The 60s: Summer of Love- Rerun

Last week our local public radio morning talk show had a program on the Summer of Love, which was 40 years ago. It was the beginning of a series of events that put together has been called "The 60s" which in reality was only about four years long. The hippie era in San Francisco was what the Summer of Love was really in its basic incarnation. It was the natural(?) outgrowth of the Beat Generation of the late 50s and early 60s in SF. It was the explosion of drug use for "greater consciousness" and not just to get "wasted" although somehow we all convinced ourselves that doing ther first was not the same as doing the second.

But it was also the beginning of the seismic shift that would bring about protests at the Pentagon and around the country. In October 1967 the first national protest of the Vietnam War was held. The Summer of Love was still invoked- wanting to levitate the Pentagon and putting flowers into gun barrels proved that. But it was about to become more than a summer of love.

Norman Mailer's incredible book, The Armies of the Night told that story. David Maraniss in his book They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace Vietnam and America October 1967 compared events in Madison, WI (where Dick Cheney was in hiding) and Vietnam on the same day. Life was changing.

Between then and Kent State in 1970 we were in the midst of a civil war, cultural revolution, and political upheaval. King and Kennedy were killed. Riots broke out in inner cities and at the Democratic Convention in Chicago. Woodstock seemed to be a new summer of love but it turned out to be a muddy climax before it all came crashing down. Nixon and Vietnam and Altamont and then Kent State. What a turbulent era.

Listening to the show that morning brought back a lot of things about that era that they raised and I thought I would take some time to blog about over the next week or so in some disconnected posts. These will include some thoughts on:

• Radio and Music including styles of music and raceless radio and what was so darn significant about all that music anyway.
• Activism then and now including some ideas about why it happened and why it isn't happening now.
• Who won the revolution and the turbulence - if anyone - and why we're still in the midst of it.
• And, not to forget, what drugs may have had to do with all of this and why it's still something we're dealing with.

So that's the task I have set for myself. If anyone has any thoughts or ideas you'd like me to make sure I give my opinions on, just comment on this post. I'm looking forward to it. It's one of those benefits for being my age and becoming a living link with history.