My “summer of love” happened in 1970, the year after Woodstock, when I was seven years old. Our house was on the corner of 26th and Pearl in Santa Monica, exactly 26 blocks from the Pacific Ocean, the pier, the midway rides, and one of the prettiest beaches in the state. My parents took my brother and me to the beach almost every weekend, but on long summer afternoons I toyed with the idea of making the journey myself. I stared down the sidewalk as far as I could see—26 measly blocks? No problem. Then one hot day I started walking.

A few minutes later, 24th, 23rd and 22nd streets had become a memory. As I crossed 21st, however, I heard strange music coming from a house. Unlike the neighbors’ well-manicured lawns, the garden at this house was bursting with the wildest assortment of flowers I had ever seen, spilling over and through the picket fence. The dozen or so adults in the yard looked like the kind of people my father called “damn hippies.”

Giant sunflowers towered overhead, and purple cosmos exploded like mini-supernovas. Daisies, kangaroo paws, California poppies, black-eyed Susans and dozens of other flowers blended into one giant bouquet. The fence pickets had been painted with rainbows, flowers, cartoon insects and words like “peace” and “love.” The music was very loud, but soothing. I know now that it was a sitar, but then I just thought it sounded like a magical fantasy, like a ride at Disneyland.

One of the hippies was reading on the porch. Another was in the garden blowing bubbles that caught the breeze and danced around the flowers before floating away. Someone else was sharing a “cigarette” with a girl who had flowers in her hair, and a man with long hair sat in the shade playing a guitar. Three younger girls in colorful sundresses whispered and laughed together.

I was so transfixed by this spectacle that I forgot they could see me, too, until one of the three girls exclaimed, “Ahhh! Look at the cute little boy!” I looked behind me, but no one was there.

“Yes, you!” she said. “Come here!” My parents had always told me not to talk to strangers, so I hesitated.

“Ah, he’s shy. That’s okay. We’ll come out there,” and they came flooding through the gate.

“He’s adorable!” one of them cooed, kneeling and wrapping her arms around me. The other two also knelt, hugging and kissing me. I stood in the middle, rigid as a plank, swallowed up in a sea of breasts, blonde hair and heady perfume. I was used to the occasional hug and kiss from my mother’s friends, but nothing like this. This was complete and total love bombardment, and I liked it.

One ran in the house and brought out a frosty glass bottle of Coke and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and we sat on the grass. The guitar player showed me how to strum the strings while he held the chords, and we sang “Puff the Magic Dragon,” which I knew because my mother often sang it to me when tucking me into bed. The girls asked me all kinds of questions and gave me advice about a bully who wouldn’t leave me alone. “Just keep being extra nice to him,” one suggested. “Eventually, he’ll feel like a jerk for being so mean to you.”

I was having so much fun, I forgot all about the beach. The late afternoon sun was slanting through the flowers and the shadows getting longer when I told them I had to get back home. They offered a ride but I said I could make it myself, independent man that I now was. The three beautiful girls walked me to the sidewalk and swallowed me in their embrace again, then waved goodbye as I staggered away, my young heart suffused with love and peace.

I visited their garden often in the months that followed, until one day at the end of summer I went to the house and found it empty. The garden was dry and the house, once so full of music and life, was dark. I cried. Over the years, though, the memory of happy hours spent in that garden feeling safe and loved has banished whatever sadness I felt that day.

Mother Teresa said very few of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love. Whether or not the hippie movement was a success, and whether or not their ideas and protests stopped the Vietnam War, the flower children in that garden were the real thing. For a few happy afternoons in one blessed summer, they made a little boy feel like a prince, like he mattered, like the world wasn’t such a scary place after all. What greater thing can any of us really do?

Share:

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin

Pinterest

StumbleUpon