I was living 40 miles south in San Jose at the time and I didn't see it that way.
Anyhow...
"San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" (1967) is an American pop music song, written by John Phillips of The Mamas & the Papas, and sung by Scott McKenzie.[2] The song was produced and released in May 1967 by Phillips and Lou Adler, who used it to promote their Monterey International Pop Music Festival held in June of that year.[3] John Phillips played guitar on the recording and session musician Gary L. Coleman played orchestra bells and chimes. The bass line of the song was supplied by session musician Joe Osborn. Hal Blaine played drums. The song became one of the best-selling singles of the 1960s in the world, reaching the fourth position on the U.S. charts and the number one spot on the U.K. charts. "
I'm glad that nothing bad happened to you. I'm sure that the number of kids that got in trouble was relatively small. Do you think it was on the order of one or two percent, or was it higher?
I was too young to participate, and probably wouldn't have done so even if I'd been a few years older.
The Summer of Love happened for me when I was going into seventh grade. I loved the music, and was unaware of anything bad about it. To me it looked like the older brothers and sisters of my classmates were embarking on an amazing journey.
So much of our culture, including advertising of that time, was telling us "you're a new generation," and it actually felt like that to me.
Absolutely wonderful, but largely an illusion. Still, fun. No one will experience that again, at least for a long time.
I was living in Michigan in the late 90’s when John Phillips came through town.
He had re-formed The Mamas and The Papas with a new lineup. It included his druggie daughter from One Day At A Time, Spanky McFarland from Spanky and Our Gang, and Scott McKenzie.
He gave a long interview to our local paper in which he detailed his ex-wife Michelle’s promiscuity in great detail. Basically she’d jump in bed with any guy who had a pulse. And when she did it inspired him to write songs. Sometimes he’d sit at the piano and write as he could hear her in the next room doing the nasty with her latest paramour.
One of her favorite lovers was Denny Doherty, the other male vocalist in the original lineup. I read this article and I have never been able to listen to their music in quite the same way ever since.
I hear “words of love, so soft and tender won’t win a girl’s heart anymore” and think “what on earth was going on when THOSE words were being written!”