There's not a lot of love in the Haight

actually, I think the "salad days" were pre '66 - before being splashed all over by Time and Newsweek et al - all it did was start a massive influx of which I was one of the early ones. When I got there - the "diggers" could only provide one meal a day - whereas before I got there - 3 a day was the norm. In another month or two, the "diggers" were no more.

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 was walking down Haight just last month (Amoeba Records). Some bum asked me if I had spare change. I said “yeah, plenty” and kept on walking.

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

and I sold the oracle - on the tour buses that drove through. Picked up a supply at one end of Asbury, got on the bus, sold them for a small profit, got off the bus a t the other end, walked back, repeat until enough funds for ... well actually, most hallucinogens were prettty much free, so it probably went for food.

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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