I got to SF in the summer of ‘73, just too late for the Summer of Love. But the city was very clean, crime was low, there was no graffiti or litter, and the bums were contained in The Tenderloin. The city made it a point to contain the bums to that area. Even the area around City Hall was clean. I never felt unsafe in most parts of the city and everybody knew which parts to avoid (Western Addition, Tenderloin, Castro).
Interesting. Watching the movie, obviously filmed on location in around 1968, so many people there. I wonder, sometimes, how weird it would be to see Charles Manson in the background of a picture or movie or film that was done back then. He spent lots of time there. I look for him in the crowd shots. In the movie, the hippies are even barefooted on the streets. Imagine that today? No way.......thanks.
I came through Frisco on my way back to Nam, imagine a
skinhead in black shoes trying to buy pot in the Haight.
I heard my first Fire Sign Theater on the radio in the
transit barracks, all of a sudden all this insanity came
pouring out of the radio....Thirty one unclaimed melodies
and more, much more. Then back to it.
Our flight to Tokyo was delayed for 24 hours so a sargent
in the airport in Seattle hooked us up with a family that
took in service men. Treated us like family. Never forget
them, and the Korean vet I met in the airport that bought
me a beer, while everyone else gave me the stink eye.
God bless them.
Tet68
I was there in 67,not as a hippie but as a USAF troop stationed at DLIWC Monterey and up to SF on weekends. I ran into some people I knew from home way across the country.