If you're going to San Francisco
Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair
If you're going to San Francisco
You're gonna meet some gentle people there.
For those who come to San Francisco
Summertime will be a love-in there
In the streets of San Francisco
Gentle people with flowers in their hair.
All across the nation such a strange vibration
People in motion
There's a whole generation with a new explanation
People in motion people in motion.
For those who come to San Francisco
Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair
If you come to San Francisco
Summertime will be a love-in there
If you come to San Francisco
Summertime will be a love-in there.
Words from a song during the 1960-1970 era.
Words from a song during the 1960-1970 era.
This picture was taken about 1971, before my daughter was born.
We had recently moved from the flower children of San Francisco to a small
town in Kansas. Looking at this picture causes me to realize why they thought we were hippies.
I made the comment on another blog last week and got a couple requests to tell more.
What I can say is my husband and I married quite young and innocent. We both grew up
in conservative families. I had always been fascinated by San Francisco; so when my husband was accepted to San Francisco State College (now SF State University) for graduate school in counseling, we jumped at the chance to live there. My husband actually did his internship at the Haight Clinic.
It was the height of the flower children era and life on Haight-Ashbury.
What exciting, eye opening times they were.
We came naive conservatives and left gentle liberals.
Nothing else in our life experiences has so dramatically impacted us.
The flower children taught us to be pacifists, which we are still today.
We learned to live with people of different color.
We learned to evaluate and understand what we believe.
We learned to love flowers in our hair.
The sad part was also seeing the love turn to rebellion.
Their was a time of protest and fighting, where my husband would check the news to see if he could get on campus on a particular day for classes.
We really were not flower children living on the street, but we lived among them and learned.
I love this post --- and the beautiful picture of you and your family. Thank you for sharing about your transformation...
ReplyDelete~ LaTeaDah ~
That was certainly an interesting time to live in San Francisco. I love the 1971 photo of your family. Most of us dressed like that in the early 70's.
ReplyDeleteThis was fun to read, Marilyn! I had no idea you had this great and groovy "hippie past." I love your term "gentle liberal," and I would also call you a very "thoughtful liberal." I'm a conservative with a strong libertarian streak (free speech is HUGE to me as a journalist), but I like - and hope to be influenced by - "thoughtful" folks of any persuasion. I suspect that if we ever get to sit down together over a cup of tea we could still come to some agreement on the world's problems!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful! You know I love San Francisco and that I was there during those days, too - just on the other side of one of the hills from Haight-Ashbury. Your photo brings back memories - I think I looked much the same about that time. The hairstyles and clothes were what most everyone was wearing by then. I like your photo!
ReplyDelete~Adrienne~
Such an interesting post. It makes us all who we are today. Those were special times for us coming from conservative backgrounds. Thanks for sharing.
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ReplyDeleteFantastic post, Marilyn... wonderful learning about this chapter in your life, what you experience and learned from it and what it means to you now. Love the photo! :o) Happy July 4th weekend to you & yours ((HUGS))
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed seeing your family photo and reading about Haight-Asbury. With me it was Yorkville in Toronto. There is an interesting video about the hippies in Yorkville by CBC in 1967. http://archives.cbc.ca/society/youth/topics/1587-10799/
ReplyDeleteHello Marilyn,
ReplyDeleteLoved the spirit of San francisco in the beautiful song!
The family portrait looks beautiful too and I am sure it must have brought back so many memories with it too!
Have a nice day:)
I enjoyed reading this post. Thank you. It's interesting to hear about your experience living in San Francisco during the hippie days. You were living in such a great place, during a special moment in American history.
ReplyDeleteI have a particular memory about that song, too. It was 1980 (sadly, past the original hippie days) and my family moved by car from British Columbia to Ontario. We passed a sign that read "To San Francisco" and the song about people wearing flowers in their hair came to mind. I remember begging my dad to hang a right so we could move there instead of to wherever we were heading. He was a Canadian Air Force captain who liked Glenn Miller and thought that "the Beatles ruined the world!" But still, just imagine if he did hang a right...
OH, I've been waiting for this post. What a interesting perspective this is. It's not surprising though.; it's so you: gentle and full of love.
ReplyDeletedear marilyn,
ReplyDeleteyour post certainly brought back some fond memories for me...san francisco, was where i met my sweetheart in college, then we married, almost 34 years ago...our 1st daughter was born there...i loved walking the different districts...yes, indeed a very special time.
yours,
peggy anne
what a beautiful post. i look forward to learning more about you. : )
ReplyDeletexo
I enjoyed reading this so much and the picture is just great, I like seeing pictures in the younger days!
ReplyDeleteKatherine
I love learning this about you and your young, handsome, wholesome-looking family. I love your coat in the photo. It really nails the era and it looked wonderful on you. I see that you hadn't gotten around to putting flowers in your gorgeous flowing hair yet.
ReplyDelete