The Summer of Love at 40

Ah, yes, it's been 40 years since the Summer of Love. Nineteen Hundred and Sixty-Seven. Sweet psychedelic pot-clouded hazy days of nothing to do but "just love everybody" with flowers and stuff.  Here's a plug in the L. A. Daily News for all the good that came out of the hippie "culture." (Peace, freedom, and the Earth.)

I would be surprised if the author, Larry Atkins, was old enough to remember the Summer of Love. Dawn Eden has written a counterpiece to Atkins in the L. A. Daily News, trashing the Summer of Love. I doubt she was even born by the Summer of Love, but anyone who lived in its aftermath might be able to comment on the fallout.

I was a couple years too young to go to San Francisco, even had I wanted to go, and I would have been embarrassed to wear flowers in my hair. I was mostly watching and playing baseball and delivering the Detroit News in my neighborhood. One of the stories the newspaper covered during the Summer of Love, delivered fresh daily to the doorsteps of my customers was a local occurrence the paper called "race riots":

(Wikipedia)  Over the period of five days [In July, 1967], forty-three people died, of whom 33 were black. The other damages were calculated as follows:

*    467 injured: 182 civilians, 167 Detroit police officers, 83 Detroit firefighters, 17 National Guard troops, 16 State Police officers, 3 U.S. Army soldiers.
*    7,231 arrested: 6,528 adults, 703 juveniles; 6,407 blacks, 824 whites. The youngest, 4; the oldest, 82. Half of those arrested had no criminal record. Three percent of those arrested went to trial; half of them were acquitted.
*    2,509 stores looted or burned, 388 families homeless or displaced and 412 buildings burned or damaged enough to be demolished. Dollar losses from arson and looting ranged from $40 million to $80 million.

LBJ sent US troops into Detroit at the request of Michigan Governor George Romney, father of Mitt. My aunt saw a tank rumble down her street. Noboby was talking much about flower power. 

Comments

[Bill R]

The Summer of 1967—I remember it well. I had just turned 17 and was working as a checker in a local supermarket in Wyoming. It seemed like everywhere I turned I heard the Summer’s “theme song": “If you’re going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair….” (Who sang that? Can’t remember his name or the song title now.) I actually knew I was going to San Francisco that summer, since I had scheduled my Stanford admissions interview in Palo Alto, just 30 miles down the Peninsula. After the interview, I begged my parents to take me to Haight-Ashbury to see the Summer of Love in person. To my astonishment, they did! It was a grubby scene, however. The streets and the neighborhood were quite seedy, and most of the inhabitants seemed stoned. The odor of marijuana (and urine) was everywhere. The trip killed my desire to experience any more of the Summer of Love first-hand, and I was quite happy to settle down to college dorm life in the fall. I don’t think I ever did put flowers in my hair….

[Jim Kushiner]

I was 15; earlier that summer I went down to Detroit's hippie-scene, Plum Street, with a friend and was pretty "turned off" by the whole thing. It was, I recall, near old Tiger Stadium, and I was really going to a baseball game, so I didn't make a special trip....

[Steve Nicoloso]

I was 1 at the time, but one of the greatest albums from one of the greatest bands of all time had just come out. IIRC, this was when I first realized the truism, "If you get your politics from your music, you've got a lot bigger problems than getting your politics from your music." I've spent the subsequent years thoroughly enjoying the music of folks who, were this a shooting war, I'd be happy to send home in body bags.

According to her Wikipedia entry, Miss Eden was indeed born just a bit later (1968). But she is a crack trivia buff about popular music of that era.

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>It was, I recall, near old Tiger Stadium, and I was really going to a baseball game<<<

When I think of 1967, I think of The Impossible Dream, Yaz' Triple Crown, Tony C stopping a fastball with his face, Jim Lonborg before he tried skiing, and the Sox pulling one out on the last day of the season. And, of course, the inevitable Game 7 Disappointment.

[Judy Warner]

In the summer of 1967 I was living in London, which was just as good a place to be as San Francisco for music, hippies, LSD, and general weirdness. I saw Jimi Hendrix, the Who, Mick Jagger and others now unknown, live and up close. (Mick Jagger was walking around at a Who concert.)

[Juli]

Great song - and I realized I also didn't know who sang it. As usual, I turned to Wikipedia; quoting:

"San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" is a song, written by John Phillips of The Mamas & The Papas, and sung by Scott McKenzie. It was released in 1967 ("The Summer of Love") and became a cultural icon.

McKenzie's song, penned by Phillips to promote the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, became an instant hit, and became the anthem of the "hippie" era.... The single is purported to have sold over 5 million copies worldwide. The song is credited with bringing thousands of young people to San Francisco, California during the late 1960s.
....
In Eastern Europe, young people adopted "San Francisco" as an anthem for freedom, and it was widely played during Czechoslovakia's 1968 Prague Spring uprising against Soviet rule.

[Steve Nicoloso]

I'm just imagining myself as a fly on the wall in the headquarters of the Peace-n-Love Revolution (tm) . And somebody says, "We'll get everyone to wear some flowers in their hair." And the other guy says, "Yup. That'll woik!"

[Judy Warner]

I have known a number of hippies and I have never seen one with flowers in his hair, or even her hair.

[GL]

And, of course, the inevitable Game 7 Disappointment.

What disappointment, Gibby won! :-)

Now Tiger Stadium and Game 7 of the 1968 World Series are another matter entirely. St. Louis left Detroit up 3-2 with two games slated at Busch and Gibby ready for Game 7. Then Curt Flood misplayed a hit in the seventh and Gibson's World Series heroics were brought to an end. :-(

Stuart's Sox got their revenge for '67 in '04 (a true embarrassment for Cards fans) and we got our revenge for '68 last October. Nature has been getting her revenge for the Summer of Love fairly consistently over the past 40 years.

[Mairnéalach]

Mark Steyn has a good column on "The Other Papa" Denny Doherty in the April 2007 Atlantic (fully available online to subscribers only, but worth a read next time you're skylarking at your local library).

[James Kabala]

Stuart, I did not know you were a New Englander. Where are you from originally?

[Bill R]

Thanks, Juli. I would assume Scott McKenzie was a one-hit wonder. But with five million disks sold, perhaps it didn't matter!

[Maclin Horton]

If my circles were any indication, actual hippies thought the Scott McKenzie song was just commercial pop, aimed at what would nowadays be called wannabes. In early '67 we were excited about Jefferson Airplane, the Doors, and Sgt. Pepper.

This is actually a depressing subject. I was kind of hoping to avoid writing about this anniversary but I may have to get it out of my system.

[Maclin Horton]

Oh, and the Velvet Underground. The banana album was huge.

This is depressing.

[Jill C.]

I was eight and a half years old. I was just starting to read the paper (the comics, Ann Landers, maybe something on the editorial page -- yes, I was a little precocious) but I heard the Beatles mostly through the "Chipmunks Sing the Beatles," and upon occasion was exposed to Herman's Hermits, the Monkees, etc. through my best friend's older sister. So Woodstock and the San Francisco scene held little meaning for me. And they say I'm a Boomer? Ha!

[Beth]

Speaking of Jefferson Airplane . . . Jorma Kaukonen (he subbed in for Janis Joplin at a concert she missed which he was supposed to be backing up, leading to his career as a solo artist) is a believer with a great new CD out called "Stars in My Crown." At least *I* think it's great. Of course, one of the numbers was written by a friend of mine, so I could be biased. If you liked the Jefferson Airplane voices, you might enjoy this far more hopeful and uplifting work by one of their lead singers. :)

[Dcn. Michael D. Harmon]

In 1967 I graduated from college and went into the Army as an airborne Infantry lieutenant. My rich uncle sent me abroad, to be a rapid reax team leader in a helicopter battalion. My summer of love included firebases, UH-1D Hueys we used as slicks and gunships (before we transitioned into the AH-1 Cobra), a heavy Viet Cong/NVA tour, and some really rockin' quad-.50s. But hey, at least I got to get aboard the freedom bird. I knew lots of guys who didn't.

So, let me tell you about hippies, like the ones who laughed at me in D.C. when I was sightseeing the city in uniform. They didn't actually spit, so I let them live.

A couple of years ago, I went to San Francisco and actually went to the corner of Haight and Ashbury. It is heavily gay now, close as it is to Castro Street, but it must not have changed much in other details.

[Kirk]

The summer of '67 was a time of great transition for me. I was born on August 11, and delivered to my adoptive parents a week later. Being born was better than the alternative, and I am thankful that it was the Pre-Roe Era.

[Bill R]

"I was born on August 11, and delivered to my adoptive parents a week later."

Definitely a Summer of Love for you, Kirk!

[Philippa]

The Summer of '67 I was pushing 8 years old. We lived in West Philadelphia at the time...on the last block before the "other neighborhood" started. During that summer my Mother would not let my brother and I play outside alone for fear we would be stabbed by "those other neighbors." The mass exodus out of the city had begun. I did not understand my parent's thoughts or opinions and, frankly, still don't.

December 1969 we moved to "white suburbia" to my dread and disappointment. I hated it. I missed the city; the front stoop conversations, Italian water ice, double dutch jump rope, endless games of hopscotch and hide 'n seek.

Four years later in "junior high" (now known as middle school), the racial riots were regular features in the middle and high schools.

And I say again, I didn't understand peoples thoughts/opinions/prejudices and I still don't. Some things are best forgotten and ought to be lost in the pot haze where they belong.

[Judy Warner]

I lived in West Philadelphia as a kid, too, thought before your time, Philippa. Long after I had moved away, in the fall of 1968 my uncle was murdered in that neighborhood, at 60th and Master Streets, during a robbery in his drugstore. There was no summer of love in Philadelphia, in 1967, 1968, or any other summer that I know of.

[Philippa]

How interesting Judy. My neighborhood was 63rd & Haverford Ave. Not to far from 69 Street shopping and the El.

[Judy Warner]

Near the library, as I recall.

[Geoffrey Deacon]

Ah, Voices from the old neighorhood, if a little older. I grew up at 69th and Woodland. My Father was the rector of St James of Kingsessing Church between 68th & 69th on Woodland. I graduated from high school in '76, and moved to California in '84 so my era was that of the Bicentennial and MOVE, but it sounds like my experiences were sadly similar. I was in the Philly in 2002 and was shocked by how dramatically the neighborhood had deteriorated since my days.

[Judy Warner]

I went to the local public elementary school which was 90 percent black, since the white kids in the neighborhood were privately bused to the school in the next neighborhood (the north's de facto segregation). But my parents, being staunch integrationists, sent me to the black school. It is hard to believe today, but it was an excellent school. Most of the teachers were white, many Jewish, and many male. The students, white and black alike, almost all came from two-parent families. They obeyed the teachers and learned their lessons. It was there that I learned to sing the Lord's Prayer and "Holy, holy, holy," believe it or not. (Boy am I old.)

[Geoffrey Deacon]

My parents were also staunch integrationists, and my father did a lot of good work on this in the neighborhood and city wide contexts, but I went to private school (Penn Charter).

[Judy Warner]

I went to private school after fifth grade. Miquon and Akiba Hebrew Academy.

[James A. Altena]

I have connections with a number of other folks here, having been raised in the Detroit suburbs and being now resident in Philadelphia.

I was 9 years old when the Detroit riots occured. Although my family lived some 30 miles from the epicenter of the riots, my parents put a strict curfew on my brother and me, and would not allow us to go beyond the corner house where my then best friend lived, about 9 houses down. After dinner, knots of adults would gather in the street near there and talk anxiously, almost scanning the horizon as if they expected to see looters charging up the street. The fear was palpable.

And of course, Detroit has never recovered from the devastation or the resulting "whitee flight" from the city (at the fastest rate of any major urban center in the USA). Some 20 years I was riding on a bus through a section of Detroit I did not normally traverse, and for several blocks it drove by some grassy fields. I suddenly realized with a shock that there were old street signs and lamp poles sticking up in the middle of these fields, and that that these had once been city streets and blocks with houses on them. They had been burnt out in the riots and never rebuilt, but allowed to go to seed (especially under the grotesquely obscene and corrupt 20-year mayoral tenure of Coleman Andrew Young.)

For about 3 weeks, the family of my aforementioned boyhood friend took in 3 boys (more or less our own age) who were the sons of a co-worker and lived in a neighborhood where the rioting was fierce. A year later, they adopted infant black twin girls, and a year or so after that moved to a more distant suburb and passed out of my life. As a young boy at the time, I was quite innocent of racism (despite the overt bigotry of my own parents) and played with them as friends; but, as I look back, I can only imagine the social shock waves that these courageous actions must have raised in my childhood lily-white suburban enclave.

[Mary]

Hm, interesting

[Stuart Koehl]

>>>I went to private school after fifth grade. Miquon and Akiba Hebrew Academy.<<<

What I find interesting today is my daughters' lower and middle school, St. Stephens and St. Agnes School, is more racially diverse than most of the public schools in Northern Virginia. That is to say, the mix of black, white, Hispanic, Asian and Indo-Pakistanis is far more even than you find in the Fairfax County, Falls Church, Arlington, or Alexandria public schools, which have become heavily black and hispanic--despite the jurisdictions still being mainly white.

Both my daughters now go to Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, where the racial balance is most unusual: about 40% white, 30% Asian, 20% Indo-Pakistani and 10% black and Hispanic. Admission to the school is by competitive examination, and despite all sorts of machinations, attempts to increase the proportion of blacks and Hispanics without diluting quality have failed.

That said, there is very little--if any--discrimination against blacks and Hispanics in the school itself. The very fact of admission demonstrates that a student is elite, and they all accept each other on that basis. Not surprisingly, current black and Hispanic students are among the most vociferous opponents of reducing standards in the name of "diversity". Beancounters fail to realize that selection on merit results in a natural form of diversity that reflects the distribution of aptitudes within the population.

Not to mention that all the kids belong to a disadvantaged minority--the exceptionally gifted. They thrive and are happy at the school because they are surrounded by other kids who are just like them. Nerdvana.