LA in 1973

A couple of months back I referred to my long-hair days in Aspen, Colorado in the early 1970s. Here is a photo from back then. It’s a passport shot, taken in March 1973 in the offices of the Aspen Times by a photographer there, done in preparation for a trip I took to Europe from April to June of that year. It’s imperfect because of the stamps and other things on it. But it’s one of the few photographs of myself that I like, because I was “there” when the shot was taken, and I think the photo reflects that.

Comments

Karl D. writes:

Now the Bob Dylan fandom makes sense. That’s a great picture. Taken around the same time I turned six. You should see some of my photos from the 80s! Not a pretty sight.

Stewart W. writes:

Larry Auster, our Traditionalist Guru!

Bob A. writes:

I’m a big fan and read your site regularly. I lived in Aspen in 1970 and 1971 at the Independence Hotel. Don’t know if you were there then or not. A friend, Michael J. McGarry, still lives there driving a cab, or at least was there as of a couple of years ago. Keep up the good work.

LA replies:

Thanks. Yes, I was there then. How about that. I lived in the Independence Hotel in the summer of 1976. By then my hair was shorter and I just had a mustache.

October 17

Brandon F. writes:

Been meaning to say how much I liked seeing that picture of you in youth. The long hair and beard really don’t make you look like a hippie, but more like a prophet or isolated intellectual. Grow the beard again!

LA replies:

“Isolated intellectual” is reasonably accurate as far as it goes.

Meanwhile, one of the hardcore insane Auster haters, Christopher Roach, saw that photo and acted as though there was something inherently shameful about the fact that in my early twenties I had long hair, something for which I owe an apology and explanation:

Larry Auster’s hippy past comes to light without shame or regret (or much explanation)…. It’s apparent that Larry served in the marijuana trenches of Colorado during the Vietnam War.

Roach didn’t see me in that photo. He just saw the cliché in his own head: long hair equals drugs, social anarchy, and leftism … plus the other cliché in his head: the sinister Auster.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 14, 2010 09:20 AM | Send