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April 1971
weirdos, and the Hell's Angels who just
wanted to "dump a few hippies." Many
were threatened, robbed, raped and
beaten.
Haight carne to be written as
"HATE."
Love was abbreviated to "luv,"
and then even that disappeared.
In October of
1967
occurred the
"death of the hippie" march clown
Haight Street. This funeral marked the
end of the "dream" for many of its
originators. Disillusioned, they fled the
scene.
1969 -
DEATH Stalks the
Haight
The original flower children who
dressed in Army-surplus garb and lived
in crash pads had left. A vicious hood–
lum element had taken over.
Bars and iron gates lined storefronts
and cafes. Few dared "walk the streets"
after dark. There were knifings, shoot–
ings, killings.
Nationwide magazines and television
quit playing up Haight-Ashbury. Run–
aways began flocking elsewhere. But,
still, some carne - believing the flower
children were still there.
Such was one seventeen-year-old girl
from Seattle who carne hoping to swing
with the crowd. She was Jonely and just
wanted a friend.
What she got was a nightmare.
When police found her, her nude
body lay with obscenities scrawled in
lipstick across it. What she wanted was
friendship and ]ove, but what she got
was three hours of brutal beating, ciga–
rette burns, sexual abuse by both males
and females, and, eventually, death!
Police said her torture was bizarre,
but not fundamentally different from
the two or three rapes and several
armed robberies that occurred
daily
within the small radius of
200
yards
from Haight Street.
This past vibrant epicenter of the
hippie movement had become a shat–
tered dream !
1970-71 -
An Even Diffcrent
Scene
Today, the famed "Hashbury" corner
looks like many other streets. The hip–
pie shops are boarded - the flower
children gone. Shoppers are returning.
Tbere are even efforts being made to
rebuild the area.
The
PLAIN TRUTH
Abandoned relics, however, still stand
as evidence of the hippie phenomenon
which flowered here five years ago.
The Middle Earth Clothing Store and
Míke's Smoke Shop are dosed, barred,
and for sale. Walls are scraw!ed with
fading slogans like "Acid is God" and
"Speed Lives." The Straight Theater and
the Uni.corn Coffee Shop stand dismal
and deserted. Some storefront windows
and psychedelic shops, such as the once–
popular Haight Street Palace, are
boarded up. There aren't very many
hippies around.
As a saying among police goes -
you could fire a cannon clown Haight
Street now at eight o'dock in the eve–
ning and hit nobody.
Disillusionment Takes Over
When they saw their world crum–
bling in Haight-Ashbury, many of the
first hippies left. John Lydon, one of
the first young persons in Haight, told
me: "A lot of people went back into
out-of-sight places. Sorne went back to
work and others went borne. There were
only a few diehards that stuck around.
A lot of people were disgusted because
they wanted to have it [ their way of
life
J
right here and now.
And,
it
doesn't happen that
1vay.
So, they just
got tired and left."
Jim and N ia Lockway were typical of
the "Hashbury" crowd. They went the
full
route -long hair, drugs, !ove beads
and hippie garb. They had dropped out
of society because they were revolted by
the lack of concern shown for young
people. Their hang-up was the hypoc–
risy of today's world.
But, little by little Jim and Nia also
noticed the hypocrisy of their world.
"The hippie talks about !ove," said
Jim,
"but he doesn' t mean it or practice
it in the Biblical sense. lt is mostly sex
- in fact, sex worship. They don't really
care about anybody else."
In
1968,
Jim and Nía dropped out of
hippie life. Today they are a part
of
the
"straight scene." They stil! see the prob–
lems and hypocrisies of the "straight"
world, but they found those of the
hippie way to be even worse.
"Young kids now who think they're
hippies - who live on marijuana and
speed - their love is inward," remarked
19
Captain Mclnerney, San Francisco Police
Department. "They love themselves,
that's what they love. They couldn't
care less about somebody else. They are
!ove chíldren all right, but it's '1 !ove
me' rather than 'you.'"
WHY It Didn't Work
Looking for a better way, the first hip–
pies and their followers wanted no part
of today's "straight" society. But what
THEY
didn't realize was - when they
dropped out of today's misguided,
hypocritical, problem-ridden world, they
dropped into a new one of their own
making, practicing similar principies
but dressed in different garb.
They claimed the world was messed
up, and they rejected it. But what was
re-created at "Hashbury" was no better.
They rejected the evils of society, but
ended
up
practicing similar evils, only
more openly.
With less formality and
less restraint.
Venereal diesease became rampant.
Crime increased. Filth was widespread.
Morals were forgotten. Minds were
blown. And lives were wrecked!
But why? Why did a noble dream in
the minds of thousands of teen-agers -
to have a happy, 1ove-filled life - end
up as a bad scene?
The young people who sought escape
in Haight were not able to leave behind
the central cause of the Establishment's
problems. They brought, unknowingly,
an ingredient into their New World
Order at Haight which would inevita–
bly cause its destruction.
What the new inhabitants of Haight
brought in was
hmnmz 11at1tre
-
the
same self-centered human nature - but
now concentrated in a new geographical
location.
New
thrills could
NOT
make this evil, selfish human nature
evaporate.
It
is selfish human nature which has
produced the evils of both
the
Estab–
lishment and the Hippíes at Haight.
Until hwnan nature is
really
changed
from an
"l
!ove me" to an
"l
!ove you"
approach, every love festival, every
Woodstock, is doomed to fai lure. They
will
NOT BRING WH.AT TEEN-AGERS
AND ADULTS WANT-
true Jove, bappi–
ness, purpose in living, fun that will
have no kickbacks tomorrow. O