Forty Years?

Summer 1967. My father lived in the lower Haight, on Scott St. I was ten years old and amazed by it all. Too young to actually participate, and yet I have memories of that time. Grown-ups drinking lots of jug wine-burgundy. I remember the day that George Harrison and wife Patty walked through the Haight. The news spread quickly. I was told he was wearing heart-shaped sunglasses.

My most profound memories are musical. When my brother and I arrived for our summer visit at dad's, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band had just been released. I played it constantly. Also: Rubber Soul/Beatles, Flowers/Rolling Stones, The very first (self-titled) Grateful Dead album, Surrealistic Pillow/Jefferson Airplane and so much more. I would sit in the sunny front room in the big armchair and play my dad's records. A lot. And practice my dance moves, when nobody was watching. (Read: my younger, annoying brother.)

I've talked about memories of Hippie Hill... I loved going to the Psychedelic Shop, and looking at every single thing in the store. Sometimes my dad's hippie friends would come over. That's where the jug wine comes in. Also that summer, my older stepsister told me what "fuck" meant. Imagine my surprise when I learned that it wasn't just a word dad used when he got mad at other drivers! I found that information so important, I went back home to my mom later that summer and told all of my neighborhood friends about that word and what it meant. My mom got lots of phone calls from parents-of-friends soon after that.

Just a few kid memories of the Summer of Love, almost forty years later.