How Can You Tell Who is Real?

     What do I mean by real?  Genuine, sincere, unpretentious, not disingenuous, honest, earnest...  I don't know.  Lots of things.  
     I once went to a Tom Collins concert with my kids at one of the 'hippest' venues in town, that is Myrtle Beach, the whole Grand Strand.
     I had to gather my younger son, who was fourteen and under a bad influence at the time, at his bad 'mentor's' place.  He was pretty out of it, and I know it sounds bad, but when you are a single mom, if you at least know where your kid might be, you are doing well, I guess.  
     Both my sons had really long hair at the time.  Ted was taller, but he was already about twenty, and I thought David would reach his height of 6'1" eventually, but they were quite different.  Yet, they both had handsome angular faces.  I recall our host, talking to them on and on, as they looked at him out of the sides of their eyes, ready to exit.  I know they were thinking, 'what the hell are you...?'  I just remember their handsome, youthful faces, obviously brothers, but David younger and smaller, with darker blond hair, and Ted, older and taller, with light blond hair, both long, Ted's curlier, David's straighter, but both of them, very substantial in presence and demeanor, as well as masculine, adolescent strength, somehow.
      I suppose I may be projecting, because that is what I was thinking.  "What the hell is he talking about...?"  It sounded like, "ya know, like - you guys are like, so amazing, and like - your grandmother is like, so amazing, and like - your grandfather is like, so amazing, and like - I like, look at you two, and like - it's like this, like amazing - like thing, that like, you guys - like - are here, on this - like - earth like, and ya know like, it's like amazing and so, like - uh - incredible, and like..."  So, I guess you get my drift.  
     Of course, both my mom and dad had been quite taken with this - er - character - as I would call him, but I am not criticizing.  I mean, my folks were major bohemians.  Dad was pretty straight laced, but mind you, bohemians are not the same as hippies.  Bohemians were before hippies, more like beatniks.  
     My dad loved Judy Collins, and he bought every new album of hers when she first emerged in the early sixties, when I was born, in '61. 
     If you look at my father's contemporaries, born in the twenties as well, such as De Kooning, you see a similarity.  In fact, De Kooning attended a show my father was in with numerous other artists, and said, "Lyn Ott is the only one here who can paint."  Of course, my mother is also a renowned painter, as well, and paints in a style congruent to something like Chagall, van Gogh, or perhaps Cezanne.   
     Among their contemporaries, Leonard Cohen would, as Judy Collins and Joan Baez do, coincide, while also be related to by the baby boomers, then people around fifty, (my generation) and then today with the very young, such as my son David, who sings and plays Hallelulah by Leonard Cohen, among other great songs from the sixties.
     Are the sixties obsolete?  Oh no!!  Absolutely not!