40 Years of the Summer of Love and All I Got Was This Lousy Article

The most outrageous moment at the September 2 event occurred when Country Joe McDonald recreated his infamous “Give me an F, give me a U, give me a C, give me a K” chant at the opening of his popular “Fixin To Die” anti-Vietnam war song.

The difference was that he had us scream it over and over again, to break a world record for number of times the word has been repeated in a row. I think we ended up saying it 33 times. It was fun watching the discomfort on the faces of some of the family types near where I was sitting.

I didn’t stay for the whole event, but I don’t expect that anyone’s lives were changed, as they were forty years ago. Much has been said about that time in San Francisco. The reality doesn’t match the urban legend. Young people came, drawn by the promise of personal freedom and the abundance of drugs, not necessarily by an urgent need to create social change.

The Haight was overwhelmed and devastated. Thousands of young people swarmed in from all over the country with no money and no means of support. Social services, such as the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic, sprang up overnight to deal with the many problems that arose. Politicians and cops freaked out big time and tried to spoil the party. In the fall, the Diggers, a group that took its name from 17th Century English anarchists, staged a mock funeral for “hippies” and “flower children.”

Read More