We followed the "Scenic Drive", which leads through the city of San Francisco, passes the famous sights. The Scenic Drive brought us to the legendary hippie district "Haight Ashbury", named after the two streets which cross there.
Photographed a thousand times - the Lady's legs
Houses in different colors, "smoke shops", many people and sunshine let the district look beautiful. The smell of marijuana and incense is in the streets. What lacks is only the Voice of Scott McKenzie, singing the flower-power anthem "San Francisco - Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair". I had to go in some of the many clothing stores.
One amazing shop called "Held Over - from Hip to Hippie" is a second-hand-shop, which sells clothes since 1978. Special about it: The clothes are very, very old - original skirts and jackets from the 70s and 80s, even smokings from the 60s can be found there!
When I saw the dresses, I was reminded of the old photos of mom and dad - they wore the same clothes in the 70s!
Great store to look and buy - we bought a brown leather jacket from the 70s.
We visited two of the uncountable "smoke shops" which sell pipes, cigars, cigarettes, poster, postcards, sunglasses and other stuff: You want a light-green pipe with pink little flowers on it? You can get it there.
We bought postcards with "The Doors" and "The Beatles" and with Jimi Hendrix on them.
The shop owner looks like a man originally from the 60s and 70s. His black hair was held by a yellow bandana, his batik t-shirt makes me feels dizzy. He speaks with a smokey voice when he tells me about the Haight Ashbury:
"At that time, summer 1967, I lived for three U.S. dollars rent per week with 70 people in a community house, some slept in the bathtub, everyone was welcome." One day, it was early morning, he woke up because he heard great guitar music. "It was Jimi Hendrix playing just on the street corner and in an instant, thousands flocked together."
He pointed on a house: "Janis Joplin lived there, just across the street from her lover Jimi Hendrix."
Is he talking about Jimi Hendrix? THE Jimi Hendrix - god of guitars? When Georg and I are in our favourite pub in our hometown, the "Rockcafé", we hear his songs, when sing along with "All Along The Watchtower" and "Hey Joe" - our best friend has got 20 posters of this legend on the walls in his house - and now this man, in front if me, is talking about Jimi playing at the street corner one morning? He is talking about his house?
The 60s, which are history and legend to us, become real. Yes, this time really happend and we are standing in Haight Ashbury. Maybe at the same place on the sidewalk, where Jimi and Janis walked along. This is amazing!
But the Love and Peace dreams are far away from the hard Haight Street reality. Homelessness, drug dealing, alcoholism, fights and theft are on the agenda.
"People have discouraged us to visit the Haight district," says Paula Feisel, a woman in the fifties, from Texas. "But I feel quite safe now. It isn't as bad as I expected!"
And it is really not as bad as it is discribed by the shop owner. We saw many "homeless" people, with signs and plastic cups, begging for money - but as much as usual in San Francisco. My guess is, that the "dark" side of the Haight Ashbury district comes to the surface, when the sun sets, when the tourists are back in their hotels, when the shops are closed - maybe at this time the streets become dangerous.
But many residents, homeowners and business owners are alarmed for years.
"They are no flower children anymore," said Arthur, the shop owner, and pointed on the people sitting in front of his store. "They take hard drugs, having fights on the streets, pee in blocks and there are heroin syringes stuck in the flower boxes!" Arthur is a 64-year-old ex-hippy and a writer, besides his shop. For 34 years he lived on the street corner of Haight and Ashbury in the second floor of an old Victorian house. "I also put flowers in my long hair", asserts Evan, now with very short hair.
Together with other residents, he has launched an initiative to get the homeless away from the road. "The city doesn't do anything against young people, sleeping in the Golden Gate Park and on the Haight Street, begging for money.". Arthur accuses and mourns the old hippie years. "We had much better drugs and searched for the enlightenment, wanted to change the world, studied Oriental philosophy, demonstrated against the Vietnam War and fought for social justice."
"The original movement is not dead, yet", he says with conviction. "Every day people flocking to the street sign Haight / Ashbury and take pictures, as if it were the Eiffel Tower. They are looking for meaning in a place, where 40 years ago, visions were born."
We left Ashbury with a new leather jacket and the head full of new impressions.
What a wonderful district. Many people to meet - today there was not enough time to see every aspect of Haight Ashbury.
Georg and his new 70s leather jacket, standing on top of the "Twin Peaks"
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