Haight-Ashbury: Summer of Love

[DangerMouse]

Just watched an interesting documentary on the above. Got me wondering did any board members remember these times or participate in the Summer of Love? Looks like an interesting time, some of the concepts were good, however it looked like some people embraced it more for the freebies than what it stood for.

So share your Summer of Love stories if you have one.

 

[ziggy29]

I wasn't even 2. But I was less than an hour's drive away from the Haight...

 

[vicente solano]

Was it the summer of 1968? Was it the year Sergeant Pepper´s Heart Club Band was released? What an album! My sophomore year at Law school....

 

[ziggy29]

Was it the summer of 1968?

1967.

 

[vicente solano]

1967.

Well, then I have nothing much to say.
It took some time/years in Spain before we started hearing about The Summer Of Love.... In fact most of my countrymen don´t know what that means, even now.

 

[Onward]

I was 3, and my mommy loved me very much.

I did spend most of the 70s listening to Beatles records (frontwards and backwards) and wishing I'd been born 15 yrs earlier.

 

[Keim]

Just watched an interesting documentary on the above. Got me wondering did any board members remember these times or participate in the Summer of Love? Looks like an interesting time, some of the concepts were good, however it looked like some people embraced it more for the freebies than what it stood for.

So share your Summer of Love stories if you have one.

Rule of thumb: If you remember the Summer of Love you didn't participate in it.

 

[haha]

I spent a month with my college friend in the Haight in December '67. He was a resident at SF General. It looked awful to me, a lot of very bedraggled and glassy eyed little girls, a lot of predatory older guys, and a lot of very naive idiots. And then there was the "acid look". Yuck!

 

[Onward]

It looked awful to me, a lot of very bedraggled and glassy eyed little girls, a lot of predatory older guys, and a lot of very naive idiots.

Some people will just never understand Cosmic Consciousness.

 

[CuppaJoe]

I spent a month with my college friend in the Haight in December '67. He was a resident at SF General. It looked awful to me, a lot of very bedraggled and glassy eyed little girls, a lot of predatory older guys, and a lot of very naive idiots. And then there was the "acid look". Yuck!

I lived in Madison, Wisconsin at the time. My roommate's brother returned from that summer with horrible LSD flashbacks. We were fascinated to listen to his stories. He essentially blow his mind and could only get a job in a metal working factory, very dangerous work. He was killed on the job at age 33.

 

[Bestwifeever]

You can watch a lot of the individual parts of the Monterey Pop film on YouTube (this post prodded me to watch my Janis--heartstoppingly beautiful to me). That to me is like a documentary.

 

[rescueme]

Rule of thumb: If you remember the Summer of Love you didn't participate in it.

Correct - I did not participate (I received my draft notice in January of that year)...

 

[samclem]

I was just 6. My main memories of the time were the evening news footage from Vietnam and the Watts riots in nearby LA. My mom was a social worker and my dad an engineer, they differed a lot in their politics so I got to hear both sides of most issues.
I was a little frightened by it all--it seemed like the country was having a big fight and that things were unstable. A little kid doesn't have much sense of perspective. OTOH, a lot of adults thought things were falling apart, too.

 

[Nords]

Rule of thumb: If you remember the Summer of Love you didn't participate in it.

Or you didn't practice hard enough to do it right!

People between the ages of 16-20+ in 1967 would be at least 58 years old by now...

Funny how no one asks for sentimental memories of "The Summer of Disco". I wonder how that documentary would sell.

 

[Khan]

16 and in a small town, I didn't even hear about it 'til I got to college in fall of '68.

 

[CuppaJoe]

Is this the one you mean, DangerMouse?

American Experience | Summer of Love | PBS

 

[DangerMouse]

Hey CJ, that's the one. I found it interesting because I had heard so much about it as an adult, but being Australian and only 5 years old at the time, it wasn't anything we really heard about at the time.

 

[rescueme]

I was a little frightened by it all--it seemed like the country was having a big fight and that things were unstable. A little kid doesn't have much sense of perspective.

You indeed understood the period, regardless of your young age at the time ...

 

[RonBoyd]

Oh, come on. Everyone knows that all of us were there... and at Woodstock, too.

 

[WhoDaresWins]

I was 14 in 1968 and kept under tight constraints by my conservative older parents(Mom was 40 and Dad was 50 when I was born). I was always kinda preppy to tell the truth, never a flower child.

 

[freebird5825]

1967.

Um...I was 9 years old.

 

[Keim]

Or you didn't practice hard enough to do it right!

People between the ages of 16-20+ in 1967 would be at least 58 years old by now...

Funny how no one asks for sentimental memories of "The Summer of Disco". I wonder how that documentary would sell.

Didn't they already do one of these? It starred John Travolta IIRC.

 

[Orchidflower]

I lived in Washington, DC, during the '60's where they had what they called "Be Ins."
They just had speakers and lots of people/hippie types sitting around on a lawn protesting quietly. I didn't participate, because it, frankly, looked boring and uncomfortable sitting on the grass. I didn't get what sitting would do?
Do remember protests with Stokely Carmichael and the Black Coalition marching down the street past my work one day. That was more exciting to me.

 

[donheff]

I stopped by the Haight in August of 67 driving across the country with a bunch of guys from Chicago. But at the time we were all pretty straight so we didn't take advantage of most of what was "offered." I was back out for a few days in 69 and stayed in an apartment on Haight St (friend of a friend) but by then it was definitely not a summer of love. That time the friends I was traveling with drove back cross country to Woodstock but I ended up stopping in Chicago to go to work at the Illinois State Psych Institute as part of my college work. I always seemed to just miss out on everything

Edit: I was present for the 68 convention. Got back home from NY just in time to make that event.

 

[rescueme]

I always seemed to just miss out on everything

I returned from Nam in September '69. Be grateful that you missed out on some things ...