George Harrison and hippy hill

Back in the 1960's in San Francisco Golden Gate Park was where you would wander at some point in the day if you happened to be in the Haight (Haight-Ashbury) there were stores that had you widen your horizons and your views of life no matter what your age…..unique smells festooned your senses as you passed stores that had incense of varying scents and from homemade and from exotic lands…..tie-dyed clothes were the thing and fringed leather and sandals or Frye boots and jeans…. But a lot of homemade items…god, eyes abounded….winds chimes….candles…incense holders…books of every kind…..from the intellectual to the best of new cartoons and poster art(R. Crumb, S. Mouse, R. Griffin, W. Wilson, V. Moscoso and others who went on to do many of Fillmore and Avalon ballrooms posters) psychedelic was the art of the day with vibrating colors and bright fluorescents ….the peace symbol was and today is the rallying symbol (originally made for British disarmament movement in 1958).
There were stores such as be-free that actually gave away clothes and a side story is my road dog Barts dad wrote for the S.F. Chronicle had gone into the store and wrote and called what they did freebees he coined a phase as time went on……..some would have free food….there were coffee shops with food but the major food hang out was about a block or two up from Golden Gate Park... a fish and chips eatery always had a line around dinner time and in general and for about a dollar you'd get a cone-shaped newspaper page dripping with grease but filled with the best chips and fish ever…it was a huge portion of each and would have been the daily subsidence for many…..if you headed to a few blocks to the side from the Haight you'd hit the "panhandle a strip of greenery between avenues….you'd find people hanging out ..walking. Sometime people giving out food…and from phonograph players you'd hear songs blazing and sometimes sitar music…a lot of Victorian 3 story walk-ups, many divided into rooms for rent many crash pads for those who needed. Walk around and you could see the grateful dead hanging out on the steps to their pad or Big Brother and the Holding company and perhaps Janice or the Jefferson Airplane...…a lot of musicians, artists and people from everywhere..U.S. and worldwide…truly a magnet and the start of activism which began questioning the conservative norms, political concepts and materialism….both baby boomers as young adults and younger kids created a culture war with both black and feminist movement coming from this activism….wanting a society free from discrimination…and questioning military incursions into foreign countries (Vietnam) human rights (discrimination-hunger) sexual morays, and concern for the environment ….
But I digress one day making a jaunt to Golden Gate Park there were many options….there were the swings and parallel bars and jungle gyms and as a little extra would look for spare change and there was usually enough dropped to fund an excursion to the fish n chips …..there was speedway meadows where there were free concerts…..the Japanese Tea Garden which was always fun to walk around within……but this day we (my road dog Bart) went the way of hippy hill….there would be circles of people conversing, smoking herbs, playing conga drums, tambourines, bells, just dancing away….some blowing soap bubbles from the little plastic hoops
This day there was a group gathered which wasn't that unusual and so heading onward I slowed a bit and looked over there was a guy with a heart shaped glasses and he was holding a guitar and I thought to myself he looks like somebody…he didn't sing so looked for a while and move on in our journey…..
Well lo and behold, I saw a poster that had that guy with heart shaped glasses and guitar and found out I had seen George Harrison and his wife (or girlfriend)  beside him, as he held a guitar but i don't remember any singing, coined the summer of love and that was 1967 and on a summer day of August  8th…..
There are more stories to be told….
As an aside seems Georges girlfriend at the time gave a rather elitist view of the Haight not up to her standards and miss the whole movement (George didn't) so the article was odd and seemed to be a way to put down not only the area but the movement too-and don't think her words were out of context-kinda snobby shit
 
Those were the days before there were security all over the band members (there are a few stories about bikers who did that and the ensuing stories


So many things you do and see have an impact that echoes and echoes and echoes
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