Flowers In My Hair

Peej Said: "I worry about you constantly, Dusty. You really need to get in closer touch with your inner Flower Child. It's in there somewhere, I know it. Maybe if you close your eyes and hum If you're going to San Francisco ... be sure to wear some flowers in your hair ..."



So, what does that have to do with the pic of the Negro creatively panhandling? Nothing. I just thought it was funny. Well, that and the curious confluence of PJ's comment and the discovery of the pic which prodded my memories of "Going To San Francisco" in a red '67 VW Bug in 1969, which is the first place that I saw industrial-level panhandling. Simple, yeah?



Quite a cultural adjustment and rather a landmark in my life, and although I never got around to flowers in my hair, it was probably one of the first of many such learning experiences which expanded my horizons, ultimately resulting in the paragon of cultural tolerance which you now have before you.



Understand, I was from one of those large-area, low-population, geometric western states -- panhandlers there hitting up your average working-for-a-living cowboy or oilfield roughneck for spare change tended to wind up quietly recycled back into the desert ecosystem (a process much simplified by the fact that many of them were already mostly dirt and rotting rags). They hardly ever attained numbers statewide even remotely approaching what I saw in any given 100 square foot chunk of the Haight/Ashbury area.



As noted above, it was an ear-popping culture shock which, happily, was offset by the fact that for a 17 year old it was basically impossible to not get laid about every four hours.



God bless The Revolution.



Spout a little Huey Newton / Strawberry Statement / astrological psychobabble and you were golden, with hippie girls practically tossing their nasty little selves at you. Just hose 'em off (they loved getting nekkid, but coaxing them into water was occasionally difficult) and they were a pretty good time, albeit a tad furry.



So, Peej, been there, done that, loved every damned minute of it, except for the part where I latched ahold of that bad mescaline and puked so hard that my ass actually began to inhale.



Then I went to Southeast Asia, which wasn't nearly as much fun, but lasted longer, and I was much better armed. But that's a story for another day.



In Our Next Episode: Sitar music, Paisley, Tie-Dyes, nekkid dancing in the park -- 21st century goofballs imitate the 60's. (Hey, get your own fucking decade, ya slags...)