What is going on?

When I was a small child, one of the memories I have, and it had to be during the late sixties, was of a young man, in long hair, knocking on the door of my parents home. My father was sent out of town alot and my Mom, a stay at home mother, as most mothers were at the time, answsered the door. I guess I should preface this by saying that the country was at a crossroads at that time also. Little known to us the details as my sisters and I were too young, but the tension as children you could feel. Hippies, yippies, or whatever was going on, freedom, and the peace sign, the Vietnam war. All of that stuff, and it was stuff to us. At least that is what my parents tried to portray. Moving from the June Cleaver, Betty Crocker years into this new and different world, a young couple, born and raised Catholic, with all of those values trying to raise a family and the world was changing quickly.

Back to the young man who came to the door, he stood on the front porch and as my mother answered the door, a few children at her leg, the young man offered up a petition of which I never knew what he wanted her to sign, but I do remember that he had long hair, and was dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, and there was an American Flag on his T-shirt. He got few words out, before my mother, all 4' 11" of her slammed the door in his face, and I remember quite vividly she uttered to herself, (we all heard), as we moved with her through the hallway into the dining room something about, how disrespectful this young man was, having the American Flag on his T-shirt.