The landlords had evicted my friends from 72 Pierce a couple of months after I left. Dan's friend David "Noel" Hinojosa told the other communards that every ship has to have a captain, "Now that Tall Don is gone," he said, "who is going to do it?" To his surprise, they chose him. [This conversation was reported to me by Noel, in 1968.]
I had tried to keep a lid on the situation, and had a personal relationship with the landlords. But we had almost burned the house down and I, the most responsible one in the group, was now gone. It was an impossible situation for Noel, and the end soon came. My friends would have to go elsewhere.
That "elsewhere" ended up being the building on Hayes Street. It was a dangerous neighborhood, but the landlady was not afraid of hippies. The rent for an apartment was only $40 a month. There were soon two groups dominating the demographics of the building: old ladies, and hippies. They got along together very well.
The most unforgettable character in the mix was 86-year-old Mrs. Jackson. She had been in the first graduating class at UC that had any women in it. She was a pleasant woman, still very engaged with life, and we could talk with her about absolutely anything. Every Sunday she walked to Golden Gate Park to listen to the free concerts in the band shell. It was a couple of miles each way.
The symbiosis between the hippies and the old ladies worked well for everyone. I, penniless as usual, would do little odd jobs for the old ladies and for the landlady. On one occasion, I climbed a pole to re-attach a pulley clothesline. On another, I defrosted and cleaned the refrigerator in the community kitchen. I made a special TV antenna, cut to the resonant frequency, for a resident who wanted to get a particular channel and hadn't been able to. She baked me a pie. Meanwhile, I did birth charts and predictive work for clients who were often sent to me by Julie in San Diego. The astrology business was not as successful in SF, because my clients were fellow-hippies, and wanted to pay me with dope or a piece of leather, none of which the landlady would accept for the rent.
As I said, it was a dangerous neighborhood. There was a heroin "shooting gallery" across the street. One night, someone was killed there. Now, I have always been very psychic (I get it from my mother). That night, I experienced all the emotions of the victim, culminating in his release and a feeling that I was at the helm of a ship, sailing through the Universe. The next day, I heard about the killing, and I understood what it was that I had experienced.
I mention the foregoing because it ties in with the astrology I was doing at the time, which was both technical and intuitive, with the "Coming to Meet" experience with the I Ching that I mentioned previously, and with many other experiences both before and since. It is part of the background to who I was and who I am.
If anyone should ask me what my main takeaway was from the Summer of Love, I would have to say that it was a strong interest in Hinduism. Maybe that isn't the answer that you were expecting, but it's the one that I'm giving.
(to be continued)
Text and image © 2020 by Donald C. Traxler aka Donald Jacobson Traxler.
