Sandra and I at Haight/Ashbury

Hippie Fashions

Concert Art

On our recent trip to California, my sister Sandra and I went to visit the Haight/Ashbury district of San Francisco.  This is the intersection where musicians and hippies gathered for music jams and lived near during what became known as the “Summer of Love” in 1967. I thought I’d see plenty of those original hippies as well as younger ones hanging out on the street corner dancing and singing, especially since it was the 50th anniversary of this happening. I naively thought they would still be meeting every day. I didn’t realize that this summer in 1967 was not just the beginning of a youth movement but also its end. Besides a young man playing guitar on Haight who was probably a street musician trying to make a buck, a few young people skateboarding down the steep streets, and a few others who looked homeless, the only people I saw were tourists wanting to see hippies dancing and singing like I did. The only thing to do was to visit restaurants  to eat or spend money in shops buying “Summer of Love” souvenirs or tie dye clothes.

Sandra had a blast because she loves to shop for clothes and jewelry, but I was looking for the deeper meaning of what happened that summer and why it didn’t last. Why was it named the “Summer of Love” anyway? So we went to an exhibit about the movement at the DeYoung museum in Golden Gate Park where many of the free rock concerts and hippie gatherings took place that summer. It was a nice exhibit, but all we saw were artistic posters advertising concerts by groups like the Grateful Dead (??- strange name, really) and Jefferson Airplane. Then we saw the fashions of the day. Cool (I know, I am dating myself. Groovy, perhaps ?), but where was the love? The gatherings highlighted in the exhibit were mainly about drugs, free sex, and rock and roll. There was the “Trips Festival” where people came together to drop LSD, the preferred drug of the day. I saw a poster with a man looking like a superhero in a graduation cap and gown with the words ” Can you pass the acid test?’ So the “Summer of Love” was promoting LSD! Really? This was not love either.

When we got home, We watched a recent PBS special on the Haight/Ashbury scene. One of the participants reflecting back said that her and the rest of the hippies in the beginning thought that taking LSD could change themselves and the world for the better. Someone was then shown wearing a T shirt that actually said “LSD Saves”! Then she went on to say that by early summer, most of these people had left when their hope for a new social order was not realized. By July of 1967, around 100,000 newcomers came to overrun the area. Many walked around in drug induced stupors with no place to sleep and no money for food. Quite a few were runaways under 17 who couldn’t take care of themselves. People were interviewed saying that they didn’t want to work and that this was a good thing. The film then showed a funeral march proclaiming the death of money and people burning dollar bills. Many kids were hungry, filthy, suffering from bad acid trips. and sick from venereal disease or hepatitis. This so called “Utopia” or “Love” culture was unsustainable, and so a mock funeral for the death of the hippie was held in the Haight in October of ’67. Young people were told not to come to Haight/Ashbury anymore. They were told instead to find peace and love where they were at.

But as the “Summer of Love” was winding down, the “Jesus Movement” was just beginning. This is where the young people would find the real love they were looking for. I’ll tell you more in my next blog post. Stay tuned.

So old it’s new…Take a look at my facebook page. I have a Larry Norman song from back in Jesus Movement time you might dig.

“Why Don’t You Look Into Jesus” by Larry Norman