Manson Cult; was Golden Fang

[Bekah]

Yes,  the Diggers did that "death of the hippie" in September (or  
something) '67 in Golden Gate Park.  (I'd left about a week earlier -  
I think but I forget when exactly.)   That was the end of the "Summer  
of Love" and it got pretty wild.   Someone at the ceremonies told all  
the people to go out and spread the word of peace and love.   I guess  
lots left for school or the north coast but they'd been leaving anyway  
as school got started and it got colder.

Really it had got pretty bad in San Francisco.  In March it was all  
about music in the streets at all hours of the night and day,  free  
drugs (some pot a bit of LSD maybe).  There were lots of pretty  
loose,  free and easy,  friendships and just "hanging out" as they say  
today,  crashing at people's houses and so on.  I visited then and  
moved up with a girlfriend in May.

But then in about July there were way, way too many kids (really  
young!) up from San Jose and people from all over the US coming for  
various reasons.  There were lines of tourist cars driving down Haight  
Street pointing at the people who were parading along the sidewalk.   
There were lots of pan-handlers,  newspaper sellers (Berkeley Barb,   
Free Press,  Good Times, etc.)    and so on - then (late June?)  the  
freaks started showing up carrying the body parts of mannequins and  
that was weird but when someone showed up carrying the leg of a real  
person the cops came down hard.  (I think July.)   Then things got  
spooky kind of although we all tried to say it was a criminal act -  
not a hippie act.   There was a body turned up in the Bay.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/love/sfeature/timeline.html
There's a bit of stuff here but ...


I was in San Francisco but I didn't ever live on the Haight.  I only  
frequented a jazz house there - it had tables with chess sets in the   
bay windows - if anyone remembers.  I think it was across from the old  
butcher shop.)   But I lived on Sacramento street with a girlfriend  
and trying to decide whether to go back home and marry my boyfriend  
(who'd already left Berkeley) or stay loose.  I went home, back to  
college and Tim and I were married about a year later.

We went back to visit the area in ? '69   for a Moratorium (peace  
march/demonstration)  at GG Park  and the Haight area was sooo  
different - very, very spooky -  only a few hard-core addicts left it  
seemed like,  and they were very skinny and haunted looking.   We  
stayed with some of Tim's friends in Berkeley (Red Square dress shop?   
Above the Chinese laundry?)  that was pretty fun.

Bekah



On Sep 27, 2009, at 4:03 PM, Michael Bailey wrote:

>> took some distance to see [Manson] or Altamont as "the death of"  
>> the sweet hippie thing.
>>
>> Laura
>>
>
> i think there was a march in 67 or 68 in San Francisco proclaiming
> "the death of hippie"
> - people have always been in a hurry to write that off, yet it is
> still a compelling ethos
>
> or, maybe, an alluring ethos...
>
> the sweet hippie thing, that is...
>
> completely informal, grass roots, no membership cards or national  
> organization,
> more of an aesthetic thing perhaps although even that wasn't hard &  
> fast
> - you didn't absolutely have to have long hair or go braless or
> barefoot, did you?
>
> Love and peace.  Timeless.

http://web.mac.com/bekker2/