It's nice to see people paying respect to their elders. On Thursday, as part of Carlsbad High School's homecoming week, students and staff paid homage to the '60s and the '70s by wearing peasant blouses, tie-dyed shirts, afros, clogs and more, reports the Carlsbad Current-Argus.

There's a lot of that going around lately. The Rolling Stones on tour ... again! Bob Dylan celebrated on TV. One interest group after another trying to mount another million-, billion-, kajillion-man, -mom or -whatever march on Washington. Twenty-something journalists tossing off terms like "quagmire," imagining, ever-so-faintly, the sound of whirring helicopter blades over the Baghdad Hilton.

Ivy Brown, the Current-Argus reported, was wearing a floppy-brimmed hat and a floral dress that was a gift from her GRANDMOTHER! The dress "dated back to 1965," the article reported somewhat incredulously.

Now, pardon me for feeling a little old here, a bit of a fuddy-duddy. I should be used to this superannuated feeling by now. After all, the first people I ever heard making fun of the '60s where my young daughters -- some 25 or  30 years ago. ("Groovy, man," they liked to say with just a touch of sarcasm.)

No, those people who fondly remember the '60s these days may have been there, but not ALL there, if you know what I mean. They dig Woodstock, but forget Altamont. They love the Beach Boys, but don't notice Charlie Manson lurking in the background. Or maybe they didn't REALLY inhale.

Is it the politics that makes us so nostalgic?

Ivy, along with her floppy-brimmed hat and grandma's dress, also carried a cardboard sign with the black-markered message that said "Impeach Nixon." She told the Current-Argus reporter it was a way of showing parallels between the events of those days to more recent events in America. Get it? Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

But Freshman Principal Ralph Walker, wearing a shirt with large circles of paint and sporting a blue wig, told the Current-Argus it was all in fun. "I think it's important to let students see another side of us,"  Walker said.

The kids said it was fun, too.

Amber Dorado, in her tie-dyed shirt, said all the week's activities were fun. But what she was really looking forward to was today's School Spirit Day. "Spirit Day is when the most people dress up," she said.

Ah, as  Peter DeVries once famously said,  nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

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