76 For the people

We had a couple of days left before we had to get out of the Shattuck Arms. We were fooling around a bit and needed to figure out our next move. I was recovered from the Jerry Garcia night and the Shroud of Turin. On the street and in the International House of Pancakes (it wasn't IHOP yet), we heard that a number of fellow travelin' people stayed at People's Park.

Yeah. I heard a lot about People's Park well before we got there. It was a movement. A glorious dream. An empty parcel of land owned by the University once populated with houses that were razed. Talks of development. It started with a pair of lovers that used it as a secret rendezvous site. They presented a plan to keep it from being turned into a parking lot. Others promoted it as an area for free speech. Imagine that. Lots of fights. There's a history in books if you're interested.

All I'm going to say is that any protester knew that if they were out there, they could get their head knocked in at any moment. That's the way it was. I'm not saying everyone was noble, but they weren't whining. At least not much.

Anyway, LBJ and I didn't always do everything together. I like to do things by myself sometimes. Makes it easier to stand there and stare at things. So he went up to The Hillel Streetwork Project to find out about work. Heard about that place too. It was mostly a guy thing for the aimless hippies because it usually involved some kind of construction. I went over to People's Park to see the situation. 

I was a little surprised that by 1972 it was just dirt. Reagan had sent in the Highway Patrol in 1969 to rip out the trees and plants because he didn't like the sex deviants there. It just stayed dirt but people were still hanging out and living there. I've tried to explain the difference between NY hippies and California hippies before. NY hippies lived in black and white but California hippies were in color. The Park had some of those full spectrum color hippies. I'll never forget the lady wearing the most shear chiffon piece of material with a flower crown. Every time I saw her. She resembled Mama Cass and I thought "Yeah. A free spirit."

There were quite a number of people staying there. I don't know. The crowd and the dirt weren't too appealing to me. The do-gooders in town that lived in normal houses would stop by during the afternoon with food. Just stood on that line a couple of times because I found out that this Utopia couldn't sustain the hopes and aspirations it was created on. Not every human there had peaceful intent.

The very first time I was there I met someone, a group of people actually, that meant harm. Uhh. Hard to explain. I was a utopian loving airhead and thought this must have been the place. I loved people and showed it with my smile. I'm skipping a little of my self description because it sounds weird. Well, there was this group of guys and they apparently had a spokesman. The way I would describe him is Mike Tyson with more muscles. He made it clear. He warned me. "We're going to get you. I promise." I turned and ignored him. I stood there, kind of in a trance. I was an airhead, but not stupid. I just trusted the cosmos. He'll be in the story again.

Went to the Park one more time and it was emphatically repeated. That was the last time I went there. Headed up the block to the Krishna Temple. It was a really big place and the Krishna people were all over town with their colorful flowers and chanting. Needed something good. 

We heard that there was a youth hostel that you could stay at for free for three days on the outskirts of town. So that's where we went next. I met the Chicken Lady there.