San Francisco -- `Hashbury': Memories Of The Flower Children

SAN FRANCISCO - It was the cradle of a counterculture that had a profound effect on America - and perhaps the rest of the world.

Its name was Haight-Ashbury. Its time was the mid-1960s. And the place was San Francisco.

Where once dwelt thousands of bearded, beaded hippies to smoke ``grass'' and rock to the beat of the Grateful Dead now is a classy walking tour for visitors.

There's nostalgia here for one-time hippies and maybe some overdue healing and comprehension for their once-bewildered parents, says Anna Boothe, the tour guide. The generation gap doesn't seem quite as wide as before.

``Hippies - those are the people who cut their hair and went to work when they left here,'' Boothe adds with a laugh. ``You'll find them now in banking, marketing, accounting and, yes, even in journalism.''

Like it or not, Boothe says, what happened here more than two decades ago in the then-seedy district that the hippies nicknamed the ``Hashbury'' is part of our history.

``Those kids set new standards in music, art and poetry,'' Boothe says. ``They had a big part in ending the war in Vietnam. They were seeking freedom, a different way, and they found it here.''

Anna Boothe, now 51, was one of them.

``I was teaching English at a school in Kansas City,'' she recalls. ``Several of my students were hippies, and I found myself thinking like them. I was protesting the war and I was into their kind of music.''

Boothe headed for San Francisco and immersed herself in a movement that confounded and changed the nation.

``It was more a frame of mind than a chronological age - and it's still happening,'' she says.

And so, each Saturday and Sunday afternoon, from June through August, Boothe takes tourists in tow and shows them her favorite neighborhood.

It's a flower power itinerary:

-- The Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic, the first free medical clinic in the United States. The '60s clinic included a ``Calm Center'' that was set aside, as one writer said, ``for psychedelic space pilots who needed help in finding their way back to earth.'' Things are calmer now, but the clinic still is open, still following a tradition of never turning away anyone needing help.

-- The site of the Straight Theater, where the late Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix performed. It's an ugly, boarded-up hole in the ground now. Locals had hoped the theater would be turned into a small museum to commemorate the ``Summer of Love''" in 1967. Instead, the theater was demolished, and construction of a pharmacy got under way. A fire in November, 1988, halted that project, at least for the present. Was the fire set deliberately by protesters? ``We'll never know,'' says Boothe. Meanwhile, the Haight-Ashbury Preservation Society continues to hope for a museum.

-- Bosco's Ice Cream and Sweet Shop. That's what the sign says on the building at the intersection of Haight and Ashbury streets. The building used to house the Psychedelic Shop, once the main meeting place and communications center of the ``Hashbury.'' The Psych Shop was one of the first stores here to set up a bulletin board for community messages.

-- St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Store. That's where the many of the hippies found their used clothing and ``costumes.'' Still operating.

-- 710 Ashbury St., the Victorian building that was the headquarters of the Grateful Dead. This was the trend-setting band (equated with LSD) that took its bizarre name from an Egyptian tomb inscription.

-- Pall Mall Grill. Loveburgers were featured on the menu back in the ``Peace and Love'' summer of 1967.

And more . . .

Boothe's company, Fiesta Tours, also has a two-day (Saturday and Sunday) tour in summer that includes an overnight stay at the Red Victorian Bed and Breakfast Inn and Art Gallery.

Sami Sunchild is the innkeeper. Back in 1976, she bought the shabby, old Jefferson Hotel at 1665 Haight St., painted the facade red, renamed the establishment the Red Victorian, and made it a gathering place for new-age get togethers.

``Everything here is dedicated to peace,'' she says. ``War is silly.''

Sami, who calls herself ``an artist from Hawaii and beyond,'' has fashioned 14 guest room and a meditation room that have to be seen to be believed. A favorite is the Peacock Suite - Ali Baba atmosphere with stained-glass windows, a canopied bed and a bathtub that gives bathers a view through an Oriental ``moon window.''

Guests in the Flower Child Room waken to a ceiling painted with rainbows, clouds and the sun. The Teddy Bear Room, comes with teddies galore, of course. And then there is the Redwood Forest Room - just what you think it is, a make-believe redwood grove.

Rates for guests who are not on the two-day Haight-Ashbury tours range from about $65 to $125 a night.

``I was in Hawaii when the `Summer of Love' happened, but I was here in my heart,'' Sunchild says. ``I'm still a part of it.''

``Here'' needs some defining.

Haight-Ashbury is the key intersection that gave the district its

name. The district covers about six blocks along Haight Street, from Masonic Avenue to Stanyan Street. Hippies called it the ``Hashbury.'' Today's San Franciscans know it ``the Haight.''

``When you say `Haight-Ashbury,' you're talking about the `Summer of Love,' '' Boothe says. ``Things have changed.''

Nowadays, the Haight is a generally gentrified scene that's more yuppie than hippie. Boutiques and smart cafes have replaced rock and incense.

``Some people on our tours were here as hippies,'' Boothe says. ``They come back to see what's happening, and they all say the area looks better that it used to.

``It should. It's upscale now. Rents here used to be cheap - that's one of the things that drew the kids. But now you'd be lucky to find a studio for $500 a month.

``It's still a vibrant area, for sure. I'll tell you one thing: There are still people around here who care about important issues, the homeless and the mess in Central America. What they're saying is that every summer can be a summer of love.''

Gene Anthony, author of ``The Summer of Love,'' the recommended reference book for the huge ``Love and Peace'' gathering of 1967, remembers how it was when 50,000 young persons from all over the world assembled in nearby Golden Gate Park to close the memorable and controversial summer.

Anthony writes:

``A non-violent revolution had begun . . . The social and political implications divided large numbers of people at a time when the war in Vietman had already badly shaken the country. The Haight-Ashbury and the Human Be-in scared some people, and for others it became an inspiration. The potential of the human spirit had been recognized and it would be tested by youth for generations to come.''

And maybe, for open-minded observers, there still are flashbacks in the Haight to the ways things were then.

A guitarman was playing a tune the other day by the dingy fence that encloses the site of the Straight Theater and its ghosts. A couple on the corner embraced for several minutes, as if saying farewell forever.

A skinny youth, with a bandana wrapped around his forehead, leaned against a building, put his face to the sun and smiled.

Two punkers with spiked, yellow-green hair and a biker wearing a black-leather jacket on a hot afternoon looked as if they had wandered into the wrong fadeout scene.

``So, who's to say what a hippie is?'' Anna Boothe muses.

``I'm sure there are some weekend hippies around who still keep their Haight-Ashbury outfits in their closets. They have their memories, and their feelings haven't really changed. They just can't wear those outfits to the office.''

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IF YOU GO:

-- Details: Three-hour walking tours depart the Haight Street Deli, 1640 Haight St., at 1 p.m. each Saturday and Sunday from the first weekend of June through August. Weekday tours can be arranged. Reservations are requested. Cost is $15 a person.

-- Public transportation: From downtown San Francisco, take the No. 7 or No. 71 municipal bus from Market and Van Ness streets to the corner of Haight and Belvedere streets. The Haight Street Deli is nearby.

-- Information: Fiesta Tours, 660 Clipper St., No. 317, San Francisco, CA 94114; phone 1-415-648-3352.

Stanton H. Patty, a resident of Vancouver, Wash., retired in 1988 as the assistant travel editor of The Seattle Times.