If anything was more absurd than the '60s themselves, it might be that the era of tie-dyed frivolity returned briefly to the salubrious suburb of Sewickley on Saturday night.

To recapture the spirit of the occasion, let us all hold hands for a chorus adapted from the definitive musical of the period, "Hair."

She asks me why
I'm just a preppy guy
I'm preppy noon and night
My loafers are a fright
I'm preppy high and low
Don't ask me why
Don't know

Resurrecting the Age of Aquarius in Sewickley was not the original idea. It was merely thought that a camping-out party in a large back yard would be a novel way to celebrate two remarkable women whose birthdays fall on the same day.

Saturday night's plan called for the hiring of a classic rock band. With the tents and good vibes, the celebration naturally took on a Woodstock theme, without, of course, the nudity -- which was a great relief to all. Sewickley is a fine place but the nights are not dark enough for certain things involving people of a certain age.

There were no drugs either, although on that score I would be the last to know. I spent almost a year in Vietnam back in the day and never smoked anything. Never could get my lighter to work, what with the monsoons.

I mention this not to highlight my heroic service writing press releases and driving the colonel to lunch but to point out that I was somewhat athwart the '60s when they were going on. I had decidedly mixed feelings about the period -- I though much of it was stupid even as I thought much of it was fun.

When I got out of the military, I did invest in a pair of bell-bottomed jeans in order to make myself irresistible to women, but, as I now resembled an antique sailor off a psychedelic ship, they found me quite resistible.

As for the flowers in my hair, who knew that you weren't supposed to use roses? The scars from the thorns became more visible when balding set in. Give me a head with hair, indeed.

On Saturday night, however, everything was beautiful, in its own way. The women wore hippie-like dresses, and some had bouquets in their hair (no roses). Like many of the guys, I wore jeans and sandals. Being too well-fed for my jeans, I supposed I most resembled a hippie-potamus, what with the Pittsburgh monsoon raining upon my scarred head.

It rained a lot at the real Woodstock, too, but they were kids and now we are adults with houses, which most of us returned to after the party, because idealism is one thing, dryness is another. Other than the lack of actual camping, drugs, nudity, free love, long hair and a complete disregard for personal hygiene, Sewickley was Woodstock Saturday night, which is more than you can say on most nights.

At one point in the party, my friend Dennis told his son that he had worn octagonal glasses during the '60s.

"But why?" the young fellow asked.

"It was the look!" Dennis said.

That was heavy, man, because the '60s turned out to be a look most of all. Within a dozen years, all the idealism had ended and everybody got out of bell-bottoms and into business suits. Peace and understanding were drowned out by the cry for tax cuts.

Plenty of disapproving people are around today to applaud this, but in my view we lost something when the banner of personal liberty fell again into respectable hands.

That sappy old song about wearing flowers in your hair if you come to San Francisco is more than an encouragement to West Coast bees; there is a verse that says what was good about the '60s, despite the excesses: "All across the nation such a strange vibration/ People in motion/ There's a whole generation with a new explanation/ people in motion, people in motion."

Now, nobody is vibrating, certainly not in Sewickley. Nobody is in motion. There's a whole generation with a stale old explanation. While a war every bit as bitter as Vietnam is being fought in Iraq, the U.S. Senate at the president's urging is discussing gay marriage as if this were a real problem. Surely someone in high places is smoking something.

This being so, it seems to me that, like it or not, the '60s are bound to return. They came in the first place to assert personal freedom in the face of stifling social conformity of the sort now well under construction. One day we will have nostalgia parties for this era of special stupidity. But what will people wear? It may be enough to look like self-righteous busybodies. Dig it, man.