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Cleveland Daily Banner—Wednesday, January 6, 2016—19
WEDNESDAY
LifestyLes
William Wright
Lifestyles Editor
Phone 472-5041 or fax 614-6529
[email protected]
The colorful world of ‘hippie’ Elmer Earls
By WILLIAM WRIGHT
Lifestyles Editor
People may say they’ve met
Elmer Earls when the truth is,
he is not a person you simply
“meet.” He is a person you experience. One could even call Earls
“a trip” because the self-proclaimed hippie seems like he
stumbled out of a time machine
from the 1960s and is still getting used to the future half a
century later.
Make no mistake about it,
Earls is not a caricature and
what he wears is not a costume.
This is who he is — a man not
ashamed to stand up for his
right to be an individual, one
who understands he is not part
of the status quo nor one who
wants to be. He’s unconventional and unapologetic about his
appearance, expressions and
attitude. In one sense, he comes
from a place and time that no
longer exist.
“I tell everyone I’m a hippie,”
he said. “Hippie is a state of
mind. The original hippies were
about love, peace and harmony.
They didn’t like war. All they
were saying was give peace a
chance. Children come up to me
and say, ‘Are you a hippie?
When I grow up I want to be a
hippie!’ I ask them, ‘Do you
believe in Jesus?’ They say, yes!
I tell them, ‘What Jesus teaches,
use that as the hippie state of
mind, because the hippie movement started out as ‘Flower
Children’ who didn’t want anyone to be harmed.”
The Cleveland native said he
was raised in a religious household and has always enjoyed his
freedom of expression. He also
enjoyed working with his hands
and creating unusual art crafted
out of metals — some even featured at the Museum Center at
Five Points in Cleveland. But
Earls, a former welder fabricator
at an industrial machine shop in
Cleveland, explained, “I got
smoke inhalation off of plastic
and ’bout died around 1987. I
was down for about 10 years
before I was able to get back on
my feet — barely walking, barely
breathing — nerves off the deep
end. I could only stay on my feet
for about two hours a day. I had
to go dead broke until I got back
on my feet — no help from anybody, except my wife working
and we just had a baby at that
time, right before I got sick. In
other words, she had two babies
on her hand.”
Gradually he progressed. He
recalls: “The only thing I could
say was, ‘Jesus, please, let today
be better than yesterday.’ That’s
the only thing that kept me
going.”
During his recovery, his wife,
Edna, set out to make herself a
Banner photos, williaM wriGHT
pair of earrings but needed his
help, which resulted in him tinkering with necklaces and other
ornaments “as therapy.” All of a
sudden a new opportunity was
born. Earls started taking his
crafted creations to Volkswagen
car shows and festivals, making a
name for himself as a hippie who
knew how to make the weirdest,
coolest items — hand-crafted
hippie beads, peace emblems and
durable hippie sandals made
partially from automobile tires.
Orders for his custom-made sandals were coming in from as far
away as California.
“People ask me what do you
sell. I say, ‘I sell hippie stuff.’
They say what do you mean,
‘hippie stuff?’ I say, ‘I’m a
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