Comments on: Roll Up, Roll Up — for the Greyhound Bus Hippyland Tour!

By: Kat Castro

Kat Castro — Mon, 25 Jul 2016 12:32:36 +0000

Its me the blond hiel with.the painted face and flowers in.my hair. That pic was taken 49 years ago og me when I was a runaway from Fresno.
It seems ive become the posterchild for the symmer of love.
It was a lifechanfing time for me. I m still a hippie just a responsible one lol. I love people, life and God..
My life has been far from boring….. Thanks for sharing my now famous pic!!! Peace out!!

By: Kat Castro

Kat Castro — Sat, 26 Mar 2016 01:44:07 +0000

Wow, it always amazes me peoples veiws. I eas there, I eas a runaway, by the way, thats my picture youu have ib here, im the blonde with flowers in my hair and the painted face. That wS taken at the summer soltice June 1967. I was a runaway from Fresno, Ca. That day Janis Joplin was walking around Golden Gate Park, with a bottle. Oc Southern Comfort in her hand. The Grateful dead were there, they were on a flat bed truck playing music and drinking wine, they let me climb up on the truck for a while, and Bob Wier even climbed down and was tossing around this huge : beach ball with a lot of other people, I was up there for 3-weeks the first time, also went to montery pop with some hippes I eas staying with. There is so much more,to my story, but not near enough space to share it. Thanks for using my pic!! Peace out!

By: M.M.

M.M. — Fri, 05 Jun 2015 23:22:11 +0000

I was asked to give my first-person notes on 60’s life in Haight-Ashberry. But, before I comment on your vision of the Haight, I’d like to express my admiration for third-grader Dana–radicalized and listening to the good stuff at age 8!! In my book, that spells p-r-o-d-i-g-y. Apparently, you haven’t flagged a bit over the years.

I arrived in the Haight in 1969, that being the earliest I could shed my academic skin without being subject to the draft. Missing Monterrey in ’67 hurts to this day.Sadly the “Summer of Love” was also a 1967 event, so I missed that white heat moment of Hippiedom. Sniff.

In ’69, there was still a healthy remnant of the serious “All You Need Is Love” hippie society. But the Gypsy Joker motorcycle gang now cruised Waller Street (one block above Haight) selling meth and producing a subculture of dirty, strung-out, totally wasted kids. Great fodder for the tour buses.The “real” hippie population was leaving the city in droves realizing the madness of trying to craft a separate, sustainable lifestyle in an increasingly hostile city. So, “back to the land” and all that, e.g., The Farm in Summertown, TN. By 1971, SF felt emptied out and lonely, so my familyalso hit the road, decamping to land in Oregon owned by a former nun who had the far-fetched, but admirable, dream of creating a mini-society of enlightened, cooperative, productive, loving longhairs. It lasted two years before most of the population decided that the path of growing your own food, doing your own plumbing, and watching everyone’s kids did not offer long-term stability..

Some things, however, remained– ahhhh, the gyrating hippie chicks, usually dressed in loose diaphanous threads.”India-inspired glad rags” is a very accurate description. Very,very seductive. The Hare Krishnas stuck around–annoying people, chanting, panhandling (which is, I suppose, the most honest way to earn money if you’ve rejected the pleasures and requirements of the flesh (e.g.,a job)), desperate to latch onto something. These were generally not the brightest lights but were totally harmless. But, you got it right, there was a shining season where it felt like we had the power.

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 08 May 2014 02:21:55 +0000

Whose Dave? That was a good comment. I couldn’t have said it better myself. Picture this same scenario in 2014. The National Guard and FBI would be looking for sixteen year old Kathy.

By: Rockin Janey Mac

Rockin Janey Mac — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 22:48:23 +0000

So THIS is what my life has come to. I’m a footnote in history. A colorful anomaly to amuse the tourists. Do the tour guides bother to tell these people that real ART was made in Haight-Ashbury? A philosophy that changed the city of San Francisco forever was born? Janis. Jimi. The original Allman Brothers Band at the FuckinFillmore. The posters for those shows ALONE changed the visual arts. Not to mention what Bill Graham did for music. And swearing.