In 1967, in the so-called summer of love, hippies, drug dealers and the homeless young filled San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury, saturated with the scent of incense and dope. Flower power, love and peace were visibly fraying into psychedelic seediness. I was 19, a British student on a full grant, travelling by Greyhound bus. I had stopped off in California to see what the revolution was all about.
While I dressed the part – mini-skirt and silver boots – the 60s for me, until then, had been identical to that experienced by the poet Michelene Wandor, “full of people I didn’t sleep with/ joints I didn’t smoke/ plays I wasn’t in”. On this particular afternoon, a heavily bearded male, not much interested in personal hygiene and festooned in beads, stopped me in the street. “Wanna ball?” he asked speculatively. So much for free love. I politely declined.
Continue reading...from The Guardian http://bit.ly/2VovOQM
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