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A STORY FROM A NATIVE HAIGHT-ASHBURY BOY

My mother was really excited as she pointed out the window of the restaurant, "The Pall Mall", a local five-stool breakfast-lunch counter located on Haight Street, between Clayton and Ashbury in San Francisco. Dad bought the restaurant in the early sixties. "Look", she said, "look at that bus with those crazy people in the windows". From the view point I had in the window stool, I could see the words "Bank Of America" just across the street slowly being blotted out by a silver bus with "Further" as the destination. On board, hanging out the windows, were the many faces painted green and day-glo orange of, as I was later to find out, “The Merry Pranksters.....”

Now when things happen like that on the street where you grew up, you tend to not overlook the facts... that was weird.... none of the kids I grew up with ever did things like that, and even "the brothers" were cool.... we could all relate...but this....the hippies, they were real different and my mom and dad, along with other alot of other folks, were soon thrust into playing host to over 100,000 people from another planet who for some reason blasted off from somewhere and landed in our peaceful little middle class neighborhood.

The whole thing started just as smooth as silk. you’d look up and “The Pranksters” were 'blam" ... right there in your face.

Soon there was music in the panhandle. Word would reach you by some incredible form of communication so subtle you could barely feel it, sometimes it came as a breath on the wind, other times it was a stillness in the air, or a rippled low tone drum vibe penatrating to some deep primal thing inside you. Sounds carried in many diffrent ways in the Haight. but you'd respond and sure enough without fail..

"Ramrod", and his boys would have a couple of blue Avis 24-foot flatbed stake trucks ass to ass with one side pulled off and presto, instant stage... party time...peace, love, dope and hey, what the hell's goin on here? The day they blocked off Haight & Cole and threw a party in the street was unreal......................zap gotcha...

Leo knew what was goin on. Leo was the cop on the beat in the Haight and Leo knew everybody and everything. He was big, strong, Irish, and this was not his first summer as a cop on the beat for the S.F.P.D. Leo would stop for coffee and discuss the whole "hippie-dippie" situation with the local merchants. "God damn long-haired good for nothins. Ya outta see 'em; smokin dope and walkin around with hippie-dippie clothes on, and more and more coming around here everyday. The whole Haight is being over-run." ( my father would often say to me later, "I see you have your hippie-dippie clothes on, going out?" ).....yeah dad, way, way, way, out, and I wasn't the only one..........

The summer of love was best. While working for a local floral company we would load up the delivery truck with funeral sprays and flowers and down the road we would go stopping to pass out as many flowers as we could get away with........many lovely women that summer enjoyed those flowers, and it’s amazing how the loss of flowers on the sprays were never missed at the funeral homes, or by those who I suppose by that time were truly “The Grateful Dead..........”

Searchlights, White Levis and Desert Boots, Longshoreman's Hall! Fillmore, King Kong Memorial Dance, "Oh No, It Wasn't The Airplanes That Killed The Beast, T'was Beauty." $2.50 to get in either Bill's place or Chets place with the most romantic and magical name the Avalon Ball Room. Travelling even faster now... deeper into the bowels of the city from the Haight. Moby Grape, Quicksilver, The Airplane, ( who, years later hit the nail on the head with "We Built This City On Rock & Roll"), The Dead, always The Dead...... Big Brother, The Charlatans, Dan Hicks, Chet Helms, Bill Graham, Canned Heat, The Sons, The Santana Blues Band?, 13th Floor Elevator, The Doors, Siegel Schwall, Jim Kweskin Jug Band, Country Joe & The Fish, Traffic, Spirit, The Flamin Groovies, and whatever happened to the Congress of Wonders?.... so much music, so many trips from so many angles.

It was always, every single time, such a great adventure, such a wonderful, full on gosh darn good time going to hear the groups either in the panhandle, at Speedway Meadows, at Fillmore or Avalon, nothing ever went wrong on these adventures............it was fun, fun, fun, and there was no T-Bird for daddy to take away.......

We got away with a lot of things for what seemed like a real long, long time until the S.F.P.D. finally figured out what we were all doing in the park, but even then...

The Haight-Ashbury will always have a special place in my heart. If one thinks of life as a walk down broadway, this play had a great run, and continues today to be a major influence. It will continue to be the summer of love to hundreds of thousands of people. I can still see that silver bus with the day-glo faces in my mind's eye riding past The Bank Of America. Was it a signal, was it a sign of what was to be?..............I think so don't you?

Besides, as the saying goes, “Never Trust A Prankster” & if you can remember what happened... “You Weren’t There!”

-30- 931 WORDS

kenny

"Vini - where are we?", a voice whispered.

"Fine time for you to be lost, Wally. If it weren't for this fine mess you've gotten us into here, I'd be quaffing beers and pounding cheese cakes. But no, you had to take a short cut. Fine mess, fine, fine mess .. now come on, lets go back."

"You ain't getting hairless on me are you, Vini? I mean, this is our chance. Fame, fortune, girlies. Youse a man or a mouse ..."

"... pass the cheese please."

"That's the spirit. Lets go before we gets busted."

The light came on. They scrambled. A scream, a shoe, a mouse laying motionless on the floor ... a second mouse carting off with a large chunk of Red Lester.

">GASP< Vini,.... >GASP< this is it .... say goodbye to Becky for me. "

"Will do, Wally. Later."

"CUT!! .. Alright, what's with this 'later' crap? Can you see what's written here?! It says 'Adieu, my friend, adieu' .. Now start again !!!!"

------

Dr. Doug Platt of the Alzheimer's Medical center looked on and jotted down a few notes.

"10:00 am - gave the #1 mouse 2 shots of the virus but no observable behavior changes appear to have taken place."

J. Troy Tinnes

I was vistitng freinds whom I had plans to move in with once I left So. Cal. and went to art school. They had a place on Buchanan back when the projects were still there. Before I moved to San Francisco, the Haight held a lot of appeal for me. It seemed like there were always a million gorgeous girls around. Also, it still seemed feasible to buy drugs in the haight.

So Bob and I were going to try and get some mushrooms and get all loaded at a small party at his house that night. Some other So. cal people were going to be there including some girls I wanted to fuck. As we were leaving Bob's house, going towards haight to catch a bus, I was pulling out some money for the bus and two twentys accidentally came out and fell to the ground. It was windy and as I bent over to pick up one bill, a guy came off the sidewalk and grabbed the other one. My first thought was, "well isn't that freindly," quickly followed by, "He's not going to give that back." I tried to grabe the money. He replied by pulling out a huge pocket knife and in a gruff voice stated "that's Mah Munnay!" I was scared, Bob was scared, he went and got some freinds with a bat and we left.

We tried to buy mushrooms and hash on Hiaght Street. We met a hippy who seemed really nice. He sold us Mitakes and tar from a telephone pole. We ate the mushrooms, and attempted to smoke the hash. We got some nutrition and flavor and a bad cough, but nowhere near loaded. So with or remaining four dollars, we bought two or three bottles of purple cisco. We got Fucked up, I puked Kraft Macaroni and cheese all over the dishes in the sink. I tried to sleep with this girl from So. Cal. who liked me but I had treated her too badly in the past. That was when I realized I hated everybody and everything, including myself.

dablyputs

I don't live in the Haight. I never fit in there. Towards the Ashbury end are all the wanna-bes. Towards the Market end are the genuinely cool people. If there's a middle ground in there somewhere, I've missed it. I live in the Sunset district, surrounded by others who have abandoned the quest for cool and have settled for comfort.

But last night (12.22.1999), I was in the Haight. I was riding the bus home from downtown. I was barely aware of my surroundings. It was late--after midnight--and I was sitting, resting my head against the glass of the bus window, my eyes barely open.

A flutter of movement outside the window startled me into wakefulness. An arm was moving. Was someone throwing something at the bus? I focused on the motion. It was someone in a pickup truck, smiling and waving at the bus, smiling and waving at me. I didn't recognize him.

Then I remembered that I was wearing the Santa Claus hat. I'm a big guy, generally looking kind of scraggly. My hair is long and unruly. I have the look of a man at ease with neither iron nor shaving razor. Under normal circumstances, my appearance inspires concern. When I'm wearing the Santa Claus hat, though, things are different. Small children laugh at the sight of me. Some adults do, too. Others at least smile.

I smiled, looked around, took stock of my surroundings. The bus had reached Fillmore. We were still in the genuinely cool part of the Haight. Perhaps a genuinely cool person had just smiled and waved at me.

Could it be that the secret of cool lies in fashion accessories? Certainly sunglasses sellers had tried to convince me of this before, but I had never believed. Yet... If I just wore the Santa Claus hat long enough, would I be somehow transformed?

I decided I was too tired to worry about it, too comfortable in my Sunset district existence to start hankering after cool now. I snuggled as best I could into my plastic seat, waiting for the bus to ferry me home.

Larry Hosken

Do you believe in sychronicity or a lesson not learned will reappear?

I don't remember the details but I ran across his site. Casual until one night of talking on the computer left me with a lasting impression. Friendship and sharing I suppose you would call it. He lived in the Haight.

I was married to someone I loved but didn't know anymore. I was working a great job during this time and feeling powerful. I wanted to get away for a bit and find myself, meet him. I would think about us having fun, swinging in the park. I thought about myself making art and exploring a city I always wanted to see.

I remember flying and knowing it was wrong. I had just quit my job only a few days before quite unexpectedly. One of the dearest people in my life was struggling to fight cancer and had taken a turn for the worst. What was I doing?

The Rose Room in the Red Victorian was so beautiful. The weather was so beautiful. Is San Fransisco always so beautiful? Right outside my window I photographed the Haight Street sign. Should I call him? Should I really meet him knowing that I am not the self confident woman I thought I was. I felt like a lie.

We met. I knew he questioned my motives. In a moment of complete humiliation I threw myself at him. For one moment, holding him, hearing him tell me I smelled like roses there was no pain. He was my friend.

But I couldn't bear the rejection and he left. I never saw him again.

I watched the people out my window. I couldn't move. I began taking medication to help me sleep but sleep did not come. I took more. I began to see and hear things. My husband's voice telling me the next flight out was not for another day.

Talking to me, don't take anymore. I won't, I will take something different I thought. A yuppie drug cocktail.

I remember a doctor on the plane. A sweet woman telling me not to give up. The rest I only remember from what is told to me till I got out of the hospital.

It was 12 years to the day that I had attempted suicide the first time. I never told him what happened. I never told him I was in a coma for almost two days. It wasn't his problem. It was just sychronicity.

My dearest one finally died. She wants me to put this away. I know she brought me to this site.

This story is for her. She knows what happened in that room now. The story I never told anyone. She was the only one that didn't ask why.

This is for you on your 30th birthday now spent in the hereafter.

turtle

I'm 36 years old and my first visit to The Haight was during this past weekend, December 27th, 2003.

"Back in the day" when I was trying to find myself, I toyed with joining the alternative (New Wave) lifestyle. In Seattle, this meant techno dance clubs with an undercurrent of homosexuality. My hair was right, my clothes were right, and I even tried drugs a few times to round out the experience. When all was said and done, I couldn't bring myself to throw away all of my religious beliefs and become part of a world which I saw as self-destructive and surface on so many levels.

Some of the people that I met during those years could be classified as "hippies." I became somewhat familiar with the Haight Ashbury district through hearing their stories an in books. I was perplexed by the thought of a group of people who lived for a common cause of peace, love, and harmony with nature. Everything around me was harsh, beat-driven, and chrome-edgy.

But in the end, the years passed and I gradually joined the ranks of wife and mother to 4 lovely children. I am now what you would describe as a pretty average stay at home mom. I love raising my kids and being with my husband.

As my oldest daughter hit her teen years, she made some decisions that took her down the path of drug use and sexual activity. Being the parent this time, I was deeply grieved and scared for my daughter. It's different when your child is doing what you did... suddenly the consequences and effects of choices become very clear to you, whereas they didn't matter back when you were the one doing it.

So, my middle-class self decided to visit Haight Ashbury when I was touring SF a few days ago. I dragged my younger sister there, explaining that I just wanted to see it. She didn't understand. She never strayed as a teen.

The street is dirty and the homeless/panhandlers are everywhere. I have the feeling that many of the stores selling "hippie" stuff aren't authentic, they are tourist traps only. I had a ball in the vintage/resale/consignment shops but I was sickened by the "alternative" bookstores which carried garbage that should never be printed. I have always considered myself pretty streetwise but I am still finding out that there are perversions and fetishes out there that I wish I had never heard of.

As the evening wore on and it got dark, the "freaks" started to appear. The kids who express their "individuality" by poking, piercing, stretching, tattooing, and mutilating their bodies strolled the sidewalks, several asking if my sister and I wanted to score some drugs. Funny thing is, each of these kids looked just like all of the other black bondage and zipper wearing goths on the block. It got to be quite humorous.

I enjoyed looking at the architecture of the area, especially the homes and apartments. I can't imagine living in such a small area (especially with kids) with neighbors so close but the aesthetics of the buildings are lovely.

As we made our way towards the bus, we passed a guy who was probably 30, but looked 50, sitting against a wall, bent over his guitar, making soft noises. Beside him were two kids, and I mean kids, these boys could not have been any older than 11 or 12, obviously asserting their independence and hanging out with their older/wiser mentor. My heart sunk. I have a son their age. Where are their mothers? Do their families know where they are, or care? My maternal instincts went into overdrive and I was bothered all night by them. I wanted to bring them home, wash them, feed them, and love them, give them a real home off of the cold street. I wonder where they are now. I wonder where they will be in 10 years.

Back in our warm room on the 28th floor of the downtown Marriot hotel, my sister commented that she felt dirty and needed to shower after being on that street. I had to agree.

I can't imagine that the Haight area felt like that back during its heyday. I wonder where the hippies are now. Did they morph into regular citizens, become parents and eventually normal grandparents? Are they still long-haired with ethereal visions of the world, enhanced by drug use? Did they give up their utopian dream and end up in the cookie-cutter corporate world that they hated so much?

I did't have any deep revelations or answers on the street that day. Except for the fact that my view of the "drop out, tune in...etc" existence is mostly surface and dead end.

I'll keep parenting my children to stay away from drugs and become contributing members of society. In my book that means showing love and care to others, even the misguided souls on the Haight.

Kim

Re: A dream that confuses me.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My dreams tend not to confuse me any longer.

When I choose to dream, that is.

Here is the dream I just woke up from:

Thursday, July 8th, 2004

I just dreamt I attended a secret meeting that everyone was invited to.

Only Bill Clinton was brave enough to face me. I asked to shake his hand but, as I did, it seemed his arm was made of rubber....or full of Jello or something.

I was immediately, then, chased by a murderer.. out a door into the most beautiful Masonic Garden I have ever seen... one in which no one could ever touch me again and I was free to pray with my eyes open.

And I suddenly realized........I was in Scotland.

I woke up. Just now. Crying my eyes out. Cause....I just have no tears left to cry.

Ali Karehndiujo Mohmid

I've got a few: San Francisco, California, 6:30 pm, July 1999. The west bound 22 Fillmore at Market.

"Oh shit! Who was that? Fes' up! Now! Hell, someone open up a friggin' window!" "It wasn't me! If I'd have farted, I would have blown the roof off of this bus!" "No, me either. My farts smell pretty." "You want to bet?" "DAMN! SOMEONE OPEN UP A WINDOW!" "What was you eatin' for lunch today? Road kill? Dawg..."

San Francisco, California, 4:30 pm, August 1999. The west bound Fillmore near Rhode Island. This happens all the time in San Francisco, and Seattle, where many of public transit's busses run on a combination of diesel and electricity. The busses have a set of couplers that extend upward from the back of the bus and connect to an electric cable overhead. The bus makes a turn a bit too sharply, or tree branches block the couplers from making contact with the cable, and the bus stops cold. The bus stopped cold. "Oh, what is it now?" "Damn MUNI. I don't know why they even bother with printing a schedule. It's all friggin' fantasy." "This is the third time today that I've been on a bus that's gone dead..." "Everyone off the bus!" The driver, who didn't appear to be even 21 years of age, stood up and face the irate passengers. One by one, the passengers got off of the bus, leaving with the bus driver a list of unique and graphically explicit adjectives. I was the last one to get off of the bus. I didn't say anything to the poor driver. "So, he asked me. "Can you tell me how to fix this bus?" What do I look like to you? Your mother? A MUNI driver? Why are you asking me?

San Francisco, California, 8:30 pm, August 2000. The "M San Francisco State University" train, MUNI subway at Montgomery. The train is functioning, it is still in operation. But the lights in the train don't appear to be working. It is a crowded train. I fumble around in the dark for a place to stand until my knees go flush against a vacant seat. I can smell beer in the train, but this is a Friday night in San Francisco. To top it off, it was a warm day. I'll live. So, I sit down in the only vacant seat and immediately I am made privy to the reason why it is the only vacant seat in an otherwise crowded train. I plop my fanny into an ice cold puddle of beer. Need I say more?

Theresa Allen

Craziness. One day, Nov.22 2000 it was really cold. I went to school to drop off a project and then began to walk to my friends house to chill for the day. I had no idea what was in store. I go tover there and everyone was awake. Keep in mind its like 7:30 a.m. and we're teens. "Hey Brad! Whats up? Come in!" I was suprised by the excitement of my friends to see me. I mean I'm Brad. We shot the shit and then another guy showed up. "Guess what?" he says. "I have all sorts of crazy adventures in my pocket." I'm thinking, okay thats nasty. Brother is playin pocket pool and telling abotu it. But i was wrong. He pulls out this little vile of that breath stuff "Sweet Breath" and tells us that its acid. I had tripped once before and figured what the hell. So i took some. And then took some more. 8 hits to be exact. 8-10 was the usual dose. I was kinda ticked becuse it took a little while to kick in. But when it did, oh my. I was sitting on the couch next to my boy and his girlfriend came over. SHe sat next to him and they were talking. Then the acid kicked in. Looking at her face with this stare of confusion/amazement, I was in awwww as her face began changing colors. From green to purple to blue to whatever. It was fuckin crazy. Then it started to melt and that was fukin weird. Then some friends showed up. Like 4 of them. And they dropped too. In fact, everyone (literally) who came into that room that day dropped. We turned on a movie (X-men. You haven't seen this movie until you see it on acid). They stopped it for a bit and the news was on. Starting my peek and feeling out of my mind, I sugessted a walk. Only 2 others joined me. I walked outside and it was like an altered world. The roads were narrow, uneven, and moving. We go tabout halfway around the block before we stopped becasue we couldn't stop laughing. This dog was barking at us and the words "Ruff" were literally coming out of his mouth. Then this guy came out and yelled at the dog. and we laughed even harder. We come back home and I'm just so fuckin gone at this point. I started to watch TV and I'm thinking this is still the news but its X-men. Adn Wolverine is thrown from a car and is all kinds of bloody. "OH MY GOD! THAT POOR MAN IS DEAD!" I scream. But he gets back up....and he heals....instantly!!! "WHAT THE FUCK!~!!" I yell. "No way, No way in hell. Taht did not jsut happen. WHat news channel is this?" I asked. "Its not the news guy, I think its a movie." I watched it and cried at the end. Don't remember why though. After that we got a munchie attack. Hardcore. But only one problem. Who is going to order? So we pick my boy Mike. He calls the Chinese place and in one the most remarkable events i have ever seen ordered everything everyone wanted without once sounding "Influenced". I swear it was awesome. While waiting we turned on Pink Floyd's the wall CD. That shit is nuts!! I watched as little Chinese men chased dragons across the ceiling and we found thsi book. God knows what the book was about but it had this picture of this guy who looked like he was looking at you. WE jsut opened and closed it and laughed each time. "Bluhhh" we said when we opened it. We were on the floor laughing at thsi book. Adn then we tripped the rest of the day and smoked the bong that night. It was One Helluva Day and is now known as that.

BradFo

Well....it was a Wednesday of a Saturday-to-Saturday vacation to San Francisco. I had tuckered out my father and step-mother with our visit to Alcatraz in the morning....and I defintely wanted to get to the Haight somehow. So the plan was to leave about 4pm from lower Hyde Street...catch a couple buses over to the Haight....shoot some video...maybe take a few pictures...and be back reasonably in time for a late dinner. So..I take one bus over to the Fillmore line and start south on Fillmore.

Now earlier in the week was the first time I had ever been on a city bus...anywhere. I am glad San Francisco holds that distinction. Being from Peoria, IL...and having a car most of the time...my mind has no dependent thinking on public transportation. Plus...one of my ignorant thoughts about catching the bus to go somewhere was that I would get stranded after the buses shut down for the day.

So...as we continue south on Fillmore I notice the bus becoming much more crowded than at anytime during the past few days on my trip. Once again I should point out...I had very little knowledge of public transportation. By this time though I had figured out the connection between the cord on the wall people were pulling and the 'doink' sound I kept hearing. I was wondering how these people were communicating to the driver!

So...the bus stopped a block before Haight and I wanted to make sure the bus WOULD STOP near Haight..so I just got off there...figuring what the hell...an extra block to walk. Actually I was so untrusting of the buses that I decided to walk up Haight from Fillmore. A trusting soul might have waited for a bus heading west(and I did have my bus schedule and maps with me)...'Naaa...let's walk'.

Now...let's look at my attire. I had shorts...a knit Western Illinois University shirt...a green San Fran 'Gilligan' hat....and a small over-the-shoulder bag containing the camcorder and camera. Oh yea....and 'Tourist' tattooed on my forehead....! Although I wasn't thinking this at the time. I was becoming increasingly paranoid as I walked up Haight Street. I was slowly realizing that this was not a good part of town. I was drawing a beat on Haight and Ashbury and noticing how beautiful this area was. I was trying to imagine what it was like 30-35 years ago....how it would be stoned. At 36...my dope smoking days were well behind me.......however...the paranoia hung around.

I get about 2 or 3 blocks from Ashbury...where the commerce starts...and I see some youths ahead of me playing basketball on the sidewalk. I would have to wait for them to notice my presence in order for me to pass. I'm afraid. So I feign like I'm playing basketball with them and one of the youths very quickly says "Sell you bus pass for a dollar?"...or something like that. I say "No"...and continue to head west.

So I get to the infamous corner. There are seemingly alot of people on the street....for dusk on a Wednesday. And I have a decision to make. Am I going to bring out the camcorder and simply start filming.

Nope! I'm paranoid. I've already gotten a few looks that suggest something along the lines of 'What do you have in the bag?'. I've watched too much TV in my life to think anything different. The paranoia is running rampant. At 36....I feel like the oldest person in a 3 block area...an 'old man' about to get 'rolled'. So...I buzz north on Ashbury to see the Panhandle. My mind is racing and it's getting dark. Is anyone following me???

One block west...one block south...one block east...back to the 'corner'....on the opposite side of the street. Still the oldest man in sight with an expensive camcorder in the bag slung across his chest....CLUTCHED!

I decide this is the turning point to go back to the hotel. I walk past some homeless youths who ask for some spare change. I say 'no thanks'. I wander why some ask me and some don't and think that maybe they try every third or fourth passerby. I'm glad when I'm not asked.

It's now pretty much dark...and I make my way to the bus stop at the western corner of Buena Vista Park and Haight...to wait for a bus. As I sit down on the cement embankment along the sidewalk I notice a couple to the left of me. Immediately they give me the 'what you got in the bag' look. After a few minutes another couple come to wait for the bus and actually sit in the bus-stop seats. They give me less of the 'what you got in the bag' look...so they are labeled as 'the nice couple'. Now I see a lady pushing her baby in a stroller on the far sidewalk. All of a sudden she starts yelling trash to the guy representing 'the nice couple'. They yell at each other for what seems like an eternity...and they attract the attention of the group of youths I saw earlier playing basketball. The youths cross the intersection at an angle and go up the hill of the park directly behind me. Now...I'm starting to get a little tense.

Now from what I can pick up...the basketball youths don't like the attitude that 'the nice couple' dude was displaying toward the stroller woman. And now I was in the direct line of fire. Yet....after awhile....the basketball youths leave the area and everything 'calms down'.

Finally the eastbound bus arrives....only it's filled to the gills....not a cubic yard of space to be had. So...at this point I decide to walk to Fillmore. And I'm hoping like hell no one is following me. I even go 1 block to the north to throw off any phantom stalkers....although I was in the area supposedly where Janis Joplin used to live.

So...I make it to Haight and Fillmore...and wait....and wait....and wait for the bus. I still don't think I'm out of the woods. The presence of single women at the bus stop comforts me alot.

And finally the bus comes. And I feel a bit depressed that I was so paranoid that I didn't video any of the Haight-Ashbury stuff I wanted to. Not even in pictures. I have since told friends about my experiences that day and some say that maybe I had a preservation instinct. I personally think the truth is closer to the headline: Midwestern man finds self in questionable area of San Francisco.......doesn't want brand new camcorder ripped off.

The thing that really got me was the thought that the Haight-Ashbury area was seemingly....dangerous. And that was the furthest thing from my mind. I was looking for girls with flowers in their hair and LSD smiles on their faces.

But I will be back.....preferably not at dusk...and not alone. That's the new plan.

Jon

So, there I was, boarding the plane for San Fran . . .the city home to Beatniks, poets, philosophers and people who challenge the masses, true thinkers, pioneers. Man, I was so excited to find a place that I could call home. A place where I could fit in, among my fellow non-conformists. The plane landed and I walked out to greet my psuedo-boyfriend. He wasn't there because my plane was delayed, so I reached him on his cell and he headed back to the airport for his second time that evening. He was a good sport, nonetheless and the two of us headed down to his part of town - Haight Ashbury. We got to his apartment and I was greeted by his roommates - all in khaki pants, with the same haircuts. Oh, no I thought to myself - where are all the individuals. Immediately, we went out to dinner. Again, more khakis and slick hair and business talk. Everything surface, nothing with feeling, nothing I hadn't heard on NPR that mourning. Jack Kerouac would be so disappointed.

Dogma

My first visit to the Haight was about a month after I moved to San Francisco. It all started a couple weeks earlier when Donna and I ran into each other downtown.

I had worked with Donna in New Jersey for a year or so, but didn't know she and Jimmy had moved to San Francisco. Once we got over the surprise, Donna invited my wife and me to their place on Saturday night.

That evening was my first real introduction to San Francisco. It began innocently enough with spaghetti and wine, then the four of us shared a joint. It wasn't until we had finished it off that Jimmy shared that this was really strong "two hit" pot. Having already had several hits I knew what he meant.

Jimmy and Donna then suggested that we take a walk, as there was some local event happening nearby. Turns out that they lived just a few blocks from Polk Street and the annual Halloween parade was that evening.

Now I am from Idaho, northern Idaho, practically Canada, so I was a little unprepared for this parade. The year was 1977, and it was the last big successful Halloween party on Polk. Thousands of spectators, thousands of paraders. If you were in the street, you were carried along with the flow. We alternated standing on the sidelines and going with the flow for a few blocks till I couldn't take the visual and mental stimulation any more. There were too many really foxy babes in long slinky dresses who, when you finally got a glimpse of their face, also wore full beards. The obvious costumes I could handle, the multiple surprises were messing with my mind.

I suggested we head back to their place, and before we called it a night Jimmy had shared his connection with me. He gave me an address and said to just knock on the door and tell them "Jimmy sent me".

And that is how I found myself at the corner of Haight and Asbury, extremely nervous, thinking that it had to be some kind of a set up. The address was just too obvious. I remember looking at the street sign–Haight going one way and Ashbury going the other–and marveling that I was finally at the intersection I had heard and read so much about, and I was here to score some weed!

Up three flights, knock on the door, give the password (how many Jimmys could there be in San Francisco? Would they have let me in if I had said Billy sent me?) and I'm in. I just wanted to get my stuff and go, but they all but insisted that I try it first. It never occurred to me, until I was writing this down, that they might have been confirming that I wasn't a cop.

All in all not a bad first impression of San Francisco for someone who regretted missing the sixtys (Idaho remember). Don't you just love this city?

Lee

Haight Street was the place we shopped for our groceries when I was a young girl. We bought our dairy products in one store, produce in another etc.; they knew us. The street was clean and the aromas wonderful. Our family owned a bar called the Persian Ab Zam Zam, which is still there today. On Saturday I went to the Haight Street Theater, where I experienced my first kiss. Across the street on the corner was a restaurant where we had cokes and fries. The list of "firsts" is endless. This neighborhood will always be home to me. I am sixty two now. A couple of years ago I was walking with my mother down Haight Street reminiscing when a left-over "beat-nick" (and I really mean left-over)made a derogatory remark about our conventional clothing, "We were here first", I said. I doubt if he had any idea how deeply that "first" went into my memory capturing all of my senses. We were here first.

Judith Burton

An overcast day set the tone that left me feeling nostalgic, sad, yet excited at the same time. I would in fact be visiting Haight Ashbury for the first time in my life. After hearing all of the wonderful stories, and creating visions of my very own of the 60's in Haight, I was finally going to be there! My feet touched the sidewalk, and I felt alive, for the first time in a long time, I felt a part of something, and I felt something so much more than my existence alone.

There is a beauty to Haight, something that makes it different than any other city I've ever been to. It's amazing, and you can definitely feel it flow through your entire body. But make no mistake about it, there is a sadness. Haight to me, was once a place where the only things that mattered were Love, Peace, and Freedom. It was a place where some of the greatest music was ever played, and some of the greatest art was created, because there was a common ground between everyone. This unity doesn't seem to exist there anymore, and it makes me so sad. I walked through the shops and felt a sickness rise in me....people came in and took advantage of the beauty and love that existed on these streets...they decided that they would turn a profit on it. Haight Ashbury still has some it's wonderful people, wonderful shops , and still has that same energy hiding between the cracks in the streets, and embedded in the walls of the buildings that stand there, but I just don't think it's what it once was. Evolution is just a part of life I suppose, but I thought just maybe Haight was the one place that would be able to stay the same. I suppose the mind can psych you up for something much more than reality. I still think that Haight is a beautiful place though, and definitely enjoyed my visit to her. Peace and Love to everyone of you out there...keep spreading the love!!!

Tiffany

I spent my last night in SF underneath the kitchen floor of my old apartment.

I lived in many places in San Francisco, the last of which was on Page Street, upper Haight. Yes, my name is Paige, I lived on Page Street, and I had a pager, too. Cute. Anyway. When I first moved to SF I hated it. I was totally overwhelmed by it all. But, as in the normal progression of things, several things happened. I grew to love it. I met the first love of my life. I ended up homeless and strung out on heroin. Mine is a pleasure and pain, love-hate relationship with the city. So many things happened, not enough space.

I lived in a cute studio apartment, nice carpet, charming black & white tile floor in the kitchen, quaint fixtures, you name it. I moved out to go to treatment, in Oakland, because I'd lost control of my life. Entirely. And, while living there, that sweet apartment had turned into a hellhole. I won't go into details.

I walked out of treatment after a week, not quite ready to stop my self-destructive behavior. And so, for about a month, I was homeless. I slept in GG Park, and in other parks, too, on cardboard boxes. I picked up cigarette butts off the ground to smoke. I did a number of terrible things, to people and places I loved. Finally, my family came at me with a proposition that I was ready to hear. And so it was planned that I would go to treatment in Minnesota. On my last night before leaving, I managed to scrounge some money for dope. It was cold out, and my friend and I were looking for a place to hit, and crash. He knew of a place, and we went there.

It was my old building. Entering through a side door, we went through the "underbelly" of the building, and into a crawlspace barely big enough for one person. My friend then told me that we were underneath the place where I'd lived, not two months before. The place that saw me deteriorate into something less than human- someone less than myself. I'd moved in confident, moved out sobbing. You get the picture.

And so, on my last night, I slept underneath that sweet, charming little studio, on the cold, hard ground. It was as if that apartment had become the lid to my coffin. I just hadn't been buried yet.

Paige

The intersection of Haight and Fillmore Streets always felt comforting to me. For the two years I lived in that neighborhood I grew love for the decadence infiltrated in the sidewalks. I had learned to appreciate the dimly lit coffee shops where I had met most of my neighbors. I had been invited to their hideaways and made a fraction of their lives. But I could never understand the velocity that ran in their veins or how they grew like parasites in my bloodstream. Leaving that neighborhood was one of the most difficult things I've done in my life.

Thais

I came to San Francisco to undertake a Master's program at USF. I commuted to this portal city for two years. It is a portal of sorts you know. I should know about these things. At first, I resided in the dorms and within weeks discovered Sami Sunchild's Red Victorian. I moved in. Sami's place offers mood rooms, each dressed out in a different motiff. And since my consuming fear is to recognize the man in the mirror, this suited me to the core (if you see Buddha on the path, kill him;if you recognize yourself, you are not moving, evolving). There's so much I could talk about in terms of true magic at the Red Victorian, but that's other stories. This story is about Borisova, a Bulgarian immigrant residing in St. Louis who was my lover for five years. I brought her to San francisco when we first met and stayed in Sami's place. Borisova is no longer in my life, so there will be several references to "was" in this tale. Borisova was beautiful, strange, encompassing and cutting-edge San Francisco. The type of San Francisco that resembles the first settlers who butchered the nature-loving, naked, gentle indian peoples then populating the area. In hindsight, the kind you'de be wise to flee from. Though she lived for blood, the edge of her knife approaching approaching the soft flesh of your soul was mesmerizing. You knew she was going to hurt; you knew your weight would drastically drop as she hacked off ever bigger chunks of your soul...but you were addicted to her glittering edge while feverishly inventing flesh regrowth to lure her onward. Making love with her was merely sex but it was on command, endless. She liked it immediately on whim. And at this point I just kept the artery full and shunted for quick feeding. She was a succubus. I kept her engaged that long period with legendary strength. All that know me know I am measured and fierce of strenth. She could not find the last drop of life in me. The tabernackle was impregnable. Kept her curiosity up I did. And well fed. It didn't add up in her mind. I should have shrivelled up years ago from the relentless bloodletting. And I was in love with her. Little-by-little the longterm exposure to the constancy and breadth of that love - the industructability of that love - made her unsure of her avocation...the destroying of souls, the sweetness of deranged pain and brittle death rattles which in this case would never come. We were walking after morning coffee one day on Haight with the early fog still surrendering when in passing a recessed doorway I saw a young woman and child curled under newspapers, vagrants. Brisova telepathetically snarled when she caught my eye, and pulled me on. I removed her hand from my jacket sleeve and walked back anyway, all the time her teeth ripping at my throat in fury. I bent my tall thin frame down from its height into the faces under the newspaper. The child was awake and stared at me, her hair matted and cheeks muddied with weeks of dust. I smiled gently. Her eyes widened ever so slightly. I reached my hand toward her cheek. My fingers are long and slender. I touched her cheek and left my fingertips there for maybe 30 seconds. Her eyes and mine understood something. I turned my gaze to Borisova and she was ridiculing and indignant. I took the child's hand and curled its little fingers around a roll of money, kissed my fingertips and pressed them against her cheek and left. Borisova was deeply troubled over this, ranting on and on about the "disgusting vagrants" as she dragged me from shop to shop to buy this and that which would never see use. She just likes the act of buying. In fact she's addicted to it. It was in San Francisco that I found my mantra: "Be wary of strangerw, for you may be entertaining an angel unawares". This is a little like Suzuki's dying words where he imparted a last koan to his disciples: "Everyday life is the path". You see, Borisova could never see the angel in that child under the newspaper. I struggled for five years to have her do so. While there are many Borisova's in San Francisco, and many children under newspapers, you have only yourself at the end of the day. And the fog will eventually settle around you and you will see what you are capable of seeing fog or not. I left many drawing in Sami's guestbooks. San Francisco will haunt Borisova eventually, and for that I am grateful. I look back on Borisova's and my time together, and I am comforted in knowing that I am a reference point that will always puzzle her, and that some day when she is bloodletting the next victim and she looks in their eyes, the child under the newspaper will be looking back and smile up at her.

Dominic MacCormac

Monday: April 09, 2001, 9:00 pm Was feeling kind of low and confused with my life. [as usual] Was chatting with a friend of mine thru the day about it. He too ended up confused, listening to certain situations in my life. We decided to meet and talk about things rather than chatting. Didn't go to Santa Cruz, which happens to be a favorite for both of us. Instead we decided to go to San Francisco. Fortunately we had a map with us. So, we could figure out how to get to the famous Haight and Ashbury street. I have been wanting to go there for a long time. [since I came here and heard about it]

This is the place where the likes of Jerry Garcia - Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin are associated. This is where they all started. This is where the whole genre' started.

We found it. We reached the place. Since it was kind of late in the night to look around [since the stores had closed] all we could do was take a walk for a while. We did that. Stopped when we heard some music. A BIT of hesitation if we should enter the place...but what the heck!! we did.!!

- The pub, "Deluxe". The place seemed to be the regular hang out of locals...to drink and make merry. The place had red lights as part of the decor. None attended to us. We figured, we had to help ourselves. Since neither of us drink, we just went ahead and sat down. In the corner of the room was a Tom Petty look alike, acting DJ. Playing some cool music - Honesty, Billy Joel. Everyone seemed to be chilling out. There were these two women who started dancing. Wasn't sure if I could make some conclusions there...[considering I was in San Francisco] but anyway. The thought was out of my mind before I knew it. Its cool, any way. What I appreciated was the 'no inhibitions' attitude. Guess that's the culture USA has. So very different from back home (india)

Soon we realized, we could not sit there for too long without ordering anything. We got out. Walked around for some more time. I came across some really opinionated people, wearing strong political messages. Boy!! This place was really some thing. 'Grotesque' is how I would describe it. But I liked whatever I saw. Its an EXTREMELY interesting, intriguing, and fascinating place. VERY different from what I had seen of San Francisco earlier.

We then entered a restaurant named - Kan Zam Am. [hope i've got it right] A middle eastern restuarant. My friend's eye caught a sticker on the door saying this place was recommended by Lonely Planet.This place was again, lit up with deep red lights...Had interesting paintings on the wall...There were people smoking the Hookah. I was really very fascinated. The rest. was closed, but the bar was open. I was a bit skeptical if they would serve some things as mundane as coffee in such an exotic place. But they did. The woman who was serving us was quite nice to us.

...now was the best part. we got our coffee, but we were short of cash. our car was further away from this place. my friend had his credit card, but the minimum expense had to be $ 10 to use a card. The woman suggested that we eat some deserts. The menu had 'halwa' for desert. That sounded familiar. We went for it. This was the most amazing black coffee I had ever had. I usually never have black coffee cos it is too bitter. But this was really amazing. Just that the quantity was a bit less for such great coffee. [guess that's the idea ;-) ] We ate our 'halwa' and drank our coffee. We really liked sitting around and talking here. Though it was around 11:30 or more in the night, we felt quite comfortable sitting there. Quite a few people were around too. We spent a long time there. Finally had to leave when the candles were being blown out. [candles were part of the lighting too]

As we walked back to our car, we came across this 'Meditation' Art center - A bed and breakfast place named - The Red Victorian. it was obviously closed. The posters outside were telling me, what the hell I was doing with my life, designing some crazy web sites. Graphic design, seemed to be such a strong medium of communication here...lots of art all around this place. So much was being communicated. Such clever ways that too. The Red Victorian had some very interesting write ups about things. Very well designed things. Scrambled around for some pen and paper to write down some of these interesting things. My friend had a pen, and I had some old payment bill in my pocket. Would do.! jotted down some of them and walked past. Wishing the place was open.

Finally, we got to our car, decided to head back home. Couldn't have done anything more that time of the night. We talked on our way back home... about more serious issues... my life...his life... nothing could come out of talking for a couple of hours...but just a good feeling of talking with a like minded person. Good feeling that we understood what we were talking about.

We got home around 1:30 in the morning. My friend happened to see the time, and we realized we had been chatting till 3:30 in the morning.

Could never imagine doing this on a Monday. But we had to work the next day and were kind of sleepy too.

That was the 'BEST' MONDAY of my life. Started off with the morning blues as usual. But ended really cool. Really felt good at the end of Monday...

Tuesday couldn't have started better.!!

Tuesday even ended better. Cos I came back to Haight. i was in love with this place. this time it was early enough to enter the Red Victorian store. and guess what??? I MET SAMI SUNCHILD. i actually met her. we spoke with her for a couple of minutes about world peace etc. the graphics with the peace symbols were really interesting. i was really fascinated with them. i definately couldnt leave the store without purchasing a T-shirt with the peace symbol. I had dinner at "People's Cafe" with my friends and we discussed how interesting this place is. All of us were really fascinated by this place.

Some how i kept getting this thought back to me...that i would love to spend a long time here. i wasnt sure if i could settle down in San Francisco, leaving my country OR how i could do it. but i was definately thinking about it. so, i guess i would work towards it over a period of time.

satya

This all took place in April 1999, which is just a little more than two years ago. I'm not from San Francisco--this was actually my first trip there.

I had been in the city for about 3 days, just sightseeing. My sister is into the hippies and freaks so we thought it might be fun to take a tour around Haight, and we got just what we were looking for.

In particular, there was one flower "child" (the man looked like he was well into his 50's) panhandling on the sunny curb with an open guitar box. He strummed and sang an up-beat lyric as passers-by tried not to notice. Anyway, one of this fellow's hot-blooded buddies was sitting with him, maybe taking a cut of the handouts. A woman passed by when this raggedy looking man asked "for a little extra change." She made some insensitive comment to her girlfriend like, "They just never quit do they?"

This really set off the ragedy-looking guy--the one without the guitar. He got up and just exploded in rage at the woman. The crazed look in his bloodshot eye convinced me he was on heroin, that's how they all look when they're on that junk. A queer walking by stood up for the woman and tried to tell the angry guy to calm down, but he only made it worse. "Hey fock you, man! I'm just out here to make a little something to put some fockin' food in my belly!" It went on for about a minute until the queer left, but what a classic. The way he said it was like something out of 1990 Dennis Hopper's mouth in the movie "Flashback."

This man had long flowing hair, and a beard to match, and he wore a greasy, grimy tie-die shirt over his blue-jeans. Over the outside of this shirt he had an elastic belt with about 6 elastic loops in it. These loops held his beer cans conveniently over his waist.

The guitar-man kept right on strumming and singing softly throughout this whole ordeal, eyes closed but facing the sun, peacefully indifferent. I can only imagine the fascinated look on my face as I watched. I remember not being able to resist the temptation to smile--as I had just experienced one of those events that most people can only hear about in lies and stereotypes.

Dingo

I have a friend who lives in The Haight. He's lived there for about ten years. I was at his apartment one evening, and we needed something from the store. We went down the steep stairs from his apartment, through the security gate, carefully stepped over the homeless man sleeping in the doorway, and crossed the street to a small grocery.

As we made our way through the crowd of panhandlers in front of the store, a litany of negation started coming from my friend: ``no, no, no, no, sorry, no, no, no, sorry, no, no, no...'' I looked at my friend: he was staring ahead and down, not making eye contact with anyone. I wasn't sure he even noticed that he was saying anything. He wasn't upset, or angry, this appeared to be just The Way One Entered The Store. We made our purchases and left, and on the way out, he repeated the same ritual.

``Wow,'' I said.

``Those same guys have been standing there since I moved here,'' he said.

I remembered that once he had said to me, ``I need to move out of the Haight, I'm sick of stepping over the human debris every time I walk out the door.'' That was five years earlier. He still hasn't moved.

Jamie Zawinski

"Let's go get a drink at Bruno's," Al said. He knew it was an offer I couldn't refuse. After all, what better fix for a little boredom than to immerse yourself in the Haight's own palace of pure pathological psychosis.

Bruno, an irritable old man with many a screw loose, is the proprietor of a fine San Francisco establishment called the Persian Aub Zam Zam (affectionately called "Bruno's" in this part of town). The Zam Zam is a small dimly lit bar on Haight Street whose decor hasn't changed in decades. Bruno opens the bar only when he feels like it. I've stumbled across it open for business at 7:30 am on my way to work and closed Saturday night in the heat of the party hour.

So we walked over to Bruno's and entered his little twilight-zoned corner of the universe. Luckily there were two seats left at the bar. To no surprise, nobody was sitting at the tables. As soon as Bruno approached, Al ordered a scotch and I ordered a vodka martini. We both knew that if we hesitated a moment too long, Bruno wouldn't serve us. We made it for now.

In through the door came a guy and his girlfriend. At this point there weren't any seats left at the bar. The conversation hushed as Bruno turned to the new patrons.

"The tables are closed," he drawled.

"That's alright, we'll stand" the guy said to Bruno.

"I only serve those seated at the bar."

"But there aren't any seats at the bar."

"Well I guess you'll have to go that bar down the street. They play that nice rock-and-roll music there."

"What do you mean?... we want a drink!"

"I guess you'll have to come back on a Monday night when it's raining, there'll be a seat at the bar then."

"I can't believe this, you won't serve me a drink?"

"It's time for you to leave."

The guy made some smart-ass comment and steamed out onto the sidewalk.

As the door swung closed, Bruno turned to the rest of us and said, "And go back to Osh Kosh where you came from."

Al sipped his scotch and gave me that look that said, "This is better than television any night!"

chip

The Haight-Ashbury district is, of course, famous for its Summer of Young Acidhead Love, back in 1967, when I was but two years old. But even though most people agreed that the whole place had changed by 1984, the changes did not preclude a whole new generation of psychedelians from setting up microsocieties there in the eighties. I was part of that Haight-Ashbury "scene".

My home in 1984 was actually in Berkeley, at Barrington Hall, which was a weird enough place in its own right. But I found myself spending about half my time sleeping over at a Haight-Ashbury squat, with two young hippie guys who worked at Market Street head shops, and a snotty punk-rocker speedfreak named Jerry.

The two hippies, Mark and Mike, were bisexual. Mark was my boyfriend. At that time, I didn't find anything discomforting about it: I thought of myself as a latter-day flower child, deeply tuned in to the whole idea of free love. AIDS, at that time, was just a thing we'd hear about on the news once in a while, a naggingly scary clarion-call from over the future horizons, but in 1984, it was not yet an immediate sort of concern. Since I'd grown up in an unbelievably dull, nondescript suburb of Los Angeles, where even the stoner guys spent most of their time yakking about cars and stereos and girls, I was entranced with the way Mark had a notebook in which he wrote about things like "serpentflower crystals" and "the Universal Isness of Purple Crown Chakra light". And I was dazzled by his hair, which was very blonde, and very soft, and most of all...very long.

The squat, which was a first story two-bedroom unit in a duplex on McAllister Street near Masonic, had these tiny miniature sliding-door bedrooms, which were festooned with faux-Indian tapestries and lifesize fluorescent posters of Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix which the guys would bring back from their headshop jobs. It was supposedly an actual squat, but I'm pretty sure those three cute boys had to pay some sort of rent to the gentleman upstairs. I believe he took his payments in sexual services, or drugs, or perhaps both. I'd always be hearing the guys speaking of the upstairs neighbour with the kind of careful reverence one usually reserves for talking about one's boss, or parents, or the spouse one's cheating on but depends upon for support. The guys all seemed to think that I shouldn't hear of whatever arrangement that existed there. Girls just weren't supposed to know about that kind of thing. It vaguely irritated me. Did they really think I was that stupid? Or that uptight?

One cold, rainy night in the middle of summer, Mike and Jerry and Mark and I dosed on LSD, as we had done just about every weekend. I had a deep, enormous love for, and taste for, this particular chemical. I even had the nickname "Psyche" back then.

This acid had been dipped unevenly, I think, and I ended up getting a much stronger hit than the guys did. After a couple of hours of practically nothing happening to them, Jerry said "Fuck this" and pulled out some speed, along with a mirror and a straw, and passed it around. Everyone snorted lines but me, as I was starting to come on to the acid and the last thing I wanted to even think about was speed.

It was beginning to get unpleasant. I was feeling like I was treading water in a tidal wave, and now everyone around me was on a speed wavelength instead of an acid wavelength. I began to get very disturbed. I wasn't having any sort of textbook freakout--I never have had one of those, ever. Just "bummers"...and this was really beginning to have all the hallmarks of a "bummer". I pleaded with Mark to stay with me and help me sort out my mind, but he was wired on speed and the guys all were itching to go out and do something. In the rain. I was tripping way too hard for that nonsense. But Mark, in his typically careless way, didn't give a damn. He told me he'd be back. And the three of them left me...alone, in a room with no electricity, barely any furniture, and no heat. Oh joy.

In that tiny, dark pad, I kept bumping into hallucinatory geometric objects and falling down as I rummaged around frantically for a candle which I couldn't find...a situation which soon proved to be moot anyway, since I discovered that I had no matches or lighter or even a working gas stove. The guys had taken every light in the place out with them for their cigarettes. They hadn't even thought to leave me any of those.

I finally huddled under the ratty blanket from Mark's bed with my Walkman. I was, at that moment, incredibly thankful for this marvelous new invention which let me carry my music everywhere I went. But I dug around in my purse and realised I only had one tape with me: Brian Eno's Another Green World. It was either that, or Jerry's raucous punk bootlegs. I elected to play the Eno: over and over again.

For the next three hours or so, give or take a century or two, I lay there alone in the freezing apartment, thoroughly absorbing, and being absorbed by, this wonderful album. Slowly, one knotted thread at a time, I unravelled my consciousness and straightened out its complex, complicated tapestries. I cried along with the sky, whose tears were pelting the dirty window of the squat...

After the album had played once, then twice, the frightening confusion and emotional pain had drained away from those threads - untangled, the life in them was no longer "stopped up" and now it ::: floooed smoathhhly ::: through my system.

After a long while, I went to sleep -- or whatever hypnagoguic state passes for sleep when you're tripping on acid -- with the 'phones still on my head and the tape running through its fourth or fifth recycling. To this day, I can't listen to that album without remembering that night. The association's literally acid-etched into my brain.

In the wee hours of the morn, I woke up. The boys were still not back from whatever romp they'd gone gallivanting on. When they got back, they'd be tweaked and tired and likely grumpy. And I had...well, issues with Mark about his behaviour the prior night. Unless you are a complete jerk, you just don't leave someone you care about alone in a cold room while she's tripping.

I realised at that point things would never be quite right between us. Acid can lend an ego-transcendent perspective to any situation: I wasn't just thinking of myself, I was thinking also of Mark. Just as his behaviour had hurt me, my overweening attachment to him, my frequent desire for him to stay home with me instead of going out and doing the things that young bisexual hustler types did in the night -- these things were going to hurt him, too. It was a pretty heavy realisation for a 19 year old hippie chick to make. It was the beginning of the end of that relationship...and that, in turn, was the beginning of the end of that particular phase of my life. Though I'd certainly have more trips in later years, it would never again be with the total reckless abandon that I'd had before.

I left the squat around six in the morning. I didn't bother to leave the guys a note. Although I didn't know it at the time, that was the last I'd ever be seeing of that place.

The sky had cleared while I had slept, and everything had that just-rained feel: the preternaturally fresh scent of things cleaned by a night storm.

I remember taking a felt-tip pen from my purse and writing ENO SPELLED BACKWORDS IS ONE on a wall as I ambled slowly down Fell Street, heading for the BART station to go home.

Demi Monde

Every other weekend we left Sacramento and headed to "the city." Some called it "Frisco" and frankly, the word conjured up a feeling of overwhelming nausea in my gut. The term, "Frisco," reminds me of a cross between Fritos and polyester leisure suits.

We'd load up in the station wagon and head out for cultural events galore. The 60's provided an opportunity for obscure dressing. I hate to admit a brief bout of mod, Carnaby Street dressing. There was a hat that I purchased, in the Haight, that was navy, white and yellow. I had to stick a washcloth in it to keep its poofiness up and to complete the ensemble that I'm certain was more garish than stunning.

It was not long that both my sister and I began to wear Indian dresses that were shapeless sacks of vivid color. I noted that pharmaceutical reps appreciated our frocks and felt hipper than usual when men on corners would offer: hash, acid, mushrooms....

Look but do not buy. That was my motto. Instead, as a foolish young girl, I would flash open my purse to allow the drug reps a visual opportunity to check out the package of Marlboro's that I'd purchased at the theater's vending machine. I had reached the pinnacle of chic.

Years later, I visited the Haight once again. Trendy fashion was no longer an issue for me. (nor is it now.) I visited a friend who modeled for I. Magnin. She and her beau resided in the upper floors of a store in the Haight. I was mesmerized.

I recall the ground floor of the store and the display windows being filled with unique textural/tactile art. There were Dobermans. As one ascended the stair well, there was a an enormous brick wall. On that wall was painted a gigantic fried egg and a simple statement.

The statement and the Haight are synonymous to me. I am a nephrology nurse and am working on my MSN. I see patients constantly and each time I do, I see the Haight and I see the statement on the wall and it continues to remind me that there is.... "One less bell to answer; one less egg to fry."

Carol

I grew up in Jersey. Spent a lot of time in New York City growing up, getting the culture, getting into trouble, but mostly just getting the attitude.

The first time I visited the West Coast was when I was still at Rutgers. My sister took me to San Francisco. And the first place we stopped was the Haight-Ashbury. Even though I was pretty cynical and had "grown up," and this was the '90s, I was taken by the whole scene, this neighborhood of myth, the place where the Summer of Love had happened. Sure, now there's a Gap and a Ben and Jerry's at ground zero, but the hippies from back in the day weren't completely replaced by yuppies. There were the Deadheads and the panhandlers, the punks and the dealers.

We parked the car, got out and and the shaggiest, most colorful old burnout on the street gave me the winningest smile ever and said "Welcome home, soldier."

A couple years later I moved into the Haight.

Carlito

The bartender at Martin Macks just kept serving us guiness, and we had only paid for 1 of every 3 rounds, it seemed. Greg was trying to pick up a young woman at the bar. I had long since given up on that. I was too drunk to think about it. Too drunk to think about anything except pissing again and how was I going to get home tonight, and where was I going to get a job. I left the bar when I realized that Greg was long gone. The mist seemed to fit my mood and carried me towards the greyhound station in a blur of smoky darkeness. And there she was...sweet little blond haired mexican... Together we went to the ATM. Together we checked into a hotel. Sweet shaved mound...small breasts... I thought I would never stop...but exhaustion overcame me finally. Strange sheets...so comfortable... In the morning she was gone. The polica were oustide on the street. Had she called them about me? Did she tell them I raped her or something? I was nervous as hell until they left. San Francisco will be a ghost town someday...full of the memories of restless souls...weird energy rising from the sidewalks...puppets on strings believing they were once free to pierce the heart of their own true nature...

Bernie

It had been drizzling all morning, and the air smelled that smell of wet wool and the homeless. And after awhile, a drink was proposed. The gray sky dimming with the slant of November fall, the day fuzzes around the edges as I recall drinking gin & tonics at the punch house. One, then another, then another. Ran out to buy a shirt, came back to find shots from the bartender. Cinnamon floating on top, too sweat what was it? Laughing, why didn’t I buy those crazy shoes, why did I only buy a book? More sips, extra lime, extra extra lime so tangy and biting the tonic fizzing, missing my mouth. Outside smoking a cigarette, handing out smokes to people, a teenager, too young! talking more, karma and the world, laughing more, back inside for another gin, then Julies, standing, falling on top of the table, glass everywhere, shattered shot glasses, a broken beer mug, looking at the jagged handle, glass everywhere. Panic. We’re leaving now. Running down the street damp and dark and drunk, running down the street towards home.

Meg

I don't remember why I was leaning against the wall of the Ben & Jerry's on Haight street, or who I was waiting for, but I do remember that I was upset. I was near tears, but trying to hide it from all the runaways and such around me who had many more problems to deal with than I. A guy with dreads walked by, looked at me and smiled. "It'll be okay, honey," he said. I smiled and thanked Whoever for the kindess of strangers.

zora

I just came back to Cole Valley in the Upper Haight after four months in New York City.

I knew something would change in my neighborhood while I was gone; it turned out to be something I cared deeply about. Bubba, the huge black man who sat on his stoop at Cole and Frederick in all kinds of wild hats -- cowboy hats, sombreros, mystic turbans, outrageous crowns, antlers -- saying "Bless you" to everyone who walked past -- died while I was away.

Everyone in the neighborhood seemed to know Bubba by a different name, but everyone knew him. I once asked him his name and he said, "Bubba -- or David," which was specific enough for me.

His freelance blessings often made my day, as I spent a few rough years passing by his stoop, tumbling in and out of love, weathering the end of an 11-year relationship, sometimes out of work.

"Bless you!" he'd say, and smile.

There was more to Bubba than met the eye, as much as there was that met the eye. One time I walked by with an exceptionally handsome young blond kid, my friend Ryan.

"Oooooh -- you're so pretty!" Bubba said.

Another time I asked Bubba about his past.

"When I was a kid, a doctor told me I had the power to heal the sick," he said. "I refused the power for a few years, but then I got used to it."

I believed him -- almost.

Another time, I got a free ticket to the opera, and walked around the Opera House gawking at all the old-money fancy dressers, the old-San Francisco opera ladies and witty, mannered queens.

To my utter shock, Bubba was sitting in the first or second row, in an elaborate tuxedo with a red cummerbund.

"I saw you at the opera last night!" I told him the next day on his stoop.

"Well, some of the white folks don't like it when we sit so close," he confided. "They'd rather I'd sit farther in the back."

Another day, Bubba had a Hasselblad camera with him, and he asked to take my picture. A couple of weeks later, he gave me a print -- and it was a fine portrait taken at such an unusual angle it seemed very modern.

So I'm back from New York, tumbled in and out of love, with a new ache in my heart on the fog-damp streets of Cole Valley. But now Bubba isn't around to heal the sickness that feels universal.

Steve Silberman

I'm not from the bay area. Denver actually. But I will never forget all I had heard about the Haight-Ashbury district back in the late 60's.

So here it is, 30 years later, my wife and I are on a weekend trip to San Francisco. It hit me. I had to go there. If nothing else just to say I've been there. Got the map out, found my way there.

As I stood on the corner of Haight and Ashbury I drifted back 30 years. To the way it might have been. It was that way to me. Was it now - or 30 years ago.

Chris

San Francisco is only a memory to me.

But a memory so strong, so delightful, so heart-wrenching that barely a day goes by that I don't yearn to be back on those hilly streets, in the (once) smokey bars, smelling the eucalyptus trees and salty, sweet air and thinking that maybe, just maybe life could truly be wonderful.

The memories that haunt most are of the Haight. No, not the Haight you think. The upper Haight ,where I once lived in a little stuccoed apartment complex called the Casa Madrona.

I moved there with my boyfriend on my 25th birthday - into that cozy little enclave with it's sunny rooms, it's wood floors, a dribbling little water fountain out front. It was ridiculously overpriced and frighteningly tiny. We laughed that it looked like Melrose Place. We laughed a lot back then. Maybe it was to hide the nervousness of our foray into cohabitation. Maybe it was just because we truly happy just to be with eachother.

I remember the mornings, waking up on that stupid old futon - full of lumps and mysterious stains and god knows what else and feeling the sun just beaming onto my face from the windows above. Turning over to see his strong arms, the shadow of his beard, his eyes, his face, kissing him over and over. But mostly I remember feeling like everything was good and right with the world.

I remember thinking walking home from the corner store with a loaf of bread at dusk one cool evening, remembering having forgotten to take my birth control pills for the last week, thinking "What if?". Crossing the tree-lined street and smelling the night air, I pushed my stomach out just so slightly and smiled, "What if?"

I rememer the morning I left. Of being so full of excitement about moving across the country to the unknown - to a city full of new people and new ideas that I could hardly pack my bags fast enough. But that final morning, as I waited outside those stuccoed walls, listening to the dribbling water fountain and looking into the rising pink sun I realized I'd made a mistake. My bags packed, my keys returned and my goodbyes said, I realized how much I was leaving behind in my haste to find something "new". As the airporter pulled away from the curb, I wanted to scream "Wait! I've made a mistake." But the apartment was rented, the jobs left, the movement towards the unknown inevitable. It was too late.

Maybe it couldn't have lasted, all that happiness. Then again maybe that's just a pessimist's view of the world. In any case, it didn't and it's all just a memory now. A pungently wondeful, orange-tinted, warm and cozy memory that I keep trying to wrap around myself.

So I remember the Haight. I miss the eucalyptus, the dribbling old fountain, the sunny mornings and the sweet smell of the ocean. But mostly, I miss thinking that maybe, just maybe everything was good and right with the world.

heather irwin

It's hot. Too hot for sleeping, too hot for SF. We get home at 11 and open every window in the studio. Still air, clear sky where the fog usually hangs, twinkling tower lights up on the hillside. "I wish I had a front porch", you say.

Head for the stoop with cold beer (hefeweizen for me, Pete's Summer Brew for you). A city porch, no chairs or crickets, just a few dirty steps to sit on. A cop car cruises by, shining a spotlight on the buildings across the street. A few homeless and late night wanderers stumble by. One skateboarder, gracefully navigating the asphalt (they're always graceful at night).

I like this darkened city. It feels calm, safe, approachable. "There's an earthquake coming", you say. Why, I ask. "This is weirdo earthquake weather: hot, dry. Strange."

We have lazy nighttime conversations. We dream up new titles for ourselves (mine's Thinky Media Girl). I tell you about summer nights on the East Coast: fireflies and thunderstorms, tv light spilling out of screen doors, laughter wafting over the fence from a neighbor's patio. Fireworks on July 4th that we could see from our back deck. I used to sleep out there, wake up covered in dew and mosquito bites.

I miss that place. I miss my roots. But I love my new home.

drue

Well, in all honesty it started in the Mission. I'd arrived in San Francisco with lots of impressions based solely on people I'd met from there. Everyone I stayed with had to work during the day - I had sets of keys jangling in all pockets (lucky me I'm fond of cargo pants), suitcases at each place, pockets full of old bus ticket stubs...

"Excuse me, what stop do I get off to get to the lower haight?"

"beats me, I'm from New York."

my days in San Fran had consisted so far of occupying myself. Getting up around 11am, going and eating breakfast somewhere in the mission, having several cups of coffee then hopping on a bus/train/streetcar/whatever, and getting off somewhere. I intended to see San Francisco, dammit! But since he was newly in from Eugene, Oregon I figured we should get off at the same stop. Besides, although it's never happened before, I found myself quite attracted to his waist-length dreadlocks and huge brown eyes. Besides, what the hell. I was on vacation. And after Burning Man, I was primed for all the random occurrences I could take.

We got off at the wrong stop, and soon thereafter realized we were on the wrong end of the Haight. Oh well. I really wasn't going anywhere anyway, and he was going record shopping. Of course I should join him (people take note: do not EVER go to a record store with a DJ...).

We spent the day together, sharing coffee, bumming cigarettes off each other (i had some, then ran out, then he bought some), listening to records, eating lunch, finally parting ways back in the Mission, where, coincidentally, he'd just moved. I called before I left San Fran to return home to NYC.

"Oh man, yeah - well, ring me sometime. It was weird, it was random. But it was really cool."

And whenever I tell people about my vacation, that's usually the story that comes up first. The great thing about San Francisco is that you can DO that sort of thing...

damiana

Four years ago, my wife and I moved to the Lower Haight. When we first saw the neighborhood, we thought that we would live here, in this studio apartment, for a few months before getting a larger apartment in a “nicer neighborhood.”

That was four years ago. We still live in that same small, studio apartment on the corner of Page and Fillmore in the heart of the Lower Haight. What we never expected is that we would fall in love with the neighborhood, so much that we would tolerate living in this one-room box.

Our apartment is small. We can barely fit the two of us (plus our two cats) in the place. Four years ago, we would pace in circles, and complain about how we could never invite friends to our apartment. But what we have found is that the whole neighborhood has become our apartment. We invite friends to dinner parties at Thep Phanom. Most weekends, we entertain at the Toronado… inviting out friends over for good beer and music. We have learned that the size of where we like is not designated by the four walls surrounding the 350 square foot space where we sleep, but by the streets and shops of the neighborhood in which we live.

Now, when we look at larger apartments in other neighborhoods, we always decide to stay … because a larger bedroom in a closed-off community can never replace the living room that we have in the bars and restaurants of the Lower Haight.

Avery Glasser

The first time I came to San Francisco, in 1996, I stayed in the middle of the Haight. A friend had helped arrange accomodation at the Red Victorian Inn, which sounded harmless enough. The friend had enough New Age tendencies to assure me that the place would be fairly crunchy but not overwhelming. When I got out of the car, I didn't even look around, I just headed straight for the door and came face to face with a tall, waifish white woman with a headful of dreadlocks and henna stained hands - not the tatoos that are so fashionable today, but the faded orangish markings of someone who's been doing an awful lot of dyeing. She spoke in a fairy's voice - whispy and ethereal and calmly led me to the Peace Room - all pastels with a skylight and and an onstreet view of Haight. I was beginning to be overwhelmed. I spent the afternoon exploring parts of the city with a friend and came back to the Red Vic to fend for myself. My first foray, solo, onto Haight Street was terrifying. Before this trip, the biggest city I'd been in had been Washington D.C., but only briefly. I discovered that you can't walk more than five feet without being hit up for money. As I allowed myself to look up and around, I was shocked by the number of dirty, ragged teenagers sitting on the sidewalks, propped up against buidings. Later, I'd be told that you can't tell which of them is homeless and which of them are merely suburban kids slumming. I huddled into my cardigan, confused by the rapidly dropping temperatures. It was the middle of July and it felt like late autumn. I was hungry and dizzy but I couldn't force myself to go any farther, culture shock had fully set in and crippled me. I made it to McDonald's, did a double take at the only Asian staff behind the counter and ordered the Quarter Pounder Value Meal, glad to be somewhere familiar. It would take another few visits before I learned to enjoy and appreciate San Francisco.

gabby