I will do so. I'll be publishing a Youtube channel in a month or two about the sixties, called "I Want the Sixties Back". It's a remembrance of the countercuture n New York. I think that almost nothing critical has been written about the kids who ran away to New York expecting to find friends and housing and got terrible treatment. The Summer of Love began happily and ended, for many kids, in tragedy.
I too found your column thru Ted's substack, but clicked over for one main reason: I knew Rev. Larry fairly well having I lived in the Haight in 1967 and 1968, and worked with him to the extent of helping bring kids to Huckleberry's. In '67 I was working at the Diggers' Free Store (and doing draft counselling from a desk I'd set up on the store's mezzanine). By '68 I'd spun that off into first an anti-draft union and then a community union, tho by the end of that year I had bailed to the much better scene in Berkeley.
You did get one thing slightly wrong about Larry - he was not a hippie, just someone who genuinely cared about people, especially those at the bottom, and insisted on doing whatever good in the world he could. In the "straight" world of the time, this was unusual as most of them, including Mayor Alioto and the police in general, hated our guts with a passion.
One other thing I should mention was your praise for David Talbot's book. He got a bunch of things wrong, but one of the main two were his neglect of Peter Berg in the Diggers chapter. Peter got one sentence, tho he was the main creative and insanely energetic force within our little group of anarchists. If you want to see his post-Diggers work, go find the Planet Drum Foundation.
The other and maybe more important screwup was Talbot's falling-all-over-himself praise for Mayor Feinstein. Her administration was primarily known for turning the cops loose on The City's nightlife. It was ugly and rough for anyone trying to bring some alternative culture to the mainstream.
Back in 1970 I had a girlfriend. We graduated high school together. She was adopted from Japan and was a war child. Her mother was Japanese and her father, presumably, was an American soldier. I doubt that her father even knew she was born. She left her home in San Francisco while she was a senior in high school. She used to sleep over at my family's house; she slept with my younger sister who was 5 years my junior.
Eventually she moved into sharing a house with others in the Haight. It was there that she met up with a bunch of other kids who left home to come to San Francisco. There were about 5 to 6 people living in the house. Initially, everyone had a job of some kind and contributed to the rent. But then some folks were allowed to live there without paying rent. The leader of the house then left and the place became an undisciplined home. My girlfriend began to smoke more and more marijuana and eventually cocaine.
One night she broke up with me on the steps when I went to visit as I often did. She had gotten involved with someone who lived there and she felt sorry for him. He didn't work and was mostly interested in getting high.
She was my first girlfriend and I really loved her. That was 55 years ago. In hindsight (after two marriages and 4 kids), she was an ideal person for me. We seldom fought and she was very forgiving. She didn't ask for much and was not obsessed with material things. Mostly, she didn't nag.
I always wondered what would have happened had she not moved into the Haight/Ashbury district. I was planning and saving to marry her.
By 1970 the Haight was something like a war zone. The street had been torn up for years, bad drugs predominated, and the main emotions were fear and despair unless you lived in one of the few houses with money. She should have moved to Berkeley with the rest of us.
Thanks. A few years ago I looked up her name. She had gone to Japan to look for her mother and eventually changed her last name to Nishikawa, which I believe was her mother's name. When I found her by noting her high school and time of graduating I noticed that she had changed her name back to her adopted parent's name, and she now lives in Berkeley. Better late than never I guess.
I made the journey to San Francisco in 1968. I'm now retired and writing about the Summer of Love in New York. I'll be in touch with you.
This is wonderful! I would love to learn more about your journey. Please feel free to write me at zeldapoem@gmail.com
I will do so. I'll be publishing a Youtube channel in a month or two about the sixties, called "I Want the Sixties Back". It's a remembrance of the countercuture n New York. I think that almost nothing critical has been written about the kids who ran away to New York expecting to find friends and housing and got terrible treatment. The Summer of Love began happily and ended, for many kids, in tragedy.
Thank you to Zelda for writing this, and to Ted Gioia for signposting it!
I wonder what happened to those children...
Thanks Dan for this note, it is thanks to your comment that I was made aware of Ted Gioia's featuring!
You are a beacon of brilliance and care 🧡
I too found your column thru Ted's substack, but clicked over for one main reason: I knew Rev. Larry fairly well having I lived in the Haight in 1967 and 1968, and worked with him to the extent of helping bring kids to Huckleberry's. In '67 I was working at the Diggers' Free Store (and doing draft counselling from a desk I'd set up on the store's mezzanine). By '68 I'd spun that off into first an anti-draft union and then a community union, tho by the end of that year I had bailed to the much better scene in Berkeley.
You did get one thing slightly wrong about Larry - he was not a hippie, just someone who genuinely cared about people, especially those at the bottom, and insisted on doing whatever good in the world he could. In the "straight" world of the time, this was unusual as most of them, including Mayor Alioto and the police in general, hated our guts with a passion.
One other thing I should mention was your praise for David Talbot's book. He got a bunch of things wrong, but one of the main two were his neglect of Peter Berg in the Diggers chapter. Peter got one sentence, tho he was the main creative and insanely energetic force within our little group of anarchists. If you want to see his post-Diggers work, go find the Planet Drum Foundation.
The other and maybe more important screwup was Talbot's falling-all-over-himself praise for Mayor Feinstein. Her administration was primarily known for turning the cops loose on The City's nightlife. It was ugly and rough for anyone trying to bring some alternative culture to the mainstream.
Back in 1970 I had a girlfriend. We graduated high school together. She was adopted from Japan and was a war child. Her mother was Japanese and her father, presumably, was an American soldier. I doubt that her father even knew she was born. She left her home in San Francisco while she was a senior in high school. She used to sleep over at my family's house; she slept with my younger sister who was 5 years my junior.
Eventually she moved into sharing a house with others in the Haight. It was there that she met up with a bunch of other kids who left home to come to San Francisco. There were about 5 to 6 people living in the house. Initially, everyone had a job of some kind and contributed to the rent. But then some folks were allowed to live there without paying rent. The leader of the house then left and the place became an undisciplined home. My girlfriend began to smoke more and more marijuana and eventually cocaine.
One night she broke up with me on the steps when I went to visit as I often did. She had gotten involved with someone who lived there and she felt sorry for him. He didn't work and was mostly interested in getting high.
She was my first girlfriend and I really loved her. That was 55 years ago. In hindsight (after two marriages and 4 kids), she was an ideal person for me. We seldom fought and she was very forgiving. She didn't ask for much and was not obsessed with material things. Mostly, she didn't nag.
I always wondered what would have happened had she not moved into the Haight/Ashbury district. I was planning and saving to marry her.
By 1970 the Haight was something like a war zone. The street had been torn up for years, bad drugs predominated, and the main emotions were fear and despair unless you lived in one of the few houses with money. She should have moved to Berkeley with the rest of us.
Thanks. A few years ago I looked up her name. She had gone to Japan to look for her mother and eventually changed her last name to Nishikawa, which I believe was her mother's name. When I found her by noting her high school and time of graduating I noticed that she had changed her name back to her adopted parent's name, and she now lives in Berkeley. Better late than never I guess.