stories from the haight

Well....it was a Wednesday of a Saturday-to-Saturday vacation to San Francisco. I had tuckered out my father and step-mother with our visit to Alcatraz in the morning....and I defintely wanted to get to the Haight somehow. So the plan was to leave about 4pm from lower Hyde Street...catch a couple buses over to the Haight....shoot some video...maybe take a few pictures...and be back reasonably in time for a late dinner. So..I take one bus over to the Fillmore line and start south on Fillmore.

Now earlier in the week was the first time I had ever been on a city bus...anywhere. I am glad San Francisco holds that distinction. Being from Peoria, IL...and having a car most of the time...my mind has no dependent thinking on public transportation. Plus...one of my ignorant thoughts about catching the bus to go somewhere was that I would get stranded after the buses shut down for the day.

So...as we continue south on Fillmore I notice the bus becoming much more crowded than at anytime during the past few days on my trip. Once again I should point out...I had very little knowledge of public transportation. By this time though I had figured out the connection between the cord on the wall people were pulling and the 'doink' sound I kept hearing. I was wondering how these people were communicating to the driver!

So...the bus stopped a block before Haight and I wanted to make sure the bus WOULD STOP near Haight..so I just got off there...figuring what the hell...an extra block to walk. Actually I was so untrusting of the buses that I decided to walk up Haight from Fillmore. A trusting soul might have waited for a bus heading west(and I did have my bus schedule and maps with me)...'Naaa...let's walk'.

Now...let's look at my attire. I had shorts...a knit Western Illinois University shirt...a green San Fran 'Gilligan' hat....and a small over-the-shoulder bag containing the camcorder and camera. Oh yea....and 'Tourist' tattooed on my forehead....! Although I wasn't thinking this at the time. I was becoming increasingly paranoid as I walked up Haight Street. I was slowly realizing that this was not a good part of town. I was drawing a beat on Haight and Ashbury and noticing how beautiful this area was. I was trying to imagine what it was like 30-35 years ago....how it would be stoned. At 36...my dope smoking days were well behind me.......however...the paranoia hung around.

I get about 2 or 3 blocks from Ashbury...where the commerce starts...and I see some youths ahead of me playing basketball on the sidewalk. I would have to wait for them to notice my presence in order for me to pass. I'm afraid. So I feign like I'm playing basketball with them and one of the youths very quickly says "Sell you bus pass for a dollar?"...or something like that. I say "No"...and continue to head west.

So I get to the infamous corner. There are seemingly alot of people on the street....for dusk on a Wednesday. And I have a decision to make. Am I going to bring out the camcorder and simply start filming.

Nope! I'm paranoid. I've already gotten a few looks that suggest something along the lines of 'What do you have in the bag?'. I've watched too much TV in my life to think anything different. The paranoia is running rampant. At 36....I feel like the oldest person in a 3 block area...an 'old man' about to get 'rolled'. So...I buzz north on Ashbury to see the Panhandle. My mind is racing and it's getting dark. Is anyone following me???

One block west...one block south...one block east...back to the 'corner'....on the opposite side of the street. Still the oldest man in sight with an expensive camcorder in the bag slung across his chest....CLUTCHED!

I decide this is the turning point to go back to the hotel. I walk past some homeless youths who ask for some spare change. I say 'no thanks'. I wander why some ask me and some don't and think that maybe they try every third or fourth passerby. I'm glad when I'm not asked.

It's now pretty much dark...and I make my way to the bus stop at the western corner of Buena Vista Park and Haight...to wait for a bus. As I sit down on the cement embankment along the sidewalk I notice a couple to the left of me. Immediately they give me the 'what you got in the bag' look. After a few minutes another couple come to wait for the bus and actually sit in the bus-stop seats. They give me less of the 'what you got in the bag' look...so they are labeled as 'the nice couple'. Now I see a lady pushing her baby in a stroller on the far sidewalk. All of a sudden she starts yelling trash to the guy representing 'the nice couple'. They yell at each other for what seems like an eternity...and they attract the attention of the group of youths I saw earlier playing basketball. The youths cross the intersection at an angle and go up the hill of the park directly behind me. Now...I'm starting to get a little tense.

Now from what I can pick up...the basketball youths don't like the attitude that 'the nice couple' dude was displaying toward the stroller woman. And now I was in the direct line of fire. Yet....after awhile....the basketball youths leave the area and everything 'calms down'.

Finally the eastbound bus arrives....only it's filled to the gills....not a cubic yard of space to be had. So...at this point I decide to walk to Fillmore. And I'm hoping like hell no one is following me. I even go 1 block to the north to throw off any phantom stalkers....although I was in the area supposedly where Janis Joplin used to live.

So...I make it to Haight and Fillmore...and wait....and wait....and wait for the bus. I still don't think I'm out of the woods. The presence of single women at the bus stop comforts me alot.

And finally the bus comes. And I feel a bit depressed that I was so paranoid that I didn't video any of the Haight-Ashbury stuff I wanted to. Not even in pictures. I have since told friends about my experiences that day and some say that maybe I had a preservation instinct. I personally think the truth is closer to the headline: Midwestern man finds self in questionable area of San Francisco.......doesn't want brand new camcorder ripped off.

The thing that really got me was the thought that the Haight-Ashbury area was seemingly....dangerous. And that was the furthest thing from my mind. I was looking for girls with flowers in their hair and LSD smiles on their faces.

But I will be back.....preferably not at dusk...and not alone. That's the new plan.

Jon

So, there I was, boarding the plane for San Fran . . .the city home to Beatniks, poets, philosophers and people who challenge the masses, true thinkers, pioneers. Man, I was so excited to find a place that I could call home. A place where I could fit in, among my fellow non-conformists. The plane landed and I walked out to greet my psuedo-boyfriend. He wasn't there because my plane was delayed, so I reached him on his cell and he headed back to the airport for his second time that evening. He was a good sport, nonetheless and the two of us headed down to his part of town - Haight Ashbury. We got to his apartment and I was greeted by his roommates - all in khaki pants, with the same haircuts. Oh, no I thought to myself - where are all the individuals. Immediately, we went out to dinner. Again, more khakis and slick hair and business talk. Everything surface, nothing with feeling, nothing I hadn't heard on NPR that mourning. Jack Kerouac would be so disappointed.

Dogma

My first visit to the Haight was about a month after I moved to San Francisco. It all started a couple weeks earlier when Donna and I ran into each other downtown.

I had worked with Donna in New Jersey for a year or so, but didn't know she and Jimmy had moved to San Francisco. Once we got over the surprise, Donna invited my wife and me to their place on Saturday night.

That evening was my first real introduction to San Francisco. It began innocently enough with spaghetti and wine, then the four of us shared a joint. It wasn't until we had finished it off that Jimmy shared that this was really strong "two hit" pot. Having already had several hits I knew what he meant.

Jimmy and Donna then suggested that we take a walk, as there was some local event happening nearby. Turns out that they lived just a few blocks from Polk Street and the annual Halloween parade was that evening.

Now I am from Idaho, northern Idaho, practically Canada, so I was a little unprepared for this parade. The year was 1977, and it was the last big successful Halloween party on Polk. Thousands of spectators, thousands of paraders. If you were in the street, you were carried along with the flow. We alternated standing on the sidelines and going with the flow for a few blocks till I couldn't take the visual and mental stimulation any more. There were too many really foxy babes in long slinky dresses who, when you finally got a glimpse of their face, also wore full beards. The obvious costumes I could handle, the multiple surprises were messing with my mind.

I suggested we head back to their place, and before we called it a night Jimmy had shared his connection with me. He gave me an address and said to just knock on the door and tell them "Jimmy sent me".

And that is how I found myself at the corner of Haight and Asbury, extremely nervous, thinking that it had to be some kind of a set up. The address was just too obvious. I remember looking at the street sign–Haight going one way and Ashbury going the other–and marveling that I was finally at the intersection I had heard and read so much about, and I was here to score some weed!

Up three flights, knock on the door, give the password (how many Jimmys could there be in San Francisco? Would they have let me in if I had said Billy sent me?) and I'm in. I just wanted to get my stuff and go, but they all but insisted that I try it first. It never occurred to me, until I was writing this down, that they might have been confirming that I wasn't a cop.

All in all not a bad first impression of San Francisco for someone who regretted missing the sixtys (Idaho remember). Don't you just love this city?

Lee

Haight Street was the place we shopped for our groceries when I was a young girl. We bought our dairy products in one store, produce in another etc.; they knew us. The street was clean and the aromas wonderful. Our family owned a bar called the Persian Ab Zam Zam, which is still there today. On Saturday I went to the Haight Street Theater, where I experienced my first kiss. Across the street on the corner was a restaurant where we had cokes and fries. The list of "firsts" is endless. This neighborhood will always be home to me. I am sixty two now. A couple of years ago I was walking with my mother down Haight Street reminiscing when a left-over "beat-nick" (and I really mean left-over)made a derogatory remark about our conventional clothing, "We were here first", I said. I doubt if he had any idea how deeply that "first" went into my memory capturing all of my senses. We were here first.

Judith Burton

An overcast day set the tone that left me feeling nostalgic, sad, yet excited at the same time. I would in fact be visiting Haight Ashbury for the first time in my life. After hearing all of the wonderful stories, and creating visions of my very own of the 60's in Haight, I was finally going to be there! My feet touched the sidewalk, and I felt alive, for the first time in a long time, I felt a part of something, and I felt something so much more than my existence alone.

There is a beauty to Haight, something that makes it different than any other city I've ever been to. It's amazing, and you can definitely feel it flow through your entire body. But make no mistake about it, there is a sadness. Haight to me, was once a place where the only things that mattered were Love, Peace, and Freedom. It was a place where some of the greatest music was ever played, and some of the greatest art was created, because there was a common ground between everyone. This unity doesn't seem to exist there anymore, and it makes me so sad. I walked through the shops and felt a sickness rise in me....people came in and took advantage of the beauty and love that existed on these streets...they decided that they would turn a profit on it. Haight Ashbury still has some it's wonderful people, wonderful shops , and still has that same energy hiding between the cracks in the streets, and embedded in the walls of the buildings that stand there, but I just don't think it's what it once was. Evolution is just a part of life I suppose, but I thought just maybe Haight was the one place that would be able to stay the same. I suppose the mind can psych you up for something much more than reality. I still think that Haight is a beautiful place though, and definitely enjoyed my visit to her. Peace and Love to everyone of you out there...keep spreading the love!!!

Tiffany