FRANK-LY SPEAKING:
Summer of '69 (San Francisco)
http://www.montgomerynews.com/articles/2010/10/31/entertainment/doc4cbe0e9072adc100946659.txt
October 31, 2010
By Frank D. Quattrone
See what a successful sports team can do! As the region's
consciousness shifts to the West Coast, I can't help reflecting on
the incredible Summer of '69, which I spent in the sizzling hotbeds
of Berkeley and San Francisco, where the yin of revolution was
fomenting uneasily with the yang of peace, love and brotherhood.
I was never really a hippie. In fact, no self-respecting hippie would
ever be caught dead admitting to that monicker. Still, for those who
know what my signature "Pax" means, it's clear where my consciousness lay.
I was crashing with my friend, Ed Smith, who had apartments in
Berkeley and on Ashbury. Yep, the same street that intersected the
infamous Haight, where just one year after the so-called "Summer of
Love," we barely eluded a gang of Hell's Angels, hell-bent on
wrapping their chains around our Eastern necks if our lumbering
four-wheeler couldn't outpace their choppers amid the hilly streets
of The City.
Needless to say, we won that race.
Another day I found myself at a student rally on the Berkeley campus,
where Mario Savio, Tom Hayden (yep Jane Fonda's one-time husband),
and a heady mix of student agitators were railing against then Gov.
Ronald Reagan, who had shut down "People's Park," ostensibly to keep
the rising tide of "peace creeps" at bay.
It was an exciting time to be alive. A time when issues really
mattered and the people didn't feel quite as helpless as they do
today. I believe I came of age that summer.
Thank you, Phightin' Phils, for jogging my memory bank. Now let's go
all the way!
.
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