Posted on 06/01/2007 8:23:42 PM PDT by Lorianne
From his second-floor apartment at the counterculture crossing of Haight and Ashbury streets, Arthur Evans watches a new generation of wayward youth invade his free-spirited neighborhood.
The former flower child was among the legions of idealistic wanderers who migrated here during the Vietnam War to "tune in, turn on and drop out."
They're known as gutter punks, these homeless kids with dirty dreadlocks and nose rings, lime-green mohawks and orange spray-painted faces, who panhandle with cardboard signs that riff on their lifestyles. "Please Help Us Get Un-Sober," one reads. Another: "Please Give Us Weed, Beer or Money."
Sometimes aggressive, they block sidewalks as they strum guitars or bang on bongos. Gangs of them skateboard down the middle of Haight Street. Some throw used hypodermic needles into a nearby pond they call Hep-C Lake.
Evans, 64, says they should get help, clean up or go home.
"I used to be a hippie. I wore beads and grew my hair long," he said. "But my generation had something these kids do not: a standard of civilized behavior."
Panhandler Jonah Lawrence, 25, insists it is residents who need civilizing. "They say, 'Get a job!' " he said. "And I say, 'You got clothes for me? Or a place I can take a shower so I can look for work?' It's so bogus to tell me to get a job if I have nothing."
In the 40 years since 1967's Summer of Love, Haight-Ashbury has remained a beacon for drifters, dreamers and dropouts. Most are drawn by the Haight's reputation as a safe place to hang out, experiment with drugs and search for life's direction.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Summer/Fall of '66 was, I think, the last throes of the real "pre-publicity" nature of Haight Asbury. Since I didn't return after my departure in the late fall of '66, I'll defer to your remembrances of the following years.
At the end of the summer of ‘67 the word went out that the city was no longer cool and that everyone should head to the hills and many did. A lot of old hippies are still in the Ben Lomond Santa Cruz area (at least the non-politicals). Committed politicals got drawn off to Berkeley.
Remember the Berkeley Barb and the Oracle?
I nominate Rudy Giuliani for mayor of San Francisco. Maybe he can clean the place up.
Hee Hee. That's better than my standard reply in a very sincere and cheerful voice "no thank you" which usually gets a very confused look
Thank God the country has a magnet like San Francisco to attract sodomites, perverts, and goofballs away from civilized places.
“Remember the Berkeley Barb”
I used to sell it to earn my daily bread....
I still wonder if any of those home movies the tourists took of me exist any more somewhere in someone's attic.
One of my buddies convinced me one day to do fruit picking. Had to be at Farmer's market by 4 am - long awful trip in back of truck to the fields - GAWD that was nasty work. I think I made 75 cents and had enough. I don't begrudge LEGAL migrant workers whatever they make at those jobs. Hats off to them. I dug ditches at age 13 and would rather do that than fruit picking.
As for panhandling - lots of competition - had to have some sort of schtick. I made up poems on the spot on my potential benefactors subject of choice. Did pretty well at that. Always nice in life to be able to say "well, I can always go back to panhandling" ;->
I have been under the mistaken impression that the Haight had been gentrified. I didn’t like the Haight when I lived in East Oakland in 68 and 69 but I did live on Sacramento Street (1870
Sacramento at the Monroe) for awhile in the early 70’s. I did enjoy walking around Pacific Heights. I was working at Bechtel developing software for the Alaskan pipeline at the time. Those were great times for me.
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