It Is ‘Summer Of Love’ Hobby Time Again!

When winds blow the calendar from May to June my thoughts gently drift back to San Francisco and ‘The Summer of Love’ (June-August, 1967). The events of that summer were so amazing, so far-reaching, that people love to study this ‘preternatural alignment of the stars,’ that they might fathom its undercurrents. The music was unbelievably good, even miraculous; let`s see, there was The Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin, The Grateful Dead, Moby Grape, Country Joe And The Fish, and The Mamas And The Papas.

I lived in San Francisco, briefly, in the early 1980s; I actually had a flat in Haight-Ashbury on Cole Street, so I would love to wander around The Haight and attempt to picture in my mind how it was in the summer of 1967. If you put your ‘Historian`s Hat’ on for a moment, you might try to apply some logic to this in terms of cause and effect. Why did this ‘cult of flower children’ descend on the Bay Area at this time, and in this way? That is an ‘unsolved mystery’ that unfolds in my mind in mere fragments from time to time. And why was the music of such a high caliber? I myself do not believe that it has been equaled since that time.

You can gather an infinite cache of material together, should you care to imbibe in this fun hobby. The book “The Haight-Ashbury: A History” is the best source as far as a detailed day-to-day journal for the happenings of ‘The Summer of Love’. Naturally, you need to get the DVD “Monterey Pop,” directed by D.A. Pennebaker. And don`t forget to pick up the CDs of the bands. My favorite band, the one I believe is most characteristic of this ‘Hippie Thing,’ is Jefferson Airplane. You can not live without “Surrealistic Pillow!” Okay, body paint anyone?, The Oracle?, droning sitar, free-form dancing, posie-poe, dosie doe…uh oh, the factory time clock?…

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/love/

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