I was there too.
Haight-Ashbury 1969, home 3 blocks from the corner.
Some hippies went down, some went up, all underestimated the long lasting effects of the drugs. That is, the long lasting appreciation of giving up everything to get high, and never wanting to be normal again.
Some got smart, some got rude, some just got old.
I saw the old crowd at the Hippy Fest in the High Uintas, 2003. Sad. Damn Sad.
Women would abandon their babies just to get high for a few days. Kids who were fathers couldn’t care. Grandparents ... got an encore child to raise.
Alaska, still has its share of children named Moonbeam living beyond Fairbanks. Northern Arizona and southern Utah do too, and some never left California around Big Sur. The only proof you need to know it didn’t work is that they can’t raise a follow-on generation.
Nobody left knows what the enlightenment was supposed to be; intelligence, tolerance, and expression. All that came out of it was a stupor, poverty, and desperation. The drugs are more powerful now, the porn much more explicit, the music much more heinous, the ambition much more despicable, and the consequence much more life threatening to the U.S.A.
It is pointless to put down hippies, they were such amateurs compared to today’s degenerata.
great post sundog....i need to remember that word degenerata
Well said! I was there too for the “Summer of Love”. Was a bit older (21) then, and mostly just remember it being very sad seeing the drugged out kids living in filth proclaiming what noble causes they represented, and how they would save the world. Mostly they were just pathetic. Unfortunately, they were sober enough to realize that if they took over the media and the schools they could have a real impact. Lucky us to be living in the aftermath! sarcasm/