Recalling Abbie

Activist and provocateur Abbie Hoffman would have been seventy-six today. One of the background people of my youth and young adulthood he brought a certain cockeyed humor to deadly serious issues of the day. Working in bookstores I recall his Steal this Book bumped the Bible as the most stolen title for a brief time. Today I’m not sure how many people not of my generation have a clue as to who he was, except perhaps some Occupy folk for whom he could if one noticed stand as something of a patron saint. Or, as it turns out, as the hook to a song… Ah, sands of time…