This first appeared at the OB Rag.
This is Part 2 of my “brief” history of modern OB activism. Here’s Part 1. It is taken from a talk I gave at the Open House of the Green Store on July 14th.
The Eighties
The 1980s were a period of accommodation. Hippie businessmen and women emerged on the scene in OB and were accepted. The projects of the hippie radicals of the late Sixties and Seventies had all but faded away – many of the hippies remained however, buying homes in OB or Point Loma, getting married, and having careers and children. But the radical pioneers had paved the way for a new wave of hippies – it was the coming of age of the “hip-oisie”, a type of hip petite-bourgeoisie.
Young, hip businesspeople not only emerged and opened up shops within OB’s business centers, but they became the leaders on Newport Avenue, breathing new life into a older, moribund business elite that had grown out of touch with the residents of the community.
The new hip-oisie ushered in a new type of activism, an activism that resulted in such mainstays that they are taken for granted today : the OB Christmas-then-Holiday Parade, the Christmas Tree, the OB Geriatric Surf Team, the annual OB Street Fair. In essence, then, over the decade, there had been a re-making of the main commercial street in the village. Newport Ave had experienced an overhaul.
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