My Summer of Love
We are approaching the 50th anniversary of the "Summer of Love." Ironically that contrasts sharply with the summer of hate that seems to be upon us now. People seem to be muttering "something's happening here, but the contexts are vastly different. 50 years ago, I was a college student living in Southern California. Like many, I went north to San Francisco that year to check out the intersection of Haight and Ashbury and see what all the fuss was about. No, I did not wear a flower in my hair, but there were many who did. What we all had in common was the overwhelming sense that a substantive change was upon us. People were fed up with the direction of the war in Vietnam and the lack of trust they felt in their government. They were buoyed by those that sacrificed all in the struggle for civil rights, and the hypocrisy of a star-spangled monument that was beginning to tarnish. To be a young person that summer was to be insanely curious and optimistic. It wa