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' 'I'M
COMING
HOME''
The letter was written by
a
disillusioned young American. He
was one
of an
estimated one mil/ion young people who hove
run away from home and parents.
"DEAR
Mom and Dad:
"1 have walked with demon-
strators, potheads, Hell's
Angels, Diggers and ... girls with
Berkeley-Raddiffe ironed hair. 1 have
drunk the soup of the soup kitchens
and painted myself with Day-Glo and
thrown bouquets at cops and loved at
Jove-ins.
"1 have tuned in, turned on, and
dropped out, freaked out, grooved, and
grokked. Now, a little older and a little
wiser,
]'m coming home!
"l'm coming home because it doesn't
add up to a string of beads.... Sorne
of it was smy, sorne of it was pbony,
a
lot of it
was
SI
CK!
l'm tired of vinyl,
bored with grass, up to here with beads
and buttons and feathers."
Still Disillusioned
This young man had found that the
runaway-hippie life is not the answer.
Bill was coming home - but
NOT
to
drop back into society. He continued:
"Don't get me wrong, folks. l'm not
dropping back in. I still think the
by
Jerry Flurry
world is pretty messcd up, but 1 want to
find a way to do something about it
that's a little more
positive
than hiding
out in a cold-water flat with a bunch of
hippies and a bunch of bananas....
"Wbat next? Maybe l'll join the
Peace Corps or go to Europe. 1 want to
do something more than just show rny
contempt for this crazy world.
Some–
thing maybe that'll sbow people the
reality outside thc nut house,
the real–
ity we shottld al/ be working lo
achieve....
"Wbat is real is tbe urge that started
this wbole merry-go-round going. It's a
basic dissatisfaction with a system...."
Bill was confused - dissatisfied with
the system. He had run away in an
attempt to solve bis problems. But life
as a runaway was
more
miserable. Not
le
u.
Today thousands of teen-agecs like
Bill are running away - seeking a bet–
ter life, a meaning in life, fulfillment,
happiness. What happens to these run–
aways? Where do they go?
Why
do they
run? Who are they?
The problem is so immense in scope
that bornes for runaways bave sprung
up in almost every large city in the U. S.
Estimates put total runaway figures in
the one million bracket.
Juvenile officers agree that the num–
ber of runaways is steadily increasing.
Police departments arrested more
tban 150,000 missing youths under 18
in 1968. About 60,000 of tbem were
less tban 14, rougbly 5,000 under 10.
Many were living witb sex deviates and
"speed freaks."
Wbo Are the Runaways?
Many assumc the majority of run–
aways are from poverty-stricken bornes.
Not so. Most of those picked up by
police are
f
rom middle- and
t~pper
income familieJ.
Tbe largest age category of these
.middle and upper-class runaways is the
14- to 15-year-old girl. Severa! agencies
in Boston stated tbat the average run·
away age in 1969 was 16. Last year it
was 15.
On the 8th of July last year, police