Last week the hippies were in full flower. In New York City, they brought their tambourines and guitars to the aid of dog owners protesting the leash laws in Greenwich Village’s Washington Square Park, chanting “What is dog spelled backward?” Other New York hippies raised $2,100 for a bail fund to rescue “busted” (arrested) buddies. At California’s Seal Beach, 2,500 devotees gathered for a sunny “love-in” that throbbed to the rhythm of trash-can drums and random flutes. In Dallas, 100 “flower children” gathered in Stone Place Mall, the public hippiedrome, to protest an ordinance that would prohibit gatherings there. A dozen hippies paraded barefoot through the White House, then promised to return for a July 4 “smoke-in” to lobby for legalized marijuana.
 
Elephant Bells. San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district – throbbing three-eighths of a far-from-square-mile – is the vibrant epicenter of the hippie movement. Fog sweeps past the gingerbread houses of “The Hashbury,” shrouding the shapes of hirsute, shoeless hippies huddled in doorways, smoking pot, “rapping” (achieving rapport with random talk), or banging beer cans in time to ubiquitous jukebox rhythms. The tinkle of Indian elephant bells echoes from passing “seekers”; along the Panhandle of Golden Gate Park, hollow-cheeked flower children queue up for a plateful of stew, dispensed from the busy buses of the Diggers, a band of hippie do-gooders. Last week the sidewalks and doorways were filling with new arrivals – hippies and would-be hippies with suitcases and sleeping bags, just off the bus and looking for a place to “crash” (sleep). Wise hippies wrap themselves in scrapes against the San Francisco chill, or else wear old Army or Navy foul-weather jackets and sturdy boots. One way to identify the new arrivals is by their mod clothes: carefully tailored corduroy pants, hip-snug military jackets, snap-brimmed hats like those worn by Australian soldiers (also known as Diggers).
 
Bron: coverstory Times Magazine 7 July 1967