I am in love with this perfume. Why had I never heard of it before? Why have y’all been hiding this from me? I saw the name “Rich Hippie” in the window of a new boutique that recently opened in downtown Florence, Alabama, and was immediately, like, “That is so me, really,” although I was with my husband and he pointed out that I am neither rich nor a hippie and am, in fact, a middle-aged suburban grandma who watches secretly watches Oprah. Not groovy. So the next day I ditched him and made it in to the store, Grassroots, by myself. After sampling four or five different Rich Hippie scents, I settled on Bohemian Wedding: “Chic, romantic, earthy floral with notes of Sumatran Patchouli and Italian citrus.” Yes, indeedy. “Wow, you really are a hippie if that’s the one you like the best,” the store owner said, admiringly. Or maybe that was just respect in her voice for One So Old. Hard to tell. I didn’t tell her, however, that I missed out on the late 1960s-early 1970s Flower Child-era by a few years. I could have been a great hippie and I so wanted to be, but my parents made me go to bed by 8 p.m. — 9 p.m. when I got a little older. And by the time I got old enough to embrace hippie-dom, everyone had gone all corporate and instead of love-ins we went to discos. Sigh.

I just realized I bought this Rich Hippie perfume on the 40th anniversary of the Beatles’ rooftop “Let It Be” concert. In fact I bought it as I walked back from a recreated homage of that concert a group of local musicians performed on the rooftop of our downtown drugstore.  Most of us watched down below from an alley. Matt McKean, the photo editor at our local daily newspaper, the TimesDaily, took these pics. (Go to www.timesdaily.com to see more.) In the crowd shot, I’m in the lower right-hand corner — well, half of me is — in a light blue jacket just above a woman in a black jacket. It was cold but great fun, even though I wasn’t wearing my Rich Hippie then. But I think I will from now on. If you want to get in touch with your inner Rich Hippie, go to http://www.rich-hippie.com/.