Driving between Tennessee and Georgia ... and memories

In my post of June 11, 2018, I mentioned that our black walnut tree had been uprooted by the wind and fallen on the roof of our Georgia house.  I drove from Nashville to Georgia to have it removed, then found a roofer who agreed to replace the roof in August.  In August I drove back to Georgia but he did not show up.  I had to find another roofer who agreed to replace the roof last Tuesday, September 18, so I drove back to Georgia on Sunday 16th, 2018.  Because of Hurricane Florence the insurance company had delayed our claim and not approved the new roofer.  The new date for the roof will be in October and I'll drive back here then.  Last month I stopped at my usual rest area on highway I-24 near South Pittsburg, Tennessee.  This time I could see a white blanket near the banks of the lake and as I approached was greeted by a million of little flowers with a sweet aroma (similar to jasmine.)  They formed a cascade of delicate flowers on the fence.  Their name is "Virgin's Bower" (aka Devil's Darning Needles or Old Man's Beard.)  This little flagrant flower is from a vine, the clematis virginiana, from the Ranunculaceae family (buttercup) it is aggressive and invasive.  The Cherokee Indians used it for medicinal purposes.

When I stopped again last Sunday the flowers were gone as well as the sun.  Below is a map showing where the rest stop is located between Tennessee and Georgia.

I am still in Georgia, working in the house, clearing, cleaning, giving away but I did hurt my back a bit as well as my recently operated knee by moving some heavy objects, so am taking a break today.  I'll drive back to Nashville in a couple of days.  All the closets are still packed full and while cleaning I always find some items I have not seen in years.  Again I found bags with old photos.  These are film pictures, taken years ago.  My scanner is now in Nashville but I copied some of the photos with my cell phone so I could show them here.

Looking at some of these photos brought back many good memories.  I did not look at all of them as I need to spend as much time as I can on clearing out the house.  I don't even watch TV apart from the news and weather, and lately the news brought back some memories that were not that good.  When I left Paris, France, in the early 1960s, to travel to the USA, a friend who had lived several years here gave me some advice.  He said that the US culture was very different from the French, that it was male-oriented.  He added that in France boys play with girls from an early age and feel comfortable with them and respect them.  They can have close female friends for years without any sexual situation.  But in the US, maybe because of boys' dominated sports, starting in schools, gender inequity starts early, and girls are supposed to care about boys' feelings but not vice versa.  He also said that there is a great deal of violence against women in the US that goes unreported because abusers are protected and women are discredited, disparaged and blamed.  So he added ... "you are pretty, so watch out."  And this was back in the 1960s ...  Below are some pictures I found of me from about that time.

On my way west I stopped in Washington, DC, to visit a girlfriend from college in the UK.  I remember that it was a lovely week-end.  My friend said that she had planned to have a picnic in a park with her boyfriend and that he had found a friend for me as a "blind date."  She added that he came from a very rich family in Maryland and had just been given a fabulous convertible car.  I did not know what a "blind date" was as we don't even have a French word for date, and told her I did not need one, but she said it would be fun.  We went to a secluded area of the park along a river, placed a blanket on the ground and the basket of food.  They had forgotten the ice for the sodas, and told me to get acquainted with him while they went to get ice.  I remember his car as being huge; I looked on Google to find one like his.  It was or similar to the Chevrolet Impala below.  He was proud of it and wanted to take me on a ride but I declined (I was not awed by that car as at the time my favorites were British sports cars, like the MG,  Morgan +4 or Jaguar.)  Then he asked if I was impressed that he attended an academy in Annapolis.  I did not know what that was and he made fun of me, saying I didn't know much but then I also was a foreigner, so that explained it.  He told me that it was the most prestigious naval academy in the world.  (Below pictures of the car, and of the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.)

He said something like "You are from Gay Paree, then, you know more things like this ..." and he proceeded to pin me on the ground and grab my shirt.  I was terrified and did not know what to do.  I tried to move from under him but he was big.  I started to panic as he was grabbing my bra and pulling my trousers down.  But then I heard my friends coming back and he pulled away.  They could see I did not look right so I told them I had these terrible cramps and needed to get back home for medicine and they took me back.  I never told anyone ever, this is the first time I mention it.  I felt terrible shame that he would think because I was French I was easy and tried to forget it.  I'll give you one more time I was assaulted, at my first job, in San Francisco a few years later.  Here are pictures of me at about that time.  I found these yesterday, and they are not technically good.

My office in San Francisco was on Post Street, close to Union Square.  It was not very large, maybe about 50 employees or so.  I really enjoyed working there and had made many friends, male and women.  My best friends were a woman from Texas and also two gay males, who were wonderful gourmet cooks.  I was a purchasing clerk and had a kindly manager.  I never had to interact with the president of the company, an elder man, who was often away on business.  Below are pictures of San Francisco in the 1960s, with Union Square.  The postcard of Post Street is vintage, early 1900s.

About 2 or 3 years after I started working there one Friday (I remember it was a Friday because most people did not stay late) I decided to work late to finish some work.  I needed to count some items and went into the warehouse in the back - a huge warehouse.  It was very dark because of the week-end coming up.  I was not sure where the items were and walked up and down the aisles.  The president of the company came behind me and asked if he could help me.  I told him what I was looking for and when he led me to the back of the warehouse in almost total darkness I was not suspicious.  Alas, he turned on me, grabbed me and tried to undo my blouse.  I started to shout but he placed his hands on my mouth.  Again I was petrified and remembered my last encounter.  It was so dark there.  He pushed me against the shelves and I fought to get him to move his hands away, doing so I knocked a bunch of boxes on the shelf that went crashing down making a huge noise.  Unbeknownst to us there was a warehouse employee working and he came running to see what the noise was.  The president said it was a mouse that had scarred me.  I don't know if he believed it but I was able to get back to my desk and leave.  I was sick about it the whole week-end but did not tell anyone as I needed the job and knew no one would believe me since he was the president.  I did not even go to my Clairol hair modeling job that I had on week-ends.  (More pictures I found in the closet from that era.) 

I had two more instances like these in another company, but not as bad.  I never told anyone about any of them until now.  The first one happened in the early 1960s or more than 50 years ago!  But you know I have never forgotten and as I was writing this tears were falling down my cheek.  It's silly I know, it was such a long time ago.  I tried to forget but it had been traumatic and I could not.  I researched and found out that the US has 75% more rapes than in France, that it is one of the top 3 countries in the world for sexual assaults.  Every 98 seconds a woman is sexually assaulted in the US and one out of every 5 women is assaulted in college.  The US Justice Dept estimates that 300,000 American women are raped every year (but the CDC estimates that because it is highly unreported the number is closer to 1.3 millions.)  The US audience, male and female, does not seem to care and more assaults go unreported as the victims are usually not believed and blamed if they come forward (63% of assaults are unreported and 99% of aggressors go free.)  I read a couple of weeks ago that some men reported that when they were children (40+ years ago) and Altar Boys, they had been sexually assaulted by priests.  Those men were believed and not ostracized and harassed and no one sent them death threats - but then, they are men, aren't they?  As long as women are not taken seriously (women make 51% of the US population but only 19% of the Congress) there won't be much equality under the law.  The Parliamentary Union compared in 2018 women in parliament in 193 countries,  France came no. 14 and the US no. 103.  Well, I better talk about better memories from my old photographs.  Below, the top pictures are in Bruges, Belgium.  The bottom left is at Butchart Gardens, Victoria, BC, Canada and on the bottom right the Tezcuco Plantation in Burnside, Louisiana, built in 1855.

The top left picture below was taken during the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta.  We had purchased tickets to attend the bicycle racing games in Stone Mountain.  The top right picture was taken in Browning, northwest Montana, the site of the tribal government of the Blackfeet Nation, an American Indian reservation established by treaty in 1855.  I had visited my younger daughter who was spending the summer in Montana for her Master's Thesis from Jones Hopkins University.  She was studying something about the health of Native American women.  The bottom two pictures were taken at Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta, Canada, that borders Glacier National Park in Montana.

More pictures of the Blackfeet Nation festival.  The bottom right photo was taken on my 60th birthday with my two daughters. 

There are more pictures that I have not seen in ages.  It will be fun to go through those, once I am finished with the Georgia house.  But that won't be for many more months - after additional driving between Nashville and greater Atlanta, Georgia.

First Lady Ellen Axson Wilson, Georgia-born artist

About a month or more ago I was reading about events in our area.  I found out that the museum at the Berry College in Rome, Georgia, was having an exhibition, ending on November 1st, 2014, of Ellen Axson Wilson's paintings.  Ellen was the first wife of President Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924.)

I had been to Berry College in Rome several times, the last time in August two years ago.  It has a beautiful campus; actually it is the world's largest contiguous college campus with more than 27,000 acres (109.256 km.)  The college was founded in 1902 by Martha Berry (1866-1942.)  I took many pictures in August 2012 but never wrote a post about the college - we will go back there in the next few days to take fall color pictures.  The home of Martha Berry named "Oak Hill" has been preserved with 170 acres of gardens, trail, and more, and was opened in 1972 to visitors.  In addition the Martha Berry Museum, a large white columned building, was opened that year, too.

Ten days ago, on October 27, 2014, we drove to Rome, Georgia, to take a look at this exhibition.  It was a warm afternoon for the end of October with 86 degrees F in the shade (30C) but it cooled down in the evening.  The college is 75 miles from Atlanta (120 km) but only 49 miles from our house (79 km,) taking about one hour of driving on small roads.  Oak Hill and the museum are not on the college campus.  We did not go to visit the house again - Oak Hill - as now photographs are not allowed - they were two years ago and I took several (to be seen in a future post.)  Some trees were starting to show autumn colors and looked good against the white Martha Berry Museum building.

Since this visit I read more about Ellen Axson Wilson, her life and her art.  I also bought the museum book on the exhibition because it showed all the paintings exhibited there - photographs were no longer allowed in the museum either.  These paintings can be shown under "Fair use."

 

Ellen Axson was born in Savannah, Georgia on May 15, 1860, just about one year before the start of the Civil War and she died, aged 54, on August 6, 1914, as the First World War was starting.  In March 1866, Ellen moved to Rome, Georgia, when her father became the pastor of Rome's First Presbyterian Church (both of Ellen's grandparents were Presbyterian ministers too.)  From an early age Ellen showed a talent for art.  When she was 18 years old, one of her drawings was submitted by her teacher to the International Exposition in Paris in 1878, and she won a medal.  She graduated from Rome Female College in 1876 and attended the New York Art Student League in 1884-1885.  Below is a picture of Ellen in 1882.  (All the photos I'll be showing, under Fair use, are courtesy of President Woodrow Wilson House, a National Trust Historic Site, Washington, D.C., or the Library of Congress.)

Thomas Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) was born in Virginia but soon moved with his parents to Augusta, Georgia, where his father was a Presbyterian pastor.  In 1883 when Woodrow was a 26 years old lawyer and living in Atlanta he visited his uncle in Rome, Georgia.  There he attended church at the First Presbyterian Church and saw Ellen Axson in the congregation.  Ellen, an attractive 22 years old, was wearing mourning clothes because her mother had just passed away after childbirth.  Woodrow thought she was a young widow but when he learned that she was the pastor's eldest child he arranged for an introduction to meet her father and her.  He met her again several times and proposed.  They started a correspondence as Woodrow was completing graduate work at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland (where he earned a PhD in Political Science) and Ellen was studying art in New York City.  They exchanged passionate letters, I understand, that were gathered into a book.

Ellen had thought she would become a professional artist and I believe she would have been successful.  At 18 years old she was already earning a significant income by drawing crayon portraits and selling them.  At 23, when Ellen Axson became engaged to Woodrow Wilson she was studying under leading American artists of the day at the Art Students League in New York, such as George de Forest Brush, Thomas W. Dewing, Frederick Warren Freer and Julian Alden Weir - some of their paintings are below.  (Click on collage to enlarge.)

On June 24, 1885, Woodrow Wilson and Ellen Axson were married by her grandfather in Savannah, Georgia.  From 1885 to 1888 Woodrow was professor of political economy and public law at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania.  Then he became a professor at Princeton University in New Jersey and, in 1902, president of that university.  Woodrow had ten books published including a five-volume history of the United States and a biography of George Washington.  Ellen was also an intellectual, excelled in French and German, literature and art.  She continued post graduate studies in these languages and in art. The couple had three daughters, Margaret, Jessie and Nellie and in 1902 the family moved into Prospect House, the president's house of Princeton University.  Ellen restored the mansion and redesigned the garden.  She had a fountain placed in the center of the new garden.  She also designed an exquisite stained glass window for the house depicting Aristotle that was executed in the studios of Louis Comfort Tiffany.  Below is a vintage postcard of the house and garden and a painting of those gardens by Ellen.  There she entertained celebrities such as Mark Twain and African-American educator Booker T. Washington.

Even though she had polished manners, Ellen Wilson had a strong character and a social conscience.  While in New York she went to theatre shows, attended lectures at night in the city and visited museums and art galleries.  But she also volunteered as Sunday school teacher for underprivileged children with an African-American student body.  She was very interested in national politics and started a subscription to The Nation magazine.  Ellen was a devoted mother and dutiful wife, supporting her husband's political ambitions.  Woodrow Wilson became Governor of New Jersey in 1911.  Below are more of her paintings.

Starting in 1905 she studied at the Old Lyme artist colony in Connecticut.  These she learned to paint landscapes en plein air (outdoor) under the expert direction of famous painters such as Will Howe Foote, Walter Griffin, Childe Hassam, Willard Leroy Metcalf, Chauncey Foster Ryder and Robert Vonnoh.  She returned to the colony almost every year.

Ellen Wilson's paintings are classified as American Impressionist.  Light seems to flow through her paintings.  She enjoyed the interplay between texture and color.  She received excellent reviews in art competitions.  She was represented by an outstanding agent in New York City and several of her paintings were acquired by museums.  More of her paintings below.

English painter Frederic Yates (1854-1919) made a pastel portrait of Ellen that her daughter Eleanor (Nellie) declared to be an exact likeness of her mother - see below.

Woodrow Wilson won the 1912 presidential election, but before his inauguration Ellen opened, to great reviews, a one woman show in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with 50 of her landscape paintings.  More of her paintings below.

On March 13, 1914, Woodrow Wilson was sworn in as the 28th President of the United States.  President Wilson, Ellen and their three adult daughters moved into the White House.  Ellen redecorated the presidential bedroom with fabric, hand-woven rugs and some furnishings from poor craftswomen in Appalachia to help raise awareness and bring needed funds to that area.  She also created a small space on the 3rd floor of the White House as an art studio - but she had little time to paint.

She designed the first White House Rose Garden.  As a First Lady, Ellen's responsibilities were numerous, in addition to making all the plans for daughter Jessie's wedding in November 1913 and the May 1914 wedding of daughter Nell.  Her American Impressionist friend, Robert W. Vonnoh (1858-1933) made a portrait of Ellen with her three daughters, Margaret (1886-1944,) Eleanor (1889-1967) and Jessie (1887-1933.)  Below is Mrs. Wilson and Her Three Daughters, 1913.

 First Lady Ellen Wilson became actively involved in public and humanitarian causes.  She supported children's issues, child labor laws, and education.  She used the profit from her sketches and paintings to establish scholarships at the Martha Berry College in Rome, Georgia for poor children.  Her biggest crusade was to bring attention to the alleyway slums of Washington, DC, an area where most poor American-Africans lived.  Her activism resulted in the Alley Dwelling Act of 1914.  First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, known to be active in many social issues, was said to have viewed Ellen Wilson as a "mentor."

Ellen still tried to find time, as First Lady, to paint and exhibit her paintings.  Here are two of her winter landscapes below.

The public admired her and a beautiful lake in Glacier National Park in Montana was named Lake Ellen Wilson in her honor.

She was in poor health however and losing her strength.  The doctors did not tell her until almost the end that she suffered from Bright's Disease, a chronic inflammation of the kidneys.  She died on August 6, 1914.  Her coffin traveled by train to Georgia, accompanied by her family.  She was buried next to her parents in the Myrtle Hill cemetery in Rome, Georgia.  (We are planning to visit it in the next few days.)  The Congress passed the alley-clearance bill as a tribute and in recognition of her continuous efforts to address the problem through federal legislation.

The city of Rome, Georgia, had prospered.  The newly elected Chamber of Commerce President was organizing a large event celebrating the city's progress, to be held in late October 1914.  Famous former residents of Rome, Georgia, had been invited and First Lady Ellen Wilson was to be Guest of Honor of this "Homecoming."  There was a homecoming for her, indeed, but a sad one, in August 1914, when the event was turned into a "memorial."  Buildings and bridges were draped in black and white with a multitude of flowers (sent from the US and many countries.)  Thousands of people came to pay their respects.

And so now, a hundred years after her death, the Rome Area Council for the Arts and the Martha Berry Museum were having this centennial commemoration from July to the end of October 2014, with an exhibition of 19 of her beautiful landscape paintings.  We really enjoyed seeing it.

Recollection: Being in San Francisco in the 1960s - part 2

In late September 1961 I left my things with my roommate in the apartment at 1415 Larkin Street in the Nob Hill section of San Francisco and a few days later I boarded a Greyhound bus for Great Falls, Montana, to visit my boy-friend Patrick and his family.  We had met in France in late 1960, had seen each other on week-ends and taken a small trip to Brittany to the Mont St. Michel.  In the US, Patrick owned a 1939 Chevy Coupe and took me sightseeing around Great Falls.  I could appreciate why Montana is nicknamed the "Big Sky Country" as the sky there looked enormous.  I came back to San Francisco after a month but went there again for Christmas.  In both fall and winter the landscape was superb.  The top left picture was taken on our trip to Brittany, France, the rest are in Montana.  (Click on collage twice to enlarge, but keep in mind that these slides date back to 1961...)

As I mentioned in part 1 of this post, I found a job at the beginning of 1962.  In the spring of 1962 my roommate decided to leave the apartment and move in with her Japanese boyfriend.  I had met Patrick's sister in Great Falls and she decided to come to San Francisco and stay with me for a while and work.  We got along well and I was pleased for the company (she is in the collage below) and to share the $90 monthly rent.  Then in June of that year Patrick decided to finish his studies in San Francisco for his college degree and come and join me in July.  We choose to get married so we could live together - this was the 60s after all and our families would not have approved cohabitation.  We were married on 14 July 1962 at St. Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco.  Patrick's parents were Catholic and wished for us to have a religious wedding and my sponsors were hoping that an Armenian Orthodox priest would also be there - both a Catholic and Armenian priests were there that day.  I don't have a picture of the cathedral but just a vintage postcard, shown below.  We then rented a small apartment at 4170 17th Street in the Castro area of San Francisco.  I commuted to work on the K street car.

In the summer of 1963 we went back to Great Falls for vacation.  This time Patrick had gotten a large Cadillac from a friend - it was quite comfortable.  Patrick's parents also owned a small cabin in the mountains and from there we went to visit Glacier National Park.  Coming from Paris and having been to the seaside and other cities mostly, I was enthralled by the beauty of the mountains and the majesty of the landscape.  This was nature on an epic scale.

Glacier National Park is one of the most beautiful parks in the United States.  It sits in the Rocky Mountain Range on the Continental Divide and borders Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada.  All around us were alpine lakes, soaring peaks, wildlife, wildflowers and more.  We drove to Waterton as well.  On the way back we stopped in a "ghost town" - which was like walking back in time to the real west, indeed.

For the 14 of July 1964 an Eiffel Tower was erected in Union Square in San Francisco.  It was fun seeing it there, together with a French cafe and even an accordionist.

But Patrick and I were not getting along too well.  We had gone to a wedding and taken a nice portrait but then I went back to France to think.  My father who had been very upset about my leaving Paris was pleased to have me back and asked me to fly to Cairo, Egypt, to visit his sister, my aunt, all expenses paid.  I stayed with my aunt and uncle for a couple of weeks and had a great time in Heliopolis.  My cousins spoke Armenian, Arabic, French, English and German and could read the heliographic alphabet.  They took me to places where tourists did not go and read the writing for me on the ancient tombs.  Below is the portrait and pictures from Cairo.

I seriously thought about staying in Paris for good but Patrick and I had corresponded by mail while I was in France (there was no Skype, email or cell phones then) and we decided to try to patch things up.  I went back to San Francisco.  Patrick obtained his degree and went to the University of California in Berkeley to study for his Master's Degree - he moved into a single apartment near the university.  My best friend Virginia was also studying in Berkeley at the time, so I moved in with her, near Durant Avenue and attended the university part-time at night (I was still working.)  But, maybe because of the stress, I started to get sick.  I moved back to San Francisco and rented a studio on Hermann Street, near the U. S. Mint, to be closer to work, avoid the tiring commute and also be near my doctor.  I had to stay in bed for two weeks.  Luckily a friend from the office lived close by and brought me some food in the evenings.  By my husband and I filed for divorce (Patrick is below with a moustache now.)

I guess we both were to blame - we were very young, away from families, and with different temperaments and culture - misunderstandings were unavoidable.  Parting was not easy.  But it helped to live in beautiful San Francisco.  Below is an old slide from that time period (and it shows...)

Count your garden by the flowers

Never by the leaves that fall

Count your days by golden hours

Don't remember clouds at all.  (Anonymous) 

Fortunately I had made some good friends at work, like my best friend Vince Middione, who also lived close to my studio with his partner Garth, and was a divine cook.  Another friend from the SF Art Institute, George Smith (whose address I unfortunately lost) was cheerful and would go and drink coffee with me in the old Italian coffee houses on North Beach.  Another friend, Roland, was an artist and we enjoyed discussing art.  Mary Spears was quite funny and would crack me up constantly.  Friends helped me feel happy again.  From top going clockwise:  Roland, George and me, Mary Spears and Vince.

My studio was on 77 Hermann Street (building shown below) and was on the same hill as the U. S. Mint.  I had painted the kitchen blue.  I also had a pet bird, a parakeet, that I named Dimitrios (after the mystery "A Coffin for Dimitrios" by Eric Ambler.)  I had taught Dimi to speak, he would say "Hello! How are you?" and "Bon Appetit."

 Another friend from work, Jim, would also go on outings with George and me.  Once we went on a hike in Emigrant Basin.  We went by the Gianelli trailhead in the wilderness area.  The Emigrant Wilderness is part of Stanislaus National Forest in the Sierra Nevada and offers outstanding scenery.  In 1852 it was used as a wagon route.  It borders Yosemite National Park.  It consists of granitic ridges, sparsely vegetated with small lakes and meadows.  It is about 140 miles (230 km) from San Francisco.  Below are George and Jim on the left and my slides from the Emigrant Basin.

Jim had an MG TF 1500 sport car and we would go to rock concerts in the Bay Area.  His friend, Marvin, was a close friend to several members of the group "Big Brother and the Holding Company" whose singer, Janis Joplin (1943-1970,) became a part in 1966.  Jim would go and visit Marvin where he would meet these musicians and also Janis.  I did not meet her but saw the group in several concerts.  I had many of the psychedelic posters advertizing these concerts (am not sure where they are now.)  Below are some of the posters, Jim and Leslie on the left, Janis Joplin and members of the band, Janis on the right and Jim's MG.

Jim had bought two 1930's leather pilot headgears to wear in his MG when he lowered the windshield, as you can see above.  When I wore the headgear I also placed a long white silk scarf around my neck that would float in the wind.  It was a lot of fun and people would smile at us on the road.  I still enjoyed listening to jazz and went to the San Francisco Opera but I bought many 33 LP albums of the rock groups from that era.  I gathered some below (some are collector items now.)

By then it was 1966 and the "Flower Children" were in the Haight-Ashbury area of San Francisco.  I was not a "hippie" but I did believe in many of what they embraced: peace, love and freedom and be friends with everyone regardless of color, sex, faith, lifestyle and country of origin.  Both Jim and Leslie attended San Francisco State College where Steven Gaskin taught.  Actually, later on in 1970, Gaskin and his wife Ina May Gaskin would lead a caravan of 60 buses, trucks and van across country to speak and would end up buying land in Summertown, Tennessee and create a commune.  Leslie went with them and we visited him at The Farm several times in the last couple of years when we drove to Tennessee.  The Farm now is still going strong, but no longer as a commune but as a cooperative "intentional community."  I wrote a couple of posts on it, click on "Visiting our Friends from the 60s at The Farm."  Back in the days I would wear flowers in my hair sometimes, but they did not stay put too well.  Because of the wind I wore small scarf-type hats that I had sewn as you can see below where I am sitting near a little neighbor.  

So my friend Leslie became a full hippie, but not what people believe "hippies" were - untidy, dirty, unkempt and druggies.  He believed in the philosophy.  The youth then had more of a utopian view of society than they do now - the youth now are much more materialistic.  Society may look down on the hippie movement, but they have benefited from it.  You could not protest in public then without being arrested as Mario Savio was in Berkeley in 1964 - there was little public freedom of speech.  The hippies stressed recycling and they were considered freaks - humane treatment for animal? that was considered weird then by the general public - whole grains, organic (biologique in French) and natural food?  that was considered outlandish then but a healthy diet now.

How about clean water?  that was considered eccentric since people thought that there always would be clean water in the US, no need to talk about the environment, and if you did, you were an extremist.  It would have been better if society had listened more carefully to the hippies then to look at the problems we face now, but the hippie movement was also disorganized.  Other protests were against the Vietnam War.  Robert McNamara, who was Secretary of Defense at the time, confessed in his book of memoir "Retrospect" that the war had been futile and wrong, terribly wrong.  On April 15, 1967, a march called "Spring Mobilization to End the War" (MOBE) was held in San Francisco.  More than 100,000 people marched from Market Street to Kezar Stadium in Golden Gate Park - people from all walks of life and families too.  There were performers at the stadium in the afternoon including Big Brother and the Holding Company,  Quicksilver Messenger Service, and an appearance from Coretta Scott King, wife of Martin Luther King, Jr.  My friends and I marched.  I took many slides - below are some of them.

 

I am convinced that if we succumb to the temptation to use violence in our struggle for freedom, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and our chief legacy to them will be a never-ending reign of chaos." - Martin L. King, Jr. 1957 (1929-1968.)

More to come in part 3.