom rubber band of her long, single braid and put her shiny, silver four-tiered Indian earrings in each pierced ear. She pulled on her large, red, yellow, blue and green sunburst-patterned, tie-dyed cotton baggies and picked out a fine white lace sleeveless top and matching tie-dyed chiffon scarf. She had spent some time that morning struggling to braid her very curly hair.

          She topped it all off with a straw Panama sun hat that had a seagull feather stuck in the hatband. Thinking twice she also chose a wooden beaded necklace interspersed with turquoise beads and tiny silver bells. She dabbed her wrists and neck with Patchouli oil which intensified the cloud of smoke from the huge stick of Patchouli incense in her room absorbing the scent into her clothing and long black hair.

          Satisfied that she was seriously hippie chic, Julie packed her backpack with a tape recorder, a variety of incense, a cotton coverlet from India, several handmade tie-dyed blouses, T-shirts, floor length skirts and cotton bags. She added some of the marijuana from her garden neatly rolled inside sandwich bags and weighed to the ounce. She put on a jean jacket with a peace symbol sewn on the back underneath a rainbow. She flashed a two-fingered peace sign to herself in the mirror, smiling at the result.