I did go to San Francisco.
You remember the lyrics by Scott McKenzie...."If you're going to San Francisco ....Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair....If you're going to San Francisco....You're gonna meet some gentle people there..."
Frankly, most of the people I met here were working just like me. However, as I was sitting at the bar of the only open restaurant in the entire San Francisco Internation Airport, eating my Reuben sandwich with potatoe chips, a guy sat down with an Auburn hat on. I said "War Eagle!" to him, and of course, he replied with the same comoradoric greeting. After a few moments of simple chit-chat about Auburn's lack of offensive production, he asked me, "are you going to the game on Saturday?" I told him that "of course I am going. What about you?" He told me that this was why he was taking the red-eye to Atlanta tonight.....so he can leave tomorrow afternoon. I told him that I was doing the same. At this point, the partially drunk software salesman sitting on the other side of me chimed in, "you guys are crazy! You're taking a red-eye just so you can go to a college football game?? " We looked at each other as if we didn't understand his complete lack of understanding.
"Of course we are", I said. He looked back down at his beer and said, "not me. I'm a Michigan fan."
You know, for some reason I couldn't laugh. I don't know why. Usually I would have made some snide joke or comment. But I couldn't. Maybe it was because I knew the feeling (not quite this year, but in years past). Maybe it was because I felt sorry for him. Maybe it was because I was in the city that was celebrating the 4oth anniversary of the summer of love.
Yes, that's right. In 1967, a flowerdy haird throng of young people descended upon San Francisco to usher in what became known as the "hippies"...Singing groups like The Canned Heat, and Country Joe McDonald, and Wavy Gravy spent that summer here. Just down the freeway at Monterey, the first large out-door pop concert took place in June, 1967. It was the forerunner of the better known camp-cert known as Woodstock.
It was here that Timothy Leary, a psychologist and exponent of the psychodelic experience coined the phrase "turn on, tune in, drop out". Tens of thousands of young people descended upon the Haight Ashbury neighborhood and did just that.
Maybe that decade reverberates in our psyche somewhere. Maybe that's why I couldn't be harsh and chide this Michigan fan.
What I do know is this. Today I was working in San Francisco. A sizeable proportion of the Silicon Valley entrepeneurs and wealthy San Franciscans were born well after that momentous summer. What was once thought outlandish is now considered mainstream. Tie-dye is found in upscale malls, and organic food stores have found their way into most American cities.
One thing has not changed, though. In 1967, Kenny Stabler had his "run in the mud" against our beloved Tigers. There was no "summer of love" there. However, that same year there was a high school senior at John Carroll High School in Birmingham who would sign a scholorship with the Auburn Tigers and change forever the mark that Bear B. was trying to put on Auburn during the 60's. His name was Patrick Joseph Sullivan. He signed with Auburn, quarterbacked the Tigers to a 27-7 mark under his leadership as the starting quarterback for three years, and won the Heisman Trophy in 1971.
And he was coached by the legendary "true gentleman of southeastern conference football." His name was Ralph "Shug" Jordan.
The song says about San Francisco, that "you're gonna meet some gentle people there". That I cannot confirm. But in 1967....the year of the summer of love in San Fran.....there was a gentle person....a gentleman....the true gentleman of southeastern conference football....walking the sidelines of the old Cliff Hare Stadium. Today, that stadium has his name....Jordan-Hare. And I will be there on Saturday....maybe....with flowers in my hair.
War Eagle!
WJLaneSr
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